PORK Perspectives: A Minute with David Herring

David Herring considers himself one of the lucky ones, growing up on a North Carolina pig farm. 

His dad, Billy, owned a Purina feed mill with his brothers and eventually got into the pork business through selling feed and growing pigs. In 1969, Billy needed some flooring products for one of his nursery buildings. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to purchase the products he needed so he made his own hog slats and that’s how his business, Hog Slat, got its start. 

For David, the Hog Slat business and the pork industry have been his life for as long as he can remember.

“I actually looked up my hire date – January 2, 1978,” David says. “I was a junior in high school when dad officially put me on the payroll, but I’d been working for the company in the summers and on the weekends ever since I was 12 years old.”

When David graduated from North Carolina State University in 1981, he went back to work for Hog Slat. The company had around 30 employees. Nearly 40 years later, Hog Slat has grown from a small regional business to an international business.

In his role as vice president of the company, David supports all divisions within Hog Slat. He says he couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to work for a family business and be mentored by his older brother, Tommy. 

“My hero has always been my dad, but my mentor has always been my older brother,” David says. “He lives his life like a bulldog and will not take no for an answer. He is very determined and expects a lot from the people who work with him. I've always admired that and tried to work for this company like an employee and not an owner.”

In 1983, David and Tommy, along with their younger brother, Mark, started up TDM Farms, a farrow-to-finish operation. In the beginning, they were buying feeder pigs and growing pigs on the ground. Today, their business has grown to include 30,000 sows in North Carolina, Illinois and Georgia. They grow all of their market hogs in Indiana. 

David believes TDM Farms makes Hog Slat unique because all of the company’s products are tried and tested on their farms before they take them to the customers. 

“We have a unique knowledge of not only how to raise pigs efficiently and economically, but also how to intertwine or create products that will bring value to the farm and other producers,” David says. “It's one thing to create a product for a potential customer, but it's another thing to make sure that product is doing the job it's supposed to do and creating a value.”

He shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned during his career.

Q.  Tell me about your business. 
A.
Hog Slat is a family-owned business that manufactures products used in the production of pork. It was founded with an initial product, a concrete flooring, and has expanded to include ventilation products, equipment products, metal flooring products and more. Currently, Hog Slat has a footprint of over 100 retail stores in about 25 states and eight countries. We also have a construction division that allows us to build a turnkey facility for a small farm up to some of the largest farms constructed in the U.S. or internationally. 

Q. What is your why? 
A.
My why has always been to protect and provide for my family – my immediate family and my business family. Even though we've grown into a multi-region business, we still manage this company as a family business and consider our employees part of that family. 

Q.  Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A.
I don’t have a typical day and that’s probably one reason I really enjoy what I do. For the first 25 years I worked for HogSlat, my typical day was going out to a construction site or meeting with a customer who wanted to buy equipment. Today, my typical day starts at 5:30 with a morning workout. Then the rest of my day could take a variety of forms – I could be on a construction site, in Washington, D.C. meeting with a senator or meeting with a potential customer. There’s no doubt a typical day at Hog Slat starts early and ends late. We've always worn many hats and do what it takes to get the work done. 

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A.
First, the customer is the boss. Second, I coined the phrase about 25 years ago: “People buy it, people sell it.” I've used that with the sales force for over 25 years. What I mean by it is that you have to build trust and a relationship with your customer base. You have to know as much or more about their business to create a value, so you'll have an opportunity to do business with them. 

Q. How has the business changed since Hog Slat was created?
A.
Fifty years ago, the pork industry was very fragmented and low-tech. Today it’s a very high-tech, intensive business not only from what happens on the farm, but also with what happens with feed ingredients, genetics, harvest plants and more. We’re producing twice as many pigs now and we’re doing it with less of everything. We have decreased our carbon footprint almost 8%, even though we’ve doubled the amount of pigs we produce. 

The changes in the swine industry have also changed Hog Slat, too. We’ve had to be very innovative to keep up with our customer base’s desires and wants. We’ve had to grow our manufacturing facilities and our concrete facilities to keep up with demand. We’ve had to keep changing and innovating products as we find better and more economical ways to design products for our customer base.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry? 
A.
My number one concern as a pork producer is a foreign animal disease, something I have really very little control over. I think it would be absolutely devastating to the industry, especially since we are marketing close to 30% of all pork to export markets. 

Q. How do you rate the industry’s foreign animal disease prevention and preparedness efforts?
A.
The industry is taking steps forward to prevent foreign animal disease. It is hard to get the federal government, yet alone 50 state governments, to agree on everything. From a farmer's perspective, we tend to make decisions and get results pretty quick. However, when you're trying to herd all the states and government together, things just don’t happen as fast as you would like to see them happen. But progress is being made. From an industry standpoint, we're just going to have to keep pushing like hell to get to the end.

Keep reading to find out Herring's take on the labor situation in the pork industry, what HogSlat will look like in 20 years, the best piece of advice he's ever received, what the future of the swine industry holds and more.

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