Knowing his suppliers may be considering retained ownership for the future, he wants to develop a program that makes it worthwhile for those making efforts to change with him. Of course, with the excellent people who are working with me, I want to be innovative in bringing them an incentive program so they can share in the profits. I'm trying to entice these people to stick with me long-term. He believes retained ownership is important for producers to retain equity. I think it's very important that the ranchers and the cow-calf producers also maintain ownership in this way to preserve equity.
Equity provides the cushion it takes to stay with the fluctuations in the market.
It becomes an economics issue as well as a pride issue. Throne says he's done some retained ownership in his seven years of producing feeder calves, and he's considering it for the future. He'd welcome working with Pellett in that kind of arrangement. He says it would help spread the profits along the production chain and increase everyone's level of satisfaction. Pellett not only sees change coming from his feeder-calf suppliers, it also may take place in dealing with packers.