Tyson adopts poultry standards

Tyson Foods Inc., parent company of Tyson Mexican Original of Portland, has implemented the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association’s certification program for the handling and transportation of poultry.

Tyson is the first major chicken producer in the U.S. to adopt the certification.

The certification program focuses on areas such as biosecurity, disease recognition, emergency planning and the safe and humane handling of birds before, during and after transport. 

The program was developed by Penn State University scientists, the USDA and industry specialists.

"Tyson Foods' commitment to this certification process demonstrates a pivotal moment in the industry, and we're excited about the progress we've made together," Rafael Rivera, manager, food safety and production programs, said in a prepared statement. 

Some closing

Family Dollar announced this week it plans to close as many as 390 stores in 2019, but the list of which stores will be closed has not been released.

The company also plans to re-brand 200 stores as Dollar Tree.

Not pleased

Apparently the chief executive officer of Walmart in the U.S. is unhappy with about half the retailer’s stores.

Greg Foran told Reuters this week that some of Walmart’s stores are failing to meet his standards.

"I get out to stores every single week," he said. "About half the time I'm OK with it, and the other half I'm grumpy."

Walmart is putting pressure on store managers to improve operations at "these stores that are letting us down," he said.

"I'd say we're at about 50 percent of where we should be," Foran said at the UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference.

Foran said there are opportunities for improvement in customer service, inventory levels, in-stock levels, and the quality of fresh food and private brands.

"The key to running a store generally comes down to the quality of the store manager, and if we don't have a good store manager, then the person I hold accountable is the market manager," he said. "We're at a point now where we're putting a lot of pressure on that group to step it up and to get these stores that are letting us down to a level which we know they can if we get the right team in place."

Walmart has 4,700 store managers, 10,000 co-managers, 60,000 assistant managers, and 120,000 department managers, he said.

"This is a massive change program," Foran said. "This isn't going to happen in five minutes, and nor should we expect it.”

Big donation

Crown Equipment Corp. of New Bremen, Ohio, has donated $250,000 to Tri Star Career Compact in Mercer County.

The funds will be used to purchase equipment at Tri Star’s new facility being built on Ohio 703 in Celina.

The new facility will house 15 career programs in 100,000 square feet. It serves students from nine school districts in Mercer and Auglaize counties.

He’s cooking

John O’Donnell has been named the new executive chef/assistant food service director at Swiss Village in Berne.

He is a graduate of South Adams High School and holds an associate’s degree in hospitality administration from Ivy Tech Community College.

Most recently, O’Donnell worked at the Grand Wayne Convention Center in Fort Wayne.

Shift to U.S.

Europe’s loss will be North America’s gain as Honda shutters two assembly plants in a global push to lift factory utilization rates above 100 percent, Automotive News reported this week.

When Honda ends production in the United Kingdom and Turkey in 2021, the company will shift reliance to its U.S. and Canadian plants to meet Civic demand.

“Given our efforts to optimize production allocation and production capacity on a global scale, we have concluded that we will produce the Civic for North America in North America,” Honda chief executive officer Takahiro Hachigo said.

The company, a major customer of FCC (Indiana) in Portland, is reworking its global production footprint for three reasons: to soak up excess capacity, pave the way for electrification and refocus on the global markets where it sells the most vehicles.

Honda has a worldwide capacity to turn out 5.4 million vehicles a year.

Big numbers

Indiana University Health, parent of IU Health Jay, reported a year-over-year increase in revenue and operating income in 2018, according to financial documents released Feb. 28 and reported by Becker’s Hospital Review.

“Higher patient volume in several categories, including inpatient admissions and surgeries, boosted IU Health's revenue last year. The system recorded operating revenue of $6.43 billion in 2018, up from $6.34 billion in the year prior. IU Health kept expenses in check in 2018. The system's operating expenses totaled $5.82 billion last year, up 1.1 percent from 2017. The health system ended 2018 with operating income of $611.92 million, compared to $587.82 million in the year prior,” Becker’s Hospital Review noted.

Bill protested

Protesters gathered in downtown Fort Wayne Thursday to voice a protest against a bill they say would unfairly benefit Indiana utility companies.

HB 1470 would amend a 2013 law, Senate Bill 560. That bill was passed to allow utilities to assure themselves of reimbursement for infrastructure projects seven years in advance.