Tractor Supply Co. Ending ‘Woke’ DEI and Climate Change Policies After Criticism
“Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business”
Tractor Supply Co. is letting go of progressive pet issues like DEI, climate change and LGBT causes after being criticized on social media. It’s a smart move considering their customer base.
No one wants to be the next Bud Light.
The Washington Times reports:
Tractor Supply Co. backs off ‘woke’ policies after backlash: ‘We have taken this feedback to heart’
Rather than go broke, a merchant isn’t going woke.
One of America’s leading rural-supply merchants announced Thursday that it is ending all “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” programs and will no longer support LGBTQ and global-warming causes.
Tractor Supply Co. posted a statement on social media detailing its new direction after three weeks of social-media and other backlash over the previous attachments to left-wing causes that are not popular with its customer base.
“We work hard to live up to our mission and values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve. We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart. Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business,” the company wrote Thursday.
The statement included five bullet points distancing the company from a series of policies under CEO Hal Lawton that were highlighted recently by journalist Robby Starbuck.
The bullet point undo much of what Mr. Starbuck had reported on.
Henceforth, Tractor Supply will “eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment.”
The company put out this lengthy statement:
Statement from Tractor Supply pic.twitter.com/ZMweR8JVuy
— Tractor Supply (@TractorSupply) June 27, 2024
It only took @TractorSupply losing $2 billion before they decided to stick to selling farm equipment rather than engaging in activism
I believe this is the strongest 'apology' statement we've seen from a corporation so far. Props to them for listening & responding to their base https://t.co/cnrhG4gotf
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) June 27, 2024
Massive victory to report. I’ve exposed the woke agenda @TractorSupply’s corporate office for 3 weeks. Now they’ve responded.
Here’s their statement:
• They will no longer sponsor pride festivals!
• They are ELIMINATING ALL DEI roles and they’re retiring their DEI goals.
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 27, 2024
In case you can’t read the fine print, here is the text of the statement:
Tractor Supply Company Statement
For more than 85 years, Tractor Supply has been focused on one thing…serving Life Out Here. Every day our 50,000 Team Members take care of our customers like family. We deeply value our relationship with our customers and the communities we call home.
We are passionate about being good neighbors in our hometowns because without you, we would not be what we are. It is imperative to us that our customers’ hard-earned dollars are taking care of our Team Members and the communities we all love. As you supported us, we have invested millions of dollars in veteran causes, emergency response, animal shelters, state fairs, rodeos and farmers markets. We have also invested in the future of rural America. We are the largest supporter of FFA and have longstanding relationships with 4-H and other educational organizations.
We work hard to live up to our Mission and Values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve. We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart.
Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business. For instance, this means we will:
1. No longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign
2. Refocus our Team Member Engagement Groups on mentoring, networking and supporting the business
3. Further focus on rural America priorities including ag education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor and stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities like pride festivals and voting campaigns
4. Eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment
5. Withdraw our carbon emission goals and focus on our land and water conservation effortsWe will continue to listen to our customers and Team Members. Your trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance, and we don’t take that lightly.
The company’s investors should be overjoyed. Tractor Supply Co. just averted a disaster.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
queue liberal meltdown in 3…2…
seriously though – did they can the CEO? I thought he was the leading force behind this?
That was my first question as well. I have not seen any indication that anyone has been fired yet.
Convince me when the people implementing and enforcing this crap are terminated
They should at the very least cut his salary and stock options. Shareholders and employees suffer as a result of his evil policies. He should share in their suffering.
The only true link between tractors and woke is getting up before dawn to start the day on the farm or ranch. Have to seriously worry that they can be taken seriously from now on.
One of the best mea culpas by a corporation I’ve ever seen. Years from now, this will be studied in Biz Schools as an example of competent crisis management. If Bud Light would have had the savvy to do this a few days after the Dylan Whatshisname spectacle occurred, they wouldn’t have lost half (or more) of their market share and billions in Market Cap.
Farming land is being sold at an alarming rate and what once was beautiful, millions of acres of wheat, cattle and sheep are now cheap apartments
Pretty disgusting
I I
Gone it’s hit the company pretty hard
I think they thought maybe they could grow, or maintain, their company with supporting the left in some ways
I’ve seen the devastation with my own eyes. The tractor store by me closed, no ranches, just crap
We drove across Kansas, from the New Mexico / Oklahoma panhandle end to Kansas City. And we saw an awful lot of farmland still. Hours and hours of farmland.
The corn was largely scorched, many crops ruined last summer by drought, but the land was still there. Large farms though, I don’t know how many owner/operators there were and how many were parts of big corporations.
Sorry, but the fact that this happened in the first place is evidence enough that this CEO cannot be trusted, and his only real mea culpa is that he got caught. I note he retains his CEO position.
Not saying I’m not happy about their decision, just understanding maybe the road to it
Many corporations outside the more typically woke spaces hire management without a meaningful connection to the customer base the brand cultivated over years and decades. They bring their woke policy preferences with them and impose them onto the corporate culture. Eventually the existing consumers find out and are now beginning to push back with real financial consequences.Glad to Tractor Supply reverse course….I hope that other corporations will choose to avoid the mess completely by sticking to their areas of expertise instead of PO their loyal customers.
I must have missed the part about replacing several important managers who were behind the crap. So they’ll just be more discreet about it or do it differently.
Glad they’re improving to the extent they are — not enough yet by far.
Sure. While I would rather have folks who respected the law and kept to the letter/spirit due to respect …so long as they keep to it is the bottom line….could be out of fear of prison, fear of embarrassment or some other motivation …whatever so long as they keep to it.
Woke corporate management is the same in this regard at least to me. So long as they don’t interject their woke ideology then the ‘why’ doesn’t matter to me. If fear is their motivation then a vigilant consumer base has shown they are up to the challenge of delivering the consequences they fear. Assuming that the consumer base cares enough to stay vigilant b/c if they don’t then it doesn’t matter anyway.
BUT THE FACT THAT THEY DID
shows you how america just like nazigermany and communist countries
WILL FOLD IN SECONDS when the going gets tough AND THEY HAVE/HAD THE ABILITY to resist the lefty
lefty is armed and dangerous>>>FACT!!!
Does any Tractor Supply customer go to “pride” events?
Businesses should support and have booths at events where potential customers are. Tractor supply should be at county fairs and events where 4H or Future Farmers of America are.
If your business provides HIV testing or medicines, stuff for drag queens, etc., it makes sense to be at “pride” events.
In my rural little left wing town, they do. They’re also farming, gardening, running animal rescues, etc… They’re doing the same things the straight people are doing, with the exception of attending a pride event once or twice a year.
Well, they do stock rabies vaccines.
Small town America was once a place for “town and country” ranch-type department stores; veterinary supplies alongside dressy women’s and men’s country clothing and well pumps and fifty pound bags of chicken and dog feed and a paint dept.
A few linger, but the majority of those stores died 30 years ago. Killed by brick and mortar big box stores like Home Depot.
So, point being, the Tractor Supply business model filled the niche with a farm equipment front end and an urban management backend. It never considered itself a “country folk” retailer.
“Never considered themselves,” despite their own advertising?
Tractor Supply’s motto is “For Life Out Here.”
Life out here isn’t rife with man-buns, purpled-haired goth chix, or store-bought front holes. When we put on the shoulder gloves, it’s to deliver calves, not jollies.
Yes, despite their advertising campaigns. lol!
As if you spent your entire working career on a farm, which you obviously didn’t do. Gentleman farmer!
I spent many spring, summer and fall weeks on our family cattle ranch. Forked hay off the back of hay sleds to hungry cattle in -13f weather. I’ve scooped newborn calves out of half-frozen corral mud, heat lamped and massaged the lifeblood back into them, then after couple few years, ate their tasty, cooked flesh.
Gentleman RANCHER, thank you very much.
I’ll believe it a few years in. They may find new ways of being woke, or maybe I just won’t like them.
Funny that I was planning to go to TSC, then herd about their wokeness, decided to go to Family Farm & Home,
Should go to TSC now, not to their competitor in light of this? Or should I punish them for the rest of the season?
TSC prices are high on many things, their inventory stinks on in season things. For example, irrigation fittings will be ample fist thing in the sprint, but not replenished promptly. As a result of that I started ordering irrigation stuff from Ag Supply, better price, and instead of plastic I get aluminum which are far more durable.
Heck, if they’re not as good on the actual product and pricing, why go there at all? They certainly haven’t earned your business with one convenient political statement once they had no choice.
Ours out here brought some things to town that previously didn’t exist. The first thing we discovered was that they were the first to have the brains to carry “large breed dog food” in bags larger than 25 lbs. (yeah, some people own more than one dog, brainiacs). There’s also no other place in town with their selection of pesticides/herbicides, utility fencing, feeding and watering equipment, and ammo. They’re the only retailer of gun safes in town. I know neighbors who ventured into fowl-keeping primarily because TSC offered chicks and ducklings every spring. But yeah, when I need tools, irrigation, fasteners, and other hardware stuff, I find our local Ace carries a much more complete selection.
I bred Rottweilers for a long time, 1 male, 3 females and one or tw0 litters. I bought 12 or more 55 lb bags at a time, generally buying it from Sam’s Club.
I will have to go visit them again, soon.
Ok, changed my mind, just badly run company by a sick CEO
“He then publicized Tractor Supply’s support of a Soros-funded open borders group. He discusses this in a video there, but here’s the text:
Robby Starbuck @robbystarbuck
Tractor Supply gave $100,000 to an activist group that “worked around the clock” to stop deportations during the Trump presidency.
The group is Conexion Americas’. Their founder also previously headed the National Council of La Raza which got $2+ Million from George Soros.
How do you feel about them using money you spend there to fund this garbage? It would be good to let @hallawton @TractorSupply know!
The boycott, which lasted three weeks, cost Tractor Supply two billion in lost market capital due to their stock price tanking.”
Aceofspadeshq
I’m amazed I never heard a word about this boycott, particularly since at the time a family member was working there.
If was kinda under the radar compared to Bud Light until the last ten days or so when YouTube channels started pushing the info out and it got traction.
Thanks, back to boycott, I skipped TSC today and bought what I needed from Menards.
Menards has some warts, in that their 11% rebates have not shown in over a year, amounting to thousands of dollars, Home Depot has an 11% rebate program, they have more locations.
Make sure you verify before you assume that.