Since transitioning to employee ownership last year, Cypress Valley Meat Co. has seen employee turnover drop from roughly 40% to 11% — a notable shift in an industry where annual turnover can exceed 100%.
But employee ownership didn’t start with a transaction; it came out of how the company already operated. From early on, the company was grounded in transparency, shared responsibility, and the belief that employees should share in its success.
“We want relationships with our employees, not transactions with our employees.” — Ben Wihebrink, CFO, Cypress Valley Meat Co.
In this Owners Session, Ben walks through how that philosophy shows up inside Cypress Valley and how the transition to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) reinforced what the team had already put in place.
From the beginning, founder Andy Shaw led with a simple idea: relationships matter more than transactions. That showed up in how he approached customers, hired, and thought about the future of the business.
As the company grew, those values became part of how the business ran day to day. The team introduced profit-sharing, opened up the financials, and designed systems that help employees connect their work to company performance, including open-book financials, weekly scorecards, company-wide town halls, and their “Meat the Rewards” cleaver program.
When the leadership team began thinking about long-term ownership, the focus wasn’t just on the transition itself — it was on keeping that way of operating intact.
After evaluating different options, Cypress Valley chose an EOT for its flexibility and its fit with both the company they had become and the realities of the business. In an industry with slim margins and a large frontline workforce, the structure gave them a way to formalize profit-sharing, reinforce transparency, and carry those values forward.
Since the transition, much of the daily operation has stayed the same. What has changed is the level of engagement. Employees are asking more questions, stepping into improvement efforts, and participating more directly in how the business runs.
Key takeaways:
Ownership starts with how the business operates. Cypress Valley didn’t wait for a transition to begin thinking this way. Many of the practices that define the company today were already in place.
Culture takes shape through everyday systems. Open-book financials, scorecards, and profit-sharing gave employees a clear way to engage with the business.
The right structure reinforces what’s already working. The EOT didn’t introduce a new way of operating. It gave the company a way to protect and extend the one they already had.
Transparency gives people a way to participate. When employees understand how the business works, they’re more likely to engage with it — asking questions, identifying issues, and contributing ideas.
These practices can be introduced over time. Most of what Cypress Valley created didn’t happen all at once. It evolved gradually, in ways that fit the business at each stage.
More from Common Trust: What is Employee Ownership? · Employee Ownership Trust Playbook · What is an Employee Ownership Trust? · The FAQs of EOTs · Cypress Valley case study
