Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 4/14/17


There seems to be no higher praise for a meat company these days than to say it operates like a consumer packaged goods maker. Even traditional packers, from Smithfield to Tyson to JBS, are doubling down on consumer-friendly, convenience-oriented, value-added meat products, through programs like Smithfield One and Tyson’s acquisition of Hillshire Farm.

And at the other end of the supply chain, retailers are counseled to focus on value-added offerings in their meat cases, by the Food Marketing Institute and IRI, among others. It makes sense: Across the meat case, retailers get a 30.6 percent better price on value-added products than on meat sales as a whole, IRI reports.

But no trend lasts forever, and new data from the 2017 Power of Meat study points to headwinds down the road for value-added meat products.

“For a lot of these core consumers, [they] are starved for time and value time more than money, and the price differential is not a big deal,” said Anne-Marie Roerink, principal of 210 Analytics LLC, who conducted the study. “But the biggest reason for not buying is the price differential. [And] there’s a huge group who don’t buy value-added because they don’t believe the meat is high quality, fresh, they don’t know who’s touched the meat.”

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