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Leading U.S. Pork
Producer Optimizes
Supply Chain
Background
From the popularity of baby-back ribs
to the national obsession with bacon,
Americans have an avid appetite
for pork. The Maschhoffs -- the
largest family-owned pork producer
in the United States – helps satisfy
that hunger from its headquarters
in Carlyle, Illinois. In 2014, the
company sold nearly $1 billion in pork
-- enough to feed over 16 million
average consumers annually.
Like many major agricultural
operations, The Maschhoffs started
with a single family farm. For five
generations, The Maschhoffs grew
row crops and raised cattle. But
brothers Ken and Dave Maschhoff
returned to the farm home from
college with bigger dreams.
4 FDPP - www.fdpp.co.uk
In 1991 they bought their parents’
share of the business and began
expanding the operation.
Today, The Maschhoffs’ pig operation
employs about 1,500 employees.
Contracting with production partners
– about 550 family farmers across the
Midwest – the company sells about 5
million live hogs annually. The buyers
are packing plants and food producers
such as Cargill, Hormel Foods and
Farmland.
The Maschhoffs provide pigs and feed
to their production partners, and pay
the farmers for the time, labor and
space necessary to raise the hogs.
Challenge
Running any large farming operation
is a complex undertaking. That’s
particularly true in modern pig raising,
which entails a continuous logistics
challenge: the need to move pigs to
specialized farm sites at different
stages of growth.
Once small farmers commonly
took on the entire farrow-to-finish
operation – breeding sows, weaning
piglets, growing feeder hogs and
preparing them for market or
“finishing.”
But rising transportation and feed
costs – along with the complexities
of hog genetics and health risks –
have forced many smaller farms to
specialize and contract their services
to large producers.