The Meat Case From The Consumer’s Perspective

What makes consumers tick at the meat case? A new marketing study provides a revealing glimpse of consumer meat mentalities. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association sponsored research that worked directly with consumers to assess their decision making process while planning for, shopping and preparing meat.

Key Learnings

• Consumers rarely venture outside of their set of "staple" meat cuts: 4 beef cuts, 5 chicken cuts and 2 pork cuts.
  
  

• Outside of key staple meats, consumers are uninformed and therefore experience confusion and apprehension during the meat selection process.
  
  

• The majority of consumers never use half of the cuts in the meat case.
  
  

• Consumers do not understand what grades of meats mean.
  
  

• In general, consumers do little planning of meals.
  
  

• Time available and on-hand ingredients drive meal choice.
  
  

• Most often, consumers just re-stock food depleted since their last shopping trip.
  
  

• When consumers become confused at the meat case, there is a high risk of purchase loss.
  
  

• Cuts of meat are most desirable to consumers when:

  • Consumers know how to cook them

  • Consumers know that their families will like the meal

  • The cuts are easy to prepare
    

Meal Planning

In general, there is not a lot of pre-planning for dinner meals. Instead when deciding what to make for dinner:

• Consumers wait until the last minute. Most decisions are made the day of the dinner and at the end of the day.
  
  
• Consumers look at their pantry and at their watch. Time and on-hand ingredients tend to drive meal choice.

Implications:

• There is a continued need to position meat as a quick and easy meal solution to fit into consumers’ busy lives.
  
  
• Recipe dissemination, especially of recipes containing ingredients consumers are likely to have on hand, increases meal ideas.
  
  
• Meal solutions will continue to increase in importance to consumers.
  
  
• It is vital to seek out new convenient meat products to add to the category.
  

Grocery Shopping

Most grocery shopping is done periodically to stock up for several days. When consumers shop, they frequently just re-stock the food depleted since their last trip.

Implications:

• Proper merchandising provides an opportunity to break through consumers tendency to be habitual in their shopping: clear signage, sale markers, demonstrations, etc.
  
  
• To gain trial and long-term acceptance, new products must be aggressively promoted and sampled.
  

Shopping For Meat

Several areas of consumer mindset are critical to the meat shopping process.

Confusion about unfamiliar cuts of meat

Confusion is reflected in the fact that consumers do not really know what grades of meat mean. Consumers were questioned about 48 cuts of meat (30 beef, 12 pork and 6 chicken). Responses indicated that they used less than 1/3 of the cuts frequently, and never use almost ½ of the cuts in the meat case. Consumers are confused by the total range of meat cuts. To reduce this confusion, consumers indicated that they only buy a small number of cuts with which they are already familiar. They feel confident buying these staple meat cuts. Cuts outside of this small repertoire are highly confusing and consumers cannot find the information necessary to help them make a purchase. When consumers do become confused, there is a risk of purchase loss.

Consumer desire for variety

As expected, variety is an important consideration for consumers, with 42% of consumers feeling it was very important. Chicken is seen as the "least different" of meats in terms of offering variety. Beef, especially if lesser used cuts are made more consumer friendly, offers consumers "something different" and unique.

Consumers shop for meat in different ways at different times. They are most likely to shop for a variety of meats to have on hand. Consumers show a willingness to change their minds.

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Michigan Beef Industry Commission
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