Industry leaders in the agrifood sector are prioritizing collaboration over competition to advance animal welfare and sustainability, recognizing that shared goals around raising healthier protein and protecting the environment require partners to work together rather than compete, ultimately benefiting consumers, farmers, and environmental health.
- Agrifood industry competitors are collaborating on animal welfare and sustainability rather than competing, as demonstrated at the Perdue Farms Animal Care & Sustainability Summit.
- Companies like ButcherBox require baseline standards such as no antibiotics ever in sourced meat and partner with suppliers like Perdue to meet sustainability goals.
- Industry collaboration helps shift consumer understanding about what it takes to raise protein sustainably while supporting farmer health and environmental protection.
- Putting competition aside enables joint advocacy and marketing efforts to influence policy and create systemic change in the agrifood sector.
- Shared vision among industry rivals demonstrates that common goals for sustainability can unite competitors toward building a healthier food system.
When it comes to making advances to animal welfare and sustainability within the greater agrifood industry, it is important for people along each step of the supply chain to take occasional breaks from the competitive business mindset.
That was the message shared by Kelly Hilovsky, senior director of sourcing and sustainability, ButcherBox, during a panel discussion at the 11th annual Perdue Farms Animal Care & Sustainability Summit on Sept. 30 in Salisbury, Maryland.
Hilovsky describes ButcherBox as a direct-to-consumer retailer that serves the lower 48 states with meat and seafood. One of the company’s baseline requirements for meat to be sold through ButcherBox is that it is raised with no antibiotics ever. As such, she said, ButcherBox sources organic poultry through Perdue and organic pork and beef through Perdue’s Niman Ranch subsidiary. She said like ButcherBox, Perdue “believes in better.”
While taking part in a panel discussion, Hilovsky noted that while those in attendance at the summit included representatives from companies that would ordinarily view one another as rivals. But the fact that those rivals were in attendance at the event indicated that they also share some common goals and visions.
“I really think it’s on each of us to put competition aside to collaborate and share,” she said.
Such collaborations can help consumers better understand “what it takes to raise protein in a way that sustains not only their health, but the health of farmers and the environment,” she said.
“Because if we all are here, we believe in a common vision of the future. We can partner together in certain ways from a lens of advocacy and marketing, to shift consumer understanding for this better system that we share,” she said.
She also said that efforts to compete less and collaborate more can also have a positive impact on policy affecting the agrifood sector and its ability to make healthier products.
