Beyond The Headlines: Tyson Foods sells Australian beef patty site, Mars’ renewable energy advances

This week in industry news, Tyson Foods Australia sold its burger patty facility to Kilcoy Global Foods and Mars, Incorporated focused on renewable energy at its Australian pet food sites. Meanwhile, Starbucks announced plans to drop the extra charge on non-dairy milk in the US and Helios AI launched supply chain climate audits to help agri-food businesses address growing climate risks.

Business highlights

Australian protein products supplier Kilcoy Global Foods acquired burger patty giant Tyson Foods Australia’s Coominya operation. The site produces up to three million patties per day and is the principal supplier of beef patties to McDonald’s Australia, which exports to Asian markets. Kilcoy plans to invest in the Coominya facility, which is now known as Kilcoy Global Foods Coominya, to prepare it for further growth.

The US Department of Agriculture announced it would issue over US$235 million to farmers hit by natural disasters. This includes US$92 million for livestock producers impacted by increased supplemental feed costs from 2022 qualifying drought and wildfire and US$143 million in crop insurance indemnities for Florida producers impacted by Hurricane Milton.

Kilcoy Global Foods will invest in the Coominya facility it acquired from Tyson Foods to prepare it for future growth (Image credit: Kilcoy Global Foods).Japan-based Fujitsu and Morinaga Milk Industry jointly developed a system that simulates the impact of raw material price and exchange rate fluctuations on management initiatives and business profits. This system streamlines the data collection process, enabling early visualization of the impact of raw material price fluctuations, thus contributing to faster decision-making.

ADM Cares, ADM’s corporate social investment program, renewed its partnership with the Food Fortification Initiative (FFI) to combat hidden hunger, or micronutrient deficiencies, by adding essential vitamins and minerals to staple foods. FFI is a public, private and civic partnership that aims to improve health globally by assisting governments, regional bodies, civil society partners and food producers to plan, implement and monitor food fortification programs. Its mission aligns with ADM’s vision of improving global nutrition.

Starbucks decided to stop charging consumers extra for non-dairy milk from November 7, coinciding with its holiday menu. This is applicable in the US and Canada company-owned and operated stores and includes soy milk, oat milk, almond milk and coconut milk. Once the change is implemented, almost half of Starbucks’ current customers in the US who pay to modify their beverages at company-operated stores will see a price reduction of more than 10%.

Sustainability highlights

Mars, Incorporated announced that its Wodonga, Australia pet food manufacturing facility, which produces Pedigree and Whiskas, will become the first large-scale steam-based manufacturing site in the country to deploy a 100% renewable energy solution for both electricity and process steam within the next two years. The project includes a US$17.2 million grant from the Australian Government and marks the first commercial deployment of parabolic trough Concentrated Solar Thermal technology in Australia.

Starbucks will remove the extra charge for non-dairy milk at its company-owned US stores from November 7 (Image credit: Business Wire).Helios Artificial Intelligence, which specializes in climate risk analysis for the agri-food industry, unveiled its new Supply Chain Climate Audits (SC²A) that aim to help companies address the growing climate risks impacting global agri-food supply chains. SC²A provides procurement leaders with critical insights into how climate change will affect their suppliers and commodities over the next decade, allowing organizations sourcing globally to mitigate supply chain disruptions and adapt to future challenges.

The UK’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) highlighted the benefits of an ecosystem for farm-level environmental data in a recent report. According to the study, environmental data is becoming increasingly important to businesses, supply chains and governments due to regulatory and voluntary reporting requirements. This will lead to a rise in demand for farmers to supply data to many different organizations. The AHDB is inviting input from across the industry to find a solution to manage the data to help farmers.