Animal Welfare Audits: Ryan Bennett, American Humane Certified – Ep. 48

Surprise Audits And Welfare Labels

Brandon Mulnix 0:28

A wellfair auditor can show up at your farm without warning. Before they leave, they can measure ammonia at bird height in three places. They can squeeze your litter at six places just to make sure the moisture content’s right, and they can score your birds on how they walk and perform and anything else they see. Roughly 90% of the cage-free eggs sold in this country carry one welfare certification label. And as of January 1st, there’s a whole new set of standards for pullets as well. Today’s guest runs that program. I am Brandon Molnix. This is the Poultry Leadership Podcast, and I’m talking with Ryan Bennett, Vice President of the Farm Program at the American Humane Society. Ryan was on the show two years ago making the case for incremental change. He has since taken a job where he can just withhold a certification. I want to know whether that changed his mind. Ryan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Brandon. Ryan, you’re the vice president of the farm program at the American Humane Society. You lead this program. What is this program we’re talking about?

Ryan Bennett 1:34

Yes,

Inside American Humane Certified

Ryan Bennett 1:35

American Humane Society has many different programs. So we’re a 150-year-old organization. In fact, we’re coming up on our 150th anniversary. And if you’ve ever watched a movie and seen at the end no animals were harmed in the making of this movie, that’s a program that we run. Another program that we run is our farm program. And uh that’s that’s what I lead. So if you’re in the egg aisle, you might see American Humane certified on a carton of eggs or on a turkey. And uh we do a lot of other things with rescue, zoos at aquariums, conservation, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but obviously in my area, we’re we’re focused on animal agriculture. So pigs, chickens, turkeys, laying hens, uh, beef cattle, dairy cattle. And really, producers come to us uh because they want to be certified by our standards. And so what that entails is is having all their farms with that product line or all their farms in total with their operations go through third-party audits to our standard. And our standards are developed independently by us with the help of a scientific advisory committee of academics and experts that help us come up with science-based animal welfare standards. Um, so that’s really what that entails. They have to go through those audits, they have to pass an audit, and then once your farms have passed an audit, uh, you are certified by American Humane Certified, and that’s ultimately the label that you see on packaging at the grocery store.

Outcomes Based Welfare In Practice

Brandon Mulnix 3:14

Okay. So this is a newer gig for you. You’ve you’re part of the roundtable welfare alliance for eight years, and then through that, you spent most of your time bringing people together who like to disagree and have their passion about their certain topics. Walk me through what actually changes about the work for you from going from that into what you’re doing today.

Ryan Bennett 3:37

Yeah. So when I was at the International Poultry Welfare Alliance, you know, I don’t want to say it’s theoretical because the work that we did there is being applied on a broad basis globally, but uh, we’re really taking that work. So if you think about the key welfare indicators guide that uh IPWA put out, outcomes-based animal welfare, we’re actually taking that, putting it into our standards and getting that adopted on farm at the actual animal level. So to me, it’s taking a lot of the work that I did that felt a lot more theoretical to me. Maybe it didn’t to the members at IPWA, but at the time as the executive director there, it felt a little more theoretical to me. And now I’m actually working with producers to apply a lot of the work that we did there. So we have producers in many different countries, multiple species, a lot of farms, a lot of animals, over a billion animals are certified through our program every single year. Um, so it just becomes a lot more applied into the technical part of things. Um, and to me, it’s it’s nice to see, right? Because it it means that I spent the last eight years of my life doing something meaningful because now I’m actually seeing how that works in practice. So we work with a lot of different producers of different sizes to apply animal welfare practically, consistently, in a science-based manner.

Brandon Mulnix 5:09

Okay. So, what can you do now that you couldn’t do at the round table?

Ryan Bennett 5:14

Yeah, so I’m actually working with real producers on a daily basis about their animal welfare practices on down to the local level. So we’re we’re auditing those farms, we’re auditing processing plants, hatcheries, you know, all the different stages of the life cycle of the animal depending on the supply chain. Um, and we’re just a lot more ingrained within those businesses and what they’re doing in a way that to me allow allows me to see like firsthand and a little more instant gratification in terms of the continuous improvement part of things when it comes to animal welfare. So, what felt a little bit more big picture about KWIs at a global level is now what’s actually causing that KWI to be high or low or whatever it might be, and digging down into all those different things with alongside our certified entities to help see that continuous improvement come come true. So to me, that’s what’s really fun about this is we’re actually using the what the work that I did at IPWA in practice and ingraining those outcomes-based measures more and more and more into our standards, which we always said at IPWA, get the focus back on the bird, get eyes on the bird, focus on the bird. And to me, it’s really it’s really neat to see how that works in an animal welfare standard in practice over the over the course of a lot of different audits, over a lot of different farms and many different locations.

Brandon Mulnix 6:52

So you were the neutral party in the room before, and you probably had things that you thought you wished the certifiers knew about based on what you were experiencing. Is there anything that you would hope to bring to this role that you might be able to change within the certification bodies?

Ryan Bennett 7:12

Yeah, so I mean, I I think we’re already doing that. I mean, there’s some things the other way too that I wish now that I had known when I was on the other end of things. You know, there’s there are very practical implications to how you measure things and kind of like a lot of to me things affecting KWIs that we need to deep dive into deeper. Whether it’s in the science or how you practically implement it or how you do education and build resources out, there’s a there’s a lot of need for those things that I heard some of those things when I was at IPWA, but now I understand at a very different level when you’re dealing with a plant manager in South Carolina or wherever it might be, to where you those things are very important and they they mean something on the ground. So it’s actually more the other way. There’s there’s some things I wish I could have told Ryan Bennett three, four years ago.

Brandon Mulnix 8:09

Ryan, before we go any further, I need to put a shout out to our sponsor, Prism Controls. This podcast would not be possible without them. One of the things that they’ve prided themselves on over the years is just being able to give the tools to the farmers that are producing these animals and making sure that they’re, you know, able to give them the best ventilation possible and the best feed schedule possible and understand the changes in lighting and just give the farmer the tools that they need to be able to run their farms most efficiently, which means we all agree we need a best the best healthy animal possible. And so we’re aligned with that from prism control standpoint. And we, yeah, this podcast wouldn’t be possible without them. So let’s get back to it. We’re talking

How Audits Actually Work

Brandon Mulnix 8:53

directly to the guy in the truck today, and the auditor has has a connotation about it that I don’t understand. I know I don’t like to be audited for anything. And so as the audit the American Humane Certified Auditor walks on to the broiler farm, what do the next few hours look like?

Ryan Bennett 9:13

Yeah, so I mean, our standards are public online. So if if you’re working, if you’re gonna be audited, first of all, you’re gonna know um whether you’re gonna be audited at some point. We do do unannounced audits, we do you we do scheduled audits, you know, whether how that goes, I I can’t tell you, but you you will know that um you have to adhere to a standard. And that’s it might not be our standard, it might be another standard that you’re getting audited for. But with ours, it’s on our website. Um, so you need to be familiar with that, right? And to me, there’s there’s there’s different parts of that audit. There’s a record keeping portion, there’s a training documentation portion, there’s kind of those check the box, yes or no, does it exist or not? Do they have water or not? Those sort of sorts of things. And then there’s those outcomes-based measures that I was talking about. And so, you know, from the point from my point of view, it can go a lot faster and a lot easier if you’re organized, if if what the standard is and what they’re asking of you, you have your paperwork organized and you can get that in in one place for that auditor to be able to see the things that he or she needs to see before she he or she leaves the farm. And so to me, that’s the biggest thing is understanding what standard is being applied to your farm, knowing that standard, and then obviously doing it, but doing it in a way that you can readily access those materials to be able to prove your record keeping or documentation portions of it. And then from there, you know, you can be present with the auditor, they can talk you through how things went afterwards, but really a big portion of what could cause things to be more of a pain in the butt is not being organized really at the end of the day, or not uh really understanding the standard is the biggest thing that we run into from time to time.

Brandon Mulnix 11:14

So what is the most single thing that farms get dinged on?

Ryan Bennett 11:21

It really, it really depends, and it depends species by species, but in in particular, I would say, you know, just just people lack of organization um or just lack of preparation. Usually the first time somebody goes through an audit is very different than the fourth time that they go through an audit because they get to where they’re they know what we’re asking, they they apply that within their system. And that’s to me, really, where like the continuous improvement aspect of what we do. Everybody talks about continuous improvement, but who’s actually helping implement it? We have a system, you put in a continuous, you know, a uh corrective action plan. The next time that we come out, we’re gonna want to see that it’s detailed in that corrective action plan when they’re gonna do X, Y, and C. And so uh I think usually the first time that you get audited is is when you struggle the most. And usually that comes from just lack of preparation. Now, whose fault that is, whether that’s the farmer or the processor that is asking for that audit, uh, I I don’t know. From time to time, it can go either way. But I do think that whoever’s asking you to get audited, you know, their commu how they communicate with their producers, with their with their farms is very, very important. Um and then from there, obviously, just understanding. I went I graduated from military school, Brandon. Did I ever talk about that on my lap? Yeah, well, at military school, they told us know the rules and follow them, and you’ll be fine as long as you’re the rules and follow them. And they gave us a handbook, and I had to read, I read that handbook front and back, and I followed them. And what that meant was I got to go home and see my family, my friends, my girlfriend on the weekends, which as you can imagine to a 16-year-old boy was very important. Life or death. And so I actually graduated with zero demerits, but yeah, know the rules and follow them is a good thing to understand when it comes to getting audited to a standard.

Brandon Mulnix 13:23

Well, it definitely takes a rule follower to be an auditor. I mean, you guys are living up to a standard as well. As you know, there’s automatic failures in like a live bird in a DOA bin or an unapproved euthanasia method or willful abuse. How often does an auditor actually see this kind of activity?

Ryan Bennett 13:45

It it depend it depend, you know, to me, willful abuse is is is few and far few and far between, right? And and that’s actually to me one of the misnomers about our program is that people say, well, you you don’t you don’t audit to a hundred percent. They’re they’re not reaching a hundred percent to be able to pass an audit. Well, I think a willful act of abuse would be an automatic fail, right? Um that’s a little different than somebody not documenting something correctly. So you go into a barn, the birds all look great or the pigs all look great, and their training is is excellent, their employees are doing everything that they’re supposed to be doing, and they’re not documenting maybe their observances of the animals correctly. Do they have bad animal welfare or do they need to up their game on one specific practice, right? Like they’ve got good animal welfare. The animals are good, the employees are good. Maybe they have some gap in documentation, right? So that’s very different. That’s not letting somebody with poor animal welfare pass, right? That’s letting, you know, that’s working on continuous improvement to build better systems within that farm um related to animal welfare. So that’s sometimes we we get people talk about the fact that we pass people that aren’t at 100%. Well, I think that’s a it’s a huge misnomer, in my opinion, because it’s the big things and the weighting are obviously towards towards the things that are important to animal welfare. And a willful misbuse of the abuse of animals is automatic fail. So we have things weighted correctly and how we’re scoring those things and how we’re passing and failing people. And we have a very consistent system and a very independent way of auditing those things that have stood the test of time.

Brandon Mulnix 15:39

So

Where The Numbers Come From

Brandon Mulnix 15:40

let’s look at one specific ammonia target under 10 parts per million with a hard ceiling of 25 and a gait tolerance of no more than five birds at a score of two. Where do these numbers come from and how often are you revisiting them?

Ryan Bennett 15:55

As often as needed. So our scientific advisory council meets several times a year. Sometimes we’ll do a full rewrite of a standard, and then sometimes we’re just making tweaks. And really, it it where does it come from as the science? We’ve got leading experts in multiple aspects of animal production, the life cycle of the animal for multiple species, for all the species involved. And we’re really trying to keep those things fresh and on the cutting edge. So, you know, we are evolving with the science over time. And it’s not not to say that one random small sample size scientific article comes out and we’re going to change our standard, but as science becomes established over time, and also as kind of we look at third parties. Um, so like ABMA, as an example, has depopulation guidelines, euthanasia guidelines, those sorts of things. Those matter, right? We trust other people’s processes, but at the end of the day, we control our audit and and how often that we update those, and really we’re constantly looking at those things. And our scientific advisory council is bringing those things to us for consideration. Now, how do you apply that across an entire system? That’s kind of the trick, right? And no matter what you do, applying over that many farms, we really try as hard as we can to kind of beta test things ahead of time, but there’s always going to be something that comes up that you couldn’t have foreseen in a system with that many different operations over as many geographical areas and as many species as we have. And that’s when you really get back to like looking at the practicality, the spirit of the standard, and and and updating those things over time. So a little bit of it is like the standard, but also like our auditors’ notes. If you ever see this, this is how you would handle it. Because it’s a lot of animals, you know, a lot of different scenarios that you come into that we try and think about as many of those ahead of time as we can, and then there’s always something that comes up that you can’t think of. And then having the process and the system in place to be able to use logic to decide how to handle that and document that correctly and routinely is to me why we’ve stood the test of time. And what to me is really important to look for in an independent certification.

Pullet Standards And Low Cost Changes

Brandon Mulnix 18:23

So we’re gonna move on to pullets. And January 1st, a new pulllet standard took effect. It includes feather condition scoring, lower light level requirements, flock performance metrics. Why pulllets and why now?

Ryan Bennett 18:37

Yeah. So on pullets, a lot of people are raising their own pullets now. So we have people that have pullets that didn’t used to have them. And the science has evolved in a way that allows us to kind of put that standard out there. And so the science is pushing us, the the market, and basically this like how the system is working has changed. And then a couple of those things that you mentioned gets back to what I was talking about before with the outcomes-based measures. So it’s not just pull it specific, it’s in general across species, we’re seeing more outcomes-based metrics being incorporated into our standards. So, you know, in general, it was a marketplace need, it was an evolution of the science, and then also just a general shift to more outcomes-based measures on animal welfare.

Brandon Mulnix 19:31

So the lower light levels is very interesting because it’s a turn of a dial and it’s not like a capital project where they have to do a whole bunch of different technology changes. And this is, you know, across the new standard, how much are you asking this as a management versus actually having to spend like a capital project for things like lighting and other changes?

Ryan Bennett 19:56

Yeah, I mean, in in general, we want to be able to have people use the systems that they have to be able to reach the outcomes or the spirit of the standard that were required. Now, in some cases that might mean a capital investment, but that’s not you know our goal as a program, if that makes sense. So really we’re looking for the outcome of the desired standard, less than requiring a specific company or specific spec to reach that outcome.

Funding Critiques And Passing Thresholds

Brandon Mulnix 20:25

That makes sense. I want to give you the floor on two criticisms your label gets the most. The first is from the consumer reports, which rated the program favorably overall, but flagged that a farm can be certified without meeting every criteria, and that a consumer cannot see which ones it missed. And the second is structural and groups like Farm Forward make it a certified funded by fees from the companies it certifies is not built to fail anybody. What is your answer to each one of these?

Ryan Bennett 20:57

I actually am very glad that that question is here. We we are an independent third-party certification, and we verify whether farms meet our standard or not, not through our own employees at American Humane. We verify through subcr subcontracted third-party audit companies that have auditors that have been trained to our standard through Paco, which is the professional animal auditor certification organization. So we don’t have anybody on those farms doing audits that has a business relationship with those companies. So we do obviously to fund the program, take in certification fees. Um we’re a nonprofit organization, but we take in certification fees. We still have to pay bills. Obviously, I’m here taking a salary as a nonprofit employee. We are very, very consistent and very, very locked tight on how we run things. And one of the key parts, and not everybody does it this way, one of the key parts of how we run our business is to use independent third party auditors that don’t really have any skin in the game in terms of whether that farm passes or fails. The problem is not everybody’s doing that. And so I think that’s something when you’re thinking about, you know, who you’re going to use as an independent third-party certification organization. I think that’s something to think about because it’s something that we do that not everybody else does. Back to the first question. I kind of had already addressed this before. It’s uh you you’re passing people that that are not at 100%. So that’s that’s kind of what I was talking about before in terms of so the animals all look great, employees are all trained at an extremely high level, that’s been documented really well, and maybe there was an observances checklist that uh wasn’t filled out for the last two weeks when the manager was on vacation or something, and they missed that part of the audit. Does that mean that that comp that that farm has bad animal welfare? I would say no, right? Like we have things weighted in a way where willful act of abuse is an automatic fail. There are things that will automatically fail you within our audit, and there are things that won’t automatically fail you that are weighted less than others. And so our scientific advisory committee thinks about how to weight those things. Um, but that doesn’t mean that those things aren’t important. We we would create a corrective action plan. We’d want to make sure, you know, they would have to have that by the time that we come back out and re-audit them again. Um but to say that because we don’t require a hundred percent because somebody missed some technical detail is a lot different than making the case that we’re passing people with poor animal welfare, because that’s certainly not the case. We uh we have a standard, a very high, above industry standard, you know, science-based, with uh very consistent means of doing business and evaluating that animal the animal welfare on those farms. Talk to the people that go through our audits. I think they’ll tell you that uh it’s pretty black and white, and it’s done in a way that uh is evaluated by somebody that is not on staff with us, that has been trained to evaluate to that standard, independent, truly independent third-party certification with no with no business interest whatsoever with that organization. So that’s a just a key part of how we do things, and that’s quite honestly why we’ve stood the test of time. And uh people have attacked us in a lot of different ways, but we do the things that we do in the way that we do them for a reason. Um and it’s very well thought out and well vetted.

Brandon Mulnix 24:58

So has the program ever revoked a certification? Yes, we have. And when that happens, how is the public informed?

Ryan Bennett 25:08

So they would be removed from our website, not necessarily named and shamed as an example, but they would be removed from our website and they would not no longer be able to use our certification mark on their product.

Brandon Mulnix 25:23

Let’s talk from the farm’s perspective. If they can’t put that mark on the product anymore, I’m assuming that affects their contracts that they have with the different purchasers like Kroger or Walmart or companies that are buying it because it’s it’s certified.

Ryan Bennett 25:39

Is that would that be correct? It could be. You know, it it’s a case-by-case situation, but there could be a case, obviously, to where that impacts where where you could sell your product. That’s not anything that we’re going to regulate where you sit can sell your product. That’s between you and whoever you’re selling to, which we have to remind both sides of that equation sometimes, by the way, that that’s not our job. Our job is to audit to our standard and call balls and strikes. Um, but yeah, there’s certainly the possibility for that to happen. There’s a possibility for that not to happen, depending on the situation and what your market looks like.

Depopulation Governance And The Future

Brandon Mulnix 26:20

All right, let’s go to the hotter topics when it comes to certification and animal welfare, and that’s around depopulation. About 12.4 million commercial layers have been depopulated in this country so far in 2026. More than double the total for the back half of last year. But depopulation is the most contested welfare practice in the industry. And when it happens on a certified farm, where does the welfare certifier stand on that?

Ryan Bennett 26:46

Yeah. So I mentioned before the AVMA depopulation guidelines. We also incorporate AVMA euthanasia guidelines. So whether it’s at slaughter or euthanasia or depopulation, you know, the the speed and effectiveness is absolutely key to whatever is going on. Depopulation’s been a hot topic for a number of years, not just this year. I would say more so in the last five years, six years than than the six years prior for sure, by quite a large margin. And um in general, so AVMA actually recently came out with their depopulation guidelines, and we’re looking at how those need to be implemented within our standard. So that’s actually something that our scientific advisory committee needs to look at. But in general, in in terms of just the speed and effectiveness of rendering that animal insensible is absolutely key at any point, whether it be depopulation, euthanasia, or slaughter. Um and it’s kind of a key tenant of our programs. I was actually in Chile the other week, and there was a I was a scientist um from Latin America. He said that I wasn’t going to like him because he’s from the dark side of the industry because he does euthanasia research. And I said, Well, this is such an important part of animal welfare, is is making sure that we’re not allowing animals to to suffer and live in misery. So I said, I don’t look at you as a bad guy at all. I think look at you as like maybe having one of the most important jobs in all of animal welfare to make sure that we are, you know, studying the the effectiveness of things. And really that’s it’s a non-negotiable critical control point. Any of those critical control points that I’m talking about is kind of a non-negotiable critical control point from a welfare perspective. And that science has changed. You’ve really seen it. When I was at IPWA, we did a depopulation webinar that I think really still stands true to today, talking about the different methods. And it’s evolved even since then with some of the different foam products and gas products that are out there. So I I really think that’s a key area. Whenever you’re, you know, taking a life, the the fact that that is quick and effective is is super key to any program dealing with animals.

Brandon Mulnix 29:18

That’s really it’s really solid to hear. I mean, that is the we all don’t want to see animals suffer. And when it comes to depopulation at a mess for having influenza or whatever else is causing that, it’s horrible. I mean, it takes effect on the farmers, takes effect on everybody because that’s that’s their bird compared to, you know, maybe end of life because they’ve aged out or whatever else brings them to that to that end. All right, let’s get back to the label. So when when your certification is on nearly every case, what is still differentiating amongst uh the eggs or the product? If everything has the certification, what makes it different?

Ryan Bennett 30:01

So uh we there’s tons of consumer studies out there that but at the end of the day, you know, price and quality are key. I do think consumers tend to correlate uh welfare with quality, but animal welfare is definitely on the list. So consumers do look for that. But one of the things that I’ve been talking about a lot lately is um we think about this like consumer marketing angle of this so much that uh I think we forget about kind of the core of what we’re here to do, and it’s to make sure that we’re doing the right thing. And it and if you’re a company that is using us to become American Humane Certified, you know, you can think about it from the marketing point of view because your cons your customers are certainly asking about it, want to know, and and have some reasonable degree of assurance. But I think what we’re really leaving out is the governance perspective of this. And I don’t think that every company’s animal welfare policy or governance has to all come from American Humane Certified, but I think we’re certainly a key part of anybody’s animal welfare um governance policy. So, like when you think about airlines or food safety or you know, any of these other industries that have kind of these critical areas, I think we need to start thinking about animal welfare from that point of view. I don’t fly on American Airlines because they say that they have a better safety record than Delta, right? Like I don’t even think about that between those two. I don’t, I don’t necessarily food safety. You don’t see people marketing their food off of which one’s safer, right? So I think we need to start to put animal welfare in that same category because you know, we’re raising animals for food, and I think society as a whole has said that clearly spoken that they need to be raised with some ethics. And to me, that becomes a governance issue. So, how do you do that consistently over time? I mentioned our standards change with the science, and we’re gonna learn more, and the technology is gonna be better, prism controls, others, many others. There there will be changes, but to me, what we do consistently in the process that we follow is so important because what I’ve seen in the last 10 years is somebody has some sort of event or some campaign launched against them, and they’re all about like animal welfare. They’re throwing money at it. You know, the CEO knows the person that’s in charge of welfare by name, and they call them and talk to them all the time, and they fix the problem, and then new CEO comes in, and maybe they kind of that that employee is telling them, you know, hey, this is this is why this is here, don’t touch that. And then that person leaves while that during that CEO, that CEO brings in their new person, and then that CEO leaves, and then within the period of six years, the organization has forgotten that event that was very, very terrible to their company, and they’re right back to where they started again. And and and maybe they’re looking at removing their animal welfare certification or not paying for that third party to come in and audit because it just looks like an extra, or the political climate has changed, or they feel like the news cycle’s changed, and whatever. But to me, if we can get it in people’s heads that this is a consistent part of governance that can help you manage this risk, not eliminate it, but manage this risk in a consistent process-based way over time that is a non-negotiable, that animal welfare is a non-negotiable equal to that of something like food safety. You know, to me, that that would be the best thing that we could could do. And I’m not saying that third-party certification is end-all, be all of that, but it to me is a clear, clear component that would allow you to consistently apply good animal welfare principles over time in a way that that would allow your organization to lower their risk, to make sure that they’re doing the right thing, uh, to continuously improve, and to really, to me, be that baseline that you have to to meet, that that standard that is really pushing you forward over time, that you have to meet in a way that maybe we haven’t thought about animal welfare in the past. And so to me, it’s becoming it’s becoming expected of us as producers of animal proteins that uh you know that we’re doing things in the right way. And I think that a third party could could certainly help you do that in a consist on a consistent basis over time.

Brandon Mulnix 34:57

If a farm manager listening right now took one thing from this conversation today, what would you want it to be?

Ryan Bennett 35:05

Uh that animal welfare matters and that you already know that because that’s your job every single day. And uh to me, we’re here to be your your partner, but also an independent set of eyes and to call balls and strikes and to do that in a fair, practical, science-based way. And so to me, I I think that you know, we’ve we have a track record of working with a lot of different types of people, sizes of operations, and that good governance can be a pain in the butt, auditors can be very scary. Yes, what we do matters, but at the same time, it really gets down to to good basic animal husbandry practices and and good basic farm management at the core of our program if you’re willing to give it a chance and and look at what we’re doing.

Brandon Mulnix 35:58

So all right. Two years ago, you called your episode incremental change. What is the incremental change you are working on right now?

Ryan Bennett 36:08

I mentioned before we’re doing these outcomes-based measures, right? And we’re building our audits off of it in a really cool way that to me allows us to actually show empirically how we’ve improved animal welfare. So not just that pass fail, but we’re gonna actually be able to see how millions, over a billion animals have their lively, their lives have improved over time through what we’re implementing and be able to study what correlates to that, what other parts of our audit correlates to those good animal welfare outcomes, and then starting to emphasize the things that that matter and spend more time in the areas that have the most impact and get those weights that I talked about before, you know, more to the point of spending time and resources in the most important areas and then maybe scaling back some other things that might not matter as much. Um to me, that all goes into that kind of AI discussion and kind of that looking at your risks and making sure that we’re focusing on the right areas at the right time and the right place and using that technology to the benefit of the people and the animals. And so to that that really excites me because anytime that we can improve the livelihood of the animals and the farmer and ultimately the consumer, right? Because they’re gonna benefit from that was really exciting to me. So yeah, like I said, maybe I’m maybe in 10 years, you know, the our robot overlords will have taken over, Brandon, and you’ll be able to tell me that I was wrong. But I’m at the moment I’m bullish.

Brandon Mulnix 37:53

Well, listeners, that’s a wrap for today’s episode. If it was useful, share it with one person in your operation who just needs to hear it. This is the best way to help the show grow. And if the podcast has been useful to you, the best thing you can do is also to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It takes two minutes and it helps more people in the industry find the show. You can find all of our episodes in show notes at PrismControls.com. If Prism Controls can help you solve a problem on your farm, head to PrismControls.com and reach out to them there. I am Brian.