Food for thought
A collection of commodity industries thought leadership articles, blog posts, news, insights, case studies, videos and more!
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The DecisionNext Finished Goods Index Report | August 2026
Three Proteins, Three Cost Trajectories The August DecisionNext Finished Goods Index shows the protein complex continuing to move in different directions. Cheeseburger …
Read ArticleTurning Thermal Coal to Copper? Why the Metrics Matter
There would seem to be a good number of reasons not to do this. Firstly, in a diversified mining company everyone who doesn’t work in the copper division suddenly feels …
Read ArticleThe Commodity Business in Food and Agriculture is Over
the era of the commodity business is over. That’s now changing for one simple reason: the rapid evolution of high powered analytics tools tailored to the food and ag …
Read ArticleA Prescriptive Punt: how a risky decision on fourth-and-4 changed my thinking
How risk aware was that football forecast? For those of you who didn’t watch the game (or have since blocked it from your memory), let me catch you up: the Colts …
Read ArticleCost Curves and Curve Balls
Cost curves are a staple of the mining industry, similar in shape to a traditional supply curve, ranking mines/smelters/mills by their total cost of production. The …
Read ArticleGoogle Maps for Decision Makers?
If you surveyed 10 people, you’d get 10 different definitions for each and probably a lot of “umms”. So let’s talk about road tripping instead. Think of how our process …
Read ArticleWho loves your business like Texans love Buc-ee’s?
California has Yosemite. Montana has Glacier National Park. Texas has Buc-ee’s. What is Buc-ee’s, you ask? First things first, it’s pronounced “Bucky’s”. Second, let’s …
Read ArticleBe more than a meathead.
Go look at Cargill’s job postings and you’ll see almost as many job openings for data science & technologists as feedmill operators. It seems every other day there’s …
Read ArticleDarwinism....or is it?
It is safe to say the mining industry would probably not have been front of mind as the great naturalist laid out his theory of natural selection in the 1850s. However …
Read ArticleSpotify, Chick-Fil-A & digital data driven value chains
Chick-Fil-A announced plans to launch a meal kit product available at restaurants so consumers can skip a subscription service or a stop at the grocery store. Value …
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