Hog Slat’s story is a story of building the infrastructure behind modern pork production. Founded by Billy Herring in 1969, the North Carolina company combined hog-barn construction with equipment sales, a model David Herring described in a 2018 interview as serving producers directly. That interview also offers a dated view of how the family saw the industry changing—not a current market report.
How Hog Slat built its place in the business
In a feature published June 5, 2018, Successful Farming reported that Hog Slat was founded by Billy Herring in 1969 and headquartered in Newton Grove, North Carolina. The company’s scope extended beyond constructing livestock buildings: it also supplied equipment used inside them, including feed systems, feed bins, ventilation, penning equipment, flooring, and slats.
The feature said Hog Slat constructed barns in the United States and Mexico while supplying equipment internationally at that time. Those details describe the business as presented in 2018; the article does not verify the company’s present-day footprint or product availability.
Why construction and equipment belonged together
A hog barn is a working production system, not simply a building. Its layout has to accommodate animals, feeding, ventilation, and the movement of people managing the operation. Hog Slat’s combination of construction and equipment put the company across both sides of that equation: the facility itself and many of the systems installed within it.
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David Herring described the company’s sales approach this way: “Our products are sold directly to the end users. There is no middle man. That is our niche.” In the feature, he said the business operated in 20 states and 11 countries and had about 80 U.S. retail locations. These were figures he gave in 2018, not verified current totals.
What David Herring saw changing in hog production
Herring, identified in the article as president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council, offered an industry perspective rooted in his experience at the time. He estimated that pig-number growth was split about evenly between expanding herds and improving sow productivity. That was his 2018 estimate, not an independently established measurement.
Larger sow farms
Herring said sow-farm scale was shifting from around 2,000 sows toward farms with 5,000 to 8,000 sows. He presented this as a trend he was observing, rather than a universal standard or forecast.
More finishing capacity and facility upgrades
He also described demand for more finishing buildings and modernization of existing facilities. Filtration and more efficient ventilation were among the changes he saw producers considering. These observations show what an industry participant emphasized in 2018; the feature does not establish that every producer adopted those systems or quantify their effects.
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Economics and policy
Herring summed up his view of the forces shaping producers’ decisions with the line: “Policies come and go, but economics always wins.” The quote captures his perspective in the interview, not a claim that policy has no effect on pork production.
What the company’s farm connection added
The article connected Hog Slat with TDM Farms, a name formed from Tommy, David, and Mark. It described the farm as part of the company’s product-testing activity, including testing feeders at a particular Indiana farm. The feature did not name a feeder model, report comparative test results, or recommend a product to buyers.
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How to read the article’s global figures
Herring cited an estimated 40 million sows in China and said roughly 60% of the world’s pork was produced there. These were his estimates as reported in 2018. They should be read as historical interview figures, not as current statistics or independently verified global data.
That distinction matters because the feature is most useful as a profile of a company and a snapshot of one industry leader’s thinking at the time. Its descriptions of Hog Slat’s reach, global production, and facility trends cannot establish what the company or industry looks like today.
What the profile does—and does not—show
The feature’s central point is the link between construction, equipment, and production: supplying a barn and supplying the systems within it can give a business a broad role in a producer’s operation. It also shows how the Herrings understood their position in the swine industry in 2018. It does not compare Hog Slat with named competitors, evaluate a specific feeder, or provide a current company or market audit.
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