Tyson Foods anecdote defies math

The Tyson Foods anecdotes were too numerous for our Jan. 31 feature on the company and its former CEO, the late Don Tyson.

One story that was left on the cutting room floor reminded us of this old math-defying joke: How do you make money selling at a loss?

Volume.

Haskell E. Jackson, who crunched numbers at Tyson Foods of Springdale from 1960-78, recalled the strange story of Snowball Express in Oklahoma City.

Tyson was the sole supplier for the wholesaler until things started going sideways. The trouble began when Tyson’s accounts receivable began increasing for the Oklahoma company, which coincided with a jump in orders.

But Snowball’s slow-paying ways eventually deteriorated into bounced checks, and the crew at Tyson Foods was flummoxed by how their customer could be selling so much chicken but couldn’t pay its bill.

The riddle was solved when Tyson forced Snowball to open its books to Jackson and others.

“What this guy was doing was buying A-grade chicken from us at A-grade prices, discounting it to C-grade prices and taking a 4-cents-a-pound licking on it,” Jackson said.

Why would Snowball do such a financially unsound thing?  

“We were told that his customers wanted more C-grade chicken,” Jackson said. “He was just trying to make his customers happy and losing money all along the way.”