When JBS approached Matthew Turner, DVM, in 2016 to serve as head of operations of their live pork division he admits he didn’t think it was a good fit at first. But after he reflected for some time about his career path, he says everything just fell into place to take the leap.
The company’s mission drew him in to serve as head of operations for JBS Live Pork, he says. The last line of the mission, “creating opportunities to better the future of others,” is the most rewarding part of his job. Whether he’s helping contract producer families or members of the team, he is always thinking of ways to help them succeed.
“When you have that guiding principle – that your goal is to help other people have a better future – that’s just a great way to interact with other people,” Turner says.
The JBS values of availability, determination, discipline, humility, ownership, sincerity and simplicity are put to use every day in these interactions.
“If you live out JBS’ values, success comes naturally. It’s a really fun place to work because everybody knows what to expect from one another every day,” he says.
He shares his views on leadership, strategy, efficiency and what he’s learned during his career at JBS Live Pork.
Q. How did you find your start in the swine industry?
A. I grew up on a small row crop and mixed animal farm with 50 sows. After completing my animal science degree at North Carolina State University, I went on to complete my veterinary degree in 2000. During that time, the swine industry was growing rapidly in North Carolina where I was from. I accepted a position in a consulting swine veterinary practice after graduation and worked there 1.5 years before transitioning to the role of full-time veterinarian for Prestage Farms. I spent 15 years there before taking the opportunity to head up operations for JBS Live Pork.
Q. What is your why?
A. Our why is to put the whole chain together from the birth of the pig all the way to the final product leaving the packing plant. We want to be the very best from start to finish, we want to be the most efficient production system in the world and deliver a great product to our customers.
Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. Our production division is spread out over seven states. About 60% of my time is spent traveling to visit our facilities, contract producers and team members. I spend roughly 40% of my time in Greeley, Colo., the headquarters of JBS USA. Within the office, I interact with many of the pork team members including sales, marketing, processing operations, risk management and senior management. Ultimately you could summarize my day-to-day job as optimizing short-term and real-time results coupled with long-term strategy to make sure we’re doing everything we can to fulfill that mission to be the best in all we do.
Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. Philosophically within Live Pork, we realize we serve a lot of different customers: our JBS Pork plants, all our team members, and our production partners or contract producers raising our pigs for us. We try our best to provide technical service and technical expertise, as well as high-quality pigs, for all of our customers to be the most successful they can. Our entire leadership team positions itself as a servant to everybody we work with.
Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. I’ve been involved in the pork industry for over 20 years and the business has not changed a lot over that time. Fundamentally, it’s still about getting as much production as you possibly can from every sow and trying to improve performance of those pigs from weaning to market. I would say what’s really changed over that time, however, is my perspective. As I’ve moved from being a veterinarian in the field every day to seeing the broader scope of pork production, I think I’m more aware of the industry and factors that influence pork production. When I was focused only on veterinary medicine, I didn’t have a well-rounded vision for the scope of pork production around the world or how customers viewed pork production. It’s been an awesome privilege at JBS to be able to see pork production from a global perspective and to interact with all aspects of the pork value chain.
Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. I firmly believe the swine industry has a great future. The main reason why is because it’s made up of fantastic people. When I visit producers throughout the U.S. and in other countries, I’m amazed by the quality of individuals in animal agriculture. They work hard every single day to do what’s right. However, there are some concerns our industry is facing. The biggest concern is the threat of foreign animal disease. The U.S. produces a lot of pork and we’re dependent, in our current structure, on exports. If we’re not able to export pork products in the future due to a foreign animal disease, that’s going to be very damaging to the pork complex because we produce more pork than our domestic consumers currently consume. If we were to get a foreign animal disease, some contracture in production will have to take place because we will have too much pork. We’ll also have to change the structure of the industry. We have an industry built around moving animals long distances very frequently. That is a real concern for our industry. I think our industry has a soft underbelly related to the movement of animals between regions and the infrastructure used to move animals. This potential weakness makes it possible that a disease could potentially spread rapidly into different geographic regions and be a challenge for us to eradicate the disease quickly.
Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. I think there’s a big opportunity coming down the pipe related to greenhouse gas emissions. Pork has a fantastic story to tell. There will be opportunities to tell that story and improve on our performance around those metrics. I’m excited about what the future may hold around greenhouse gas emissions and what role animal agriculture can take to make the future better for everyone.
Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I get to work with a fantastic team of people. It’s an absolute pleasure to work around people that are like-minded and want to be the best in everything they do. What’s really unique about my role today is that I’m able to see people start their careers and develop over time. That’s incredibly rewarding to see people grow and develop both personally and professionally. I am blessed to have a great team supporting each other.
Q. Who inspired you?
A. I have been inspired by many people, but one of the most impactful people in my life during my formative years was my grandmother. She did not have it easy, but she took everything in stride, with grace, and always came out of every challenge with a positive attitude. She instilled values around positivity in me that I still reflect on and take with me through difficult times today. We all have a choice in how we deal with adversity and the very tough times. You can internalize those things, you can be negative, or you can turn them into a positive. I try to assume the best from everybody and spread positivity instead of negativity.
Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. I strive to be fair to all parties involved: to myself, to JBS, to our teammates, to our producer partners, to everybody. As you think about being fair to everybody, that doesn’t mean everybody gets their way. Sometimes you have to be firm in a position and hold people accountable. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s about being fair and moving that needle in a positive direction every day to make tomorrow better. That also supports or mission to provide that opportunity of a better future.
Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. If you had asked me that question 20 years ago, I don’t think I would have said it looks like what it looks like today. With that, I’m probably going to be wrong in saying what it will look like in 20 years. But I anticipate further integration, fewer owners of the pigs. That’s not necessarily packers owning more pigs, or producers owning more packing plants. I think there’s potential for integration all the way across that value chain – from the time a pig is born until it lands in a retail store ready for a customer to take home to their families. I believe there will be further integration, fewer players and larger retailers that participate all the way through the value chain. The ones that are going to be the most successful are the ones that are the most efficient from the absolute start to the final product, that is why we have to strive to be more efficient every day.
Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I don’t have any regrets. But if there was one thing I would change around my personal development over the years, I recognize I should have been more of an active learner early in my career. Finance, human resources, nutrition, high-level production experience – if I knew then what I know now – I would have taken the time to learn more skills earlier in my career. I am a believer that lifelong education is incredibly important, I enjoy learning. Learning can come in many different forms, but I’m a big fan of taking online courses to better my skill set going forward. If I see a need to learn something new today, I seek out a way to gain that knowledge.
Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. If you want something in life, work your butt off to get it. Nobody’s going to walk up to you and hand you a position or an opportunity if you’ve not shown you’re willing to work hard and earn it. You have to own your own development and you must work hard to be the you that you want to be. You’ll have to sacrifice to get it. You’re going to have to work after hours to get it. You need to own it, and work hard to earn it.
Q. How do you think the threat of ASF will impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. I think the threat of African swine fever (ASF) has made our industry a little bit stronger. I do believe if we actually get infected with ASF, it will completely revolutionize how we do business. The number of animals that we move, the biosecurity principles we have, the just-in-time production model that we employ, will all be very difficult to maintain after an ASF outbreak. We need to do everything we can to keep that virus out of the U.S. so we can stay competitive as an industry. I have great confidence in the swine industry, from the amount of education that we’ve done to the resources that we put into prevention. I have faith that we will rally together and keep ASF out of the U.S.
PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Opinions expressed in this column are the opinions of Matthew Turner and do not represent the opinions of Farm Journal’s PORK. Watch for future columns featuring advice and insights from more of the pork industry’s leaders.
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