08. How Tyson Foods and Lyons Magnus Cater to Foodservice Professionals and Consumers

How are some of the top food manufacturers addressing the shift happening in the food world today?

Our host, Paul Barron, sat down with Kristen Bird from Tyson Foods and Brad Kirk from Lyons Magnus, both members of the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association (IFMA) board, to discuss how their respective companies are adapting to the changing trends in order to meet consumer demand.

There’s clearly a huge move towards cleaner labels and both companies have been working towards cleaning up their ingredient list and transparency.

For example, at Lyons they have “...created a platform of products that appeal to [operators] because they are user-friendly, they are natural, clean,” said Kirk. “We’ve removed things that said artificial, wherever we can.”

For Tyson, Bird echoed that the strategy aligned with Lyons’ when it came to the desire for a cleaner label. “The big effort for us from a poultry perspective with restaurants has been very much: no antibiotics ever and a desire for all natural and continuing to clean up the ingredient label even though we can’t necessarily state that on the label,” said Bird.

When Bird was asked about how she sees Tyson dealing with the food evolution happening within the next 10 years, she really emphasized the efforts behind the dissemination of information, transparency, and education when it comes to food, ingredients and nutritional facts.

Bird discusses how the biggest change for Tyson’s internal team has been the fact that the expectation when it comes to operators having more access to information from manufacturers is a lot higher than ever before. “For us for a food service manufacturer, it’s really getting that information in the hands of the operator. Making it available to them as they seek it. Fortunately, with every digital enablement in the last five years especially, we’re better able to do that to communicate directly to operators, or at least have the information there when they want to go find it,” said Bird.

At the end of the episode, Paul asks both guests to share with us what is an organization like IFMA doing to address the changes happening in the industry, from a move towards plant-based, clean labeling, and reduction in food waste to operator’s demand for more information and variety in products from manufacturers?

For Kirk, it’s all about execution and he gives us a sneak peek into the thought behind a model that IFMA will reveal in the Fall of 2018. “This model is a great example of executed action and it’s very relevant today because we have the best of class people within the IFMA organization with the manufacturers that create the association building products to help us elevate our game and respond to the guest consumers that we serve.”

Take a listen to learn more from these top-level executives!