The National Chicken Council was one of the sponsors for the recent Chicken Media Summit held in New Bern, North Carolina. The event opened the doors for media to tour the complete life of a broiler and ask questions from experts from the poultry community.

I sat down with Senior Vice President of the National Chicken Council, Bill Roenigk, after he moderated a panel with chicken company executives. He shared why this event was so important to not only chicken, but to the food industry as a whole.

“We think this event is important because we are hearing from consumers and people who follow the industry that you need to be more open and more transparent. You need to show people where their food comes from. It’s a criticism, but not a criticism just in chicken. It’s the entire food industry. We need to understand better where are food is and what is in our food. So, it finally registered with us that we need to find an opportunity to be more transparent, more open. And Sanderson Farms was very gracious and agreed to do that. They have a wonderful facility and I not only enjoyed seeing the people going through the tour, but also the questions they asked. We sit in our offices and think we know what people know, but we discovered that there really is a lot more people would like to know.”

Bill also hit on issues concerning sustainability, what our global market is demanding and the world’s outlook for the future of the poultry industry.

Listen to my interview with Bill here: Bill Roenigk

Check out photos from the event here: 2013 Chicken Media Summit Photo Album