Walmart Shareholders

6.2.2019 • Walmart Shareholders • 29 Love What Maers Love the possibilities that each day offers at Village on the Park – where you Live Life Well®. No home maintenance. No chores. And certainly, no boredom. A community where family & friends are always welcome and never have to help with the dishes. CALL TODAY ABOUT OUR WAL-MART Family Special Cottages • Assisted Living • Memory Care 3800 SW Mt. Carmel Dr. Bentonville, AR 72712 479.254.3650 www.villageontheparkbentonville.com Facility ID# 446 2200 W. Laurel Ave. Rogers, AR 72758 479.631.0455 www.villageontheparkrogers.com Facility ID# 447 C o t t a g e s • A s s i s t e d L i v i n g • Me m o r y C a r e CALL TODAY ABOUT OUR WAL-MART Family Special 3800 SW Mt. Carmel Dr. Bentonville, AR 72712 479.254.3650 www.villageontheparkbentonville.com Facility ID# 446 2200 W. Laurel Ave. Rogers, AR 72758 479.631.0455 www.villageontheparkrogers.com Facility ID# 447 C o t t a g e s • A s s i s t e d L i v i n g • Me m o r y C a r e CALL TODAY ABOUT OUR WAL-MART Family Special NORTHWEST ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF REPORT Walmart Inc. said April 24 it's creating its own supply chain for Black Angus beef to meet customers' demand for more transparen- cy about their meat. The retailer will still buy beef from Tyson Foods Inc. and other suppli- ers, the company said in a new release. Walmart's all-natural, no-hormone-added beef will be sold as whole-muscle cuts such as steaks, roasts and rib-eyes in 500 stores in the Southeast. A Walmart spokesman said the company wanted to ensure it started the ven- ture on the right scale. "Five hundred stores gives us an idea of what this can look like on a large enough scale while still maintaining consistency with the vast majority of our chain," she said. Also, one of Walmart's partners, FPL Food, has a facility in Thomasville, Ga., where the meat will be packaged and sent to stores. "That location guided our decision to launch in the Southeast," she said. Asked whether Walmart plans to do more of its own sourcing with other grocery items, the spokesman said the company is "focused on getting this program up and running." Asked if this pilot program will eventual- ly be taken nationwide, she said, "Right now, we're focused on making sure we get this right for our customers." "To answer our customer's demands, we need visibility into every step in the supply chain," Scott Neal, senior vice president of meat for Walmart U.S., said in a blog postthe same day. "So, we're working with best-in- class suppliers to create an end-to-end Angus beef supply chain." These include Bob McClaren of Tex- as ranch 44 Farms, who is helping Walmart source cattle raised on family farms and ranch- es; Mc6 Cattle Feeders, a family business that feeds and raises cattle in the Texas pan- handle; and Creekstone Farms, which will process the cattle at its facility in Kansas. Creekstone is adding more than 250 jobs to handle Walmart's business, Neal said. Also, Walmart's partnership with FPL Foods will create more than 200 jobs at its packing facility, he said. Working with these partners, Neal said, "our beef program can truly change the dy- namics of the beef industry." And McClaren said in Walmart's news release that "no big- ger paradigm change has taken place in the beef industry" than Walmart's supply-chain effort to bring Angus beef all the way from pastures to stores. A company called Future-Beef made a similar though ultimately unsuccessful ef- fort about 20 years ago with its cattle busi- ness that controlled all aspects of its beef supply chain from genetics to retail. It sup- plied beef to Safeway, now part of Kroger parent Albertson's, for a year before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2002. Issues leading to Future-Beef's demise stemmed from bad timing, failed manage- ment and an unwillingness from the indus- try to adapt to the new model, Beef maga- zine reported on Nov. 1, 2002. Walmart's new sourcing strategy has some pluses for cattle ranchers, said Jason Apple, a meat scientist and professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. With its move into cattle production, Walmart now has more control over its product qual- ity and consistency, consumer confidence goes up and cattle ranchers have "a way to reduce some of the risk that comes from the prices set at sale barns and terminal mar- kets," Apple said. "I think it can be a win win for both sides," he said. "But it's a wait-and-see." Retailer to trace beef to stores Walmart shows its Angus source

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