Eggs on the Range cause Change

For every new innovation that causes a positive ripple for the innovators, it leaves catch 22s for the status quo… until the statu quo learns how to turn it into a business opportunity ripple for themselves.

Take eggs. Everyone buys them. Some people care about free range, others care that they come in a recyclable container and then there are buyers who them cheap and plentiful. Labels are confusing. Different target markets, right? If you are a farmer, could you cater to them all? Not very well, it turns out.

The plight of chickens held in captivity to produce our eggs is becoming a big uncontrollable variable in many farmers business plans. Why should you care? PETA and the Humane Society are out to protect chickens, not only for their benefit but for our health benefit too. They want the recently caged Paris Hilton as the chicken spokesmodel. They have been successful in getting educational institutions and city governments to ban all but free range eggs.

If more institutions and governments follow this ripple it will then affect:

1. Packagers – Will styrofoam packaging finally be a foot note in our landfills? Will this increase business for recycled cardboard packaging or some other innovation?

2. Grocers (Safeway, Costco, Whole Foods) Will consumers vote with their wallets? Or will grocers take a stand too and only sell the cruelty-free eggs in recycled packaging? Wild Oats and Whole Foods have adopted new policies. But then what if they can’t get any true free range eggs? How deeply will they invest in their supply chains to help those farmers convert? Could be a ripple, or a Catch 22.

3. Food supply (Compass Group) Will they have to build new supply agreements with Free Range chicken Farmers who are already producing at maximum output?

4. Regulatory bodies (Egg Marketing Boards) Will they have to bow to grass roots interests and really live up to their mandate ‘to ensure a safe (for both human and chicken?), clean (for both human and chicken or is it the egg?) and consistent supply’? Or will they wait for consumers to demand that to be safe and clean for humans then you have to have safe and clean for chickens laying the eggs? Then the board would have to scramble to catch up. Catch 22.

5. Caged Chicken/Egg Farmers – Will they find sales declining which may force them to change their chicken accomodation practices? Hilton, anyone? What new service suppliers may now spring up to help this conversion from prison to freedom? Who will help match newly minted free-range egg farmers with newly green grocery chains? New business innovators already hatching plans, I hear.

6. Free Range Chicken/Egg Farmers – Will growing demand outstrip their ability to supply forcing the price of their eggs up even higher, making it difficult for lower income people to participate in the greening of the economy? Will farmers have to pay consulting groups to change their chicken management practices?

6. Chicken/egg systems and cage manufacturers (not needed anymore?) Will new chicken management systems be needed to monitor running chickens instead of caged chickens?

For every ripple there is a catch 22 for some business. How your business deals with it can make or break your future home on the range. Go on, get cracking!