Chicken retail and foodservice companies are still dealing with the after-effects of COVID-19. Strong partnerships with suppliers could help alleviate some of these pain points.
At the 2023 Chicken Marketing Summit, representatives from three chicken supply companies shared the biggest challenges currently impacting their business. The panelists were:
- John Atkinson, VP, purchasing and quality, PFSbrands
- Joe Gordon, vice president of procurement and supply chain, Krispy Krunchy Chicken
- Peter Reilly, senior category manager, meat division, Wakefern Food Corporation
1. Labor, labor, labor
Labor continues to be one of the biggest challenges for retail and foodservice post-COVID-19.
“We are really trying to help our operators figure out the labor side and try to get people to show up for work in the stores,” Atkinson explained. “We’ve really been trying to focus on how we can try to help with this labor challenge and a lot of that is focused on an exploration of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.”
2. Supply chain disruptions
Understandably, the chicken supply chain struggled during the pandemic due to worker and product shortages. One result of this is that “we’ve lost a little bit of excellence on the service levels,” said Gordon.
For example, it has become more difficult to ensure that chicken supplies and other food products will always arrive when promised, leaving poultry buyers scrambling to come up with a solution to get products to stores.
3. Inflation
“High inflation, as a retailer, is one of the killers for multiple reasons, but the biggest impact is on the consumer,” Reilly added. “Most of our associates live and around the store in those neighborhoods, which makes every very conscious of the negative effects of inflation on consumers.”
Inflation seems to have begun to stabilize, although economists at the Federal Reserve continue to forecast a “mild recession” for later this year, according to CBS News.
Attend the 2024 Chicken Marketing Summit
The 2024 Chicken Marketing Summit will be held at the Renaissance Birmingham Ross Bridge Golf Resort & Spa in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 29-31, 2024.
Serving a unique cross section of the chicken supply chain, the Chicken Marketing Summit explores issues and trends in food marketing and consumer chicken consumption patterns and purchasing behavior.
Registration will open in early 2024.
For more information, visit: www.wattglobalmedia.com/chickenmarketingsummit/
