Agriculture committee  Off the top, I don't....

Agriculture committee  You know, we....

Agriculture committee  I can't answer that. I don't know. We haven't looked at it from that perspective.

Agriculture committee  This is me talking now—Chris Moore. What do they have to be concerned about? If they can provide a great product at a great price, why are they afraid of competition? To me it's competition.

Agriculture committee  That's not the case. KFC's first spec has not changed in the last 20 years. It's the same. We were asking the farmer for the same product 20 years ago as we're asking for today.

Agriculture committee  It's the same product spec that we're asking for from the farmer. Again, if things have changed with the growing of that animal, that's something different. We're asking for the exact same product we asked for 20 years ago.

Agriculture committee  It's a U.S. product by U.S. contract.

Agriculture committee  It's growing on our radar. It has become a strategic element to develop in our business plan going forward, how we are going to support the business. I don't want to put a per cent to it because each region could be different, but it's a growing concern and it definitely has the ears of every franchisee, as well as the franchisor.

Agriculture committee  You know, we talk about supply management on what I refer to as the “macro” level, where you're talking kilos. Let's talk about it at a micro level and tell me how many kilos per size of bird I'm going to get. Right now, when you throw something out and say, “A million kilos”, of course I'm going to do the million kilos I want to do.

Agriculture committee  I work for the franchisees, the restaurant owners of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell—small business owners.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  Definitely. Regarding our product, our specified bird size, it's getting the farmer to want to grow it and the processor to want to convert it to our product. That's why right now I'm being capped in some markets where I want to buy something, and they're saying, “I don't have birds”.

Agriculture committee  It's a problem today; it'll be a problem five years from now. As the farmers want to grow larger birds to maximize their RROI, it's just going to get worse, especially as genetics and everything else get involved, and as the birds can do a feed conversion faster to keep them in-barn, it's going to become a bigger issue, longer.

Agriculture committee  I don't have a number per se. No, I can't sit here and give a firm number.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Justin. Being accountable for the food cost to the franchisees who operate the thousand-plus restaurants under the Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell banners across Canada, I spend a large part of my time managing supply management, from the producer—who is a grower—to the processor to the restaurant.