Top Findings of the Power of Meat 2015 Survey
By Canadian Packaging staff
General 2015 Meat Conference 210 Analytics Food Marketing Institute North American Meat Institute Power of Meat Survey Sealed Air The Cryovac BrandSurvey on the meat industry shows consumers don't play favorites where price is concerned.
The ninth Power of Meat Survey shows, perhaps with no surprise, that shoppers are concerned with the bottom-line – the almighty dollar – when it comes to purchases of meat.
That point was hammered home with increases in pork and beef with 40 per cent of the shoppers looking for ways to save money. While others looked to quality, convenience and nutrition.
According to the survey, price, followed by appearance was most important “a position it lost to total package price in 2011.”
Canadian Packaging opines that brand managers of packaged bacon, perhaps already aware of the consumers need to pay a fair price has within the past month or two started offering smaller weights of the same number of sliced bacon—more thinly sliced—for a price point consumers were already familiar with… dropping from a 455 gram pack to 375 gram pack – and few shoppers seemed to notice.
The Power of Meat 2015 Survey was sponsored by the North American Meat Institute and the Food Marketing Institute, conducted by 210 Analytics, LLC, sponsored by Cryovac, a part of Sealed Air’s Food Care Division.
The survey also notes that “shoppers open to switching between proteins, cuts and brands” by either finding different meat cuts or brands in an effort to save money. Some even began supplanting the meats with more poultry, or for those still desiring more proteins, eggs and beans were leading meats substitutes.
Trends also continued to lead the shopper in their purchases, such as local sourcing, sustainability, health and wellness, and organic.
The survey found that shoppers “are putting greater effort into making nutritious meat/poultry choices, with an emphasis on leaner cuts and portion control.” Thanks to greater public knowledge and the craving of more knowledge, more shoppers want to purchase more locally grown foods—showing an awareness of local economy, transportation carbon footprint and freshness of the product.
Conversely, the study implies that online sales of meats could grow as “improved availability and growing confidence in quality” increases, but Canadian Packaging opines that it then fails to take into account the transportation and shipping costs to sustainability with disposability of shipping containers transportation carbon footprint.
Meat purchase decisions increasingly shifting to in-store, noting that while shoppers have done their research on meat and poultry beforehand, a large share of the buying public makes its choices in-store when actually deciding between species, cuts and brands.
Take from that what you will, but ultimately, price and being able to observe the quality of the meat plays a huge role in shopper decisions—as it usually does.
A full overview of The Power Of Meat 2015 Study, revealed at the 2015 Meat Conference in Nashville (February 22-24), can be found by clicking HERE.
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