Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 4/15/11

Consumers' interest and concern over the safety of their food is only going to grow, says Mintel Director, CPG Trend Insight Lynn Dornblaser. In a presentation to the AMI International Meat, Poultry & Seafood Convention and Exposition here on Thursday, Dornblaser pointed out that 63 percent of consumers are concerned about the safety of their meat and poultry. In an interview, she expounded on that data.

Meatingplace: You say 63 percent are concerned about meat and poultry; is that up or down from in the past.

Dornblaser: We don't have hard data but we do know that concern over food safety has gone up among consumers. That's because, in the last three or four years the U.S. marketplace has been a scary place for consumers. Too many things have scared them, whether it's peanut butter or poultry and meat.
The popular press doesn't help the situation. It's smart to talk about washing the cutting board with soapy water but sometimes they take a little bit of an alarmist approach. Companies do the same thing, as well, and you have to think that's for liability issues: "We're going to tell you everything you need to know in the scariest way possible, and we're not taking responsibility if you get sick."

I can understand that, but it does create a lot of concern, especially among those consumers who are not really knowledgeable cooks.

Meatingplace: You're saying that's a problem among consumers who are not cooks, and there are generations coming up who are not cooks, so this is liable to be a bigger problem in the future.

Dornblaser: I think it will continue to [grow as a problem] if we continue to see contamination issues and more food scare issues. That will prove to consumers that foods aren't safe.
That's a question we'll keep asking [every year] because it's an important one to be thinking about.

Meatingplace: The industry says, 'Look at the progress we've made,' but consumers still are scared.

Dornblaser: Because things keep happening. I think the peanut butter issue really scared consumers because it showed that companies really don't know where ingredients come from, so how do you trust them anywhere? They don't really know where the problem came from, and from a consumer perspective that's really frightening. How can they trust the brands?

It's issues like that. Any industry is going to talk about what the acceptable numbers are because having 100 percent compliance all the time isn't reasonable to expect. But it only takes one plant to contaminate the thinking for consumers across the board.

To me, what the industry needs to think about is clear communication. So, communicate what they do, but not in a defensive way, but providing information and being transparent as much as possible.
They need to talk about what they do, because consumers don't know. On the one hand, you don't want to show consumers a chicken processing plant, but tell them, 'Here are the steps we've taken to show that food is as wholesome as we can possibly make it.'

Meatingplace: A lot of companies resist that because they don't want to give them a 'safety' message, and then wrestle with a recall.

Dornblaser: But the message isn't, 'This is the safety thing you can buy.' It's, 'This is what we do.' And what they're doing is mandated by law, anyway, so they're doing it. So there's no harm in talking about it. And consumers don't know what happens in a plant.

For more information on consumer trends in beef, pork and poultry from Mintel, click here. 

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