Joe Nalley Interview Part 4: How automation evolved in the industry
Former Butterball COO Joe Nalley spoke with The National Provisioner editor-in-chief Andy Hanacek as he retires after 46 years about a variety of topics in the industry. Watch all videos here. In the fourth part of the series, Nalley discusses the issue of labor shortages and how automation helps that problem.
Andy Hanacek: Joe, thanks again. Here’s another topic we can cover here as you start your retirement, looking back at the industry over 46 years. It’s been a topic that has been brought up in my 12 or so years on The National Provisioner, but it seems lately it’s been on the minds of everybody lately, almost as much as food safety which keeps people up at night, and that’s labor and the shortage of labor, the inability of plants to fill all the positions that they need to fill. Talk about the differences in labor in general over those 40 years. Has it always been an issue even 40 years ago? And then maybe go into some of the ways in which you have seen automation help to stem the bleeding, I guess in some ways, of the labor problem over the years.