Chicken giant Tyson aims to turn scraps into innovative snacks

CHICAGO Tyson Foods Inc., the largest U.S. meat producer, wants to move beyond traditional chicken products and get deeper into the snack game — in a way that might make you cringe.

In its so-called innovation lab, Tyson assembled a team of seven staff in January that is looking to make snacks by capitalizing on another hot foodie topic: the issue of waste. It is developing a protein snack that the company says will use ingredients like poultry scraps, spent grain from brewers and vegetable pulp from juicers.

Their goal is to develop a new consumer product to put on store shelves in six months.

Sales of meat snacks have surged almost 30 per cent in the U.S. over the last four years, hitting US$2.9 billion in 2017, Nielsen data show. Consumers are embracing highprotein products as they cut back on sugar.

“We were looking for a way to deliver faster innovation — new growth, increasing speed,” said Sally Grimes, Tyson’s president of prepared foods.

This is Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson’s latest pivot into packaged products. Known mostly for producing poultry, the company has pushed beyond its roots recently. It acquired sandwich maker Advance Pierre Foods Holdings Inc. last year for about US$4 billion, the largest purchase since taking over Hillshire Brands Co. in 2014.

The latter deal brought the jerky brand Golden Island to Tyson, which has also used the Hillshire name to launch a line of meat snacks. The new innovation team is trying its hand at in-house product development.

Tyson’s move to packaged products comes as traditional food companies struggle to compete with trendy upstarts like Chobani and Kind Snacks. Over the last three years, the 10 largest U.S. food companies have seen about US$17 billion in revenue evaporate as consumers gravitate to newer brands.