Special Report Creating Differentiation in the Meat Case

American shoppers continue to hone a more discerning perspective when it comes to their meat purchases, particularly as issues like climate, trade deficits and food safety have been dominating headlines. Meanwhile, inflation continues to trouble consumers’ pocketbooks, spurring shoppers to seek out better value in their weekly grocery runs. Grocers are consequently building a meat case with options that cater to a variety of tastes, preferences and budgets. Suppliers of meat products outside the commodity beef, pork and chicken categories, in particular, stand at the ready to deliver on the retailers’ goals for both novelty and value in serving their customers.

In the last year, Wisconsin-based Skogen’s Festival Foods has seen a shift in its customers' spending in terms of meats. “Looking at premium categories since May, inflation has negatively impacted not only bison but other premium proteins such as seafood, lamb, veal, grass fed and USDA Prime beef,” Meat Senior Director Jeff Bruce said last fall. “Conversely, less expensive proteins such as chicken, pork, ground beef, processed meats (hot dogs, lunchmeat, etc.) have shown significant YOY growth over the past few months. Essentially, consumers are trading down to less expensive proteins to be able to afford higher costing fuel, utilities, etc.”

On the same token, American shoppers are hyperaware of the power of their spending and increasingly want to express their values that way. Kay Cornelius, Niman Ranch’s VP of Retail Sales recently referred to the 2022 American Meat Institute Power of Meat study that illustrated this. “[The study] had three statistics that I think are really interesting,” she said. “One of those says that five in every 10 shoppers want US-raised meat. Niman Ranch fits that. One out of every three wants their meat department to carry products that are better for the farmer. And one in every three shoppers want their meat department to have products that are better for the planet.”

Bison suppliers emphasize their products also tick these boxes, but being a much smaller segment of meat, they’re fighting a David vs. Goliath battle for consumer attention, education and trial. “The bison business, due to its very nature, has always been in sync with sustainable, regenerative agriculture,” said Rocco Verelli, President of NorthFork Bison, based in Canada. “Our bison mostly feed in the open pasture on grass, natural weeds and forage native to the ecosystem. In short, our objective is to allow bison to be bison as much as we possibly can and let them roam freely the way they have for thousands of years. It’s as close as you will ever get to the ideal sustainable / regenerative model. To help them better connect with their customers, we work with our retailer partners through presentations and food demos. We are strong believers in educating the consumer, so to this end we always make ourselves available to our partners and customers.”

Great Range Bison shares those goals. “There have been multiple studies done that show if grasslands have large ungulates grazing rotationally the land will be more productive and sequester more carbon,” said Director of Sales Cory Schmeling. “Bison have instinctive natural grazing patterns that allow for deeper root growth and more productive grasslands. There is a story to be told about bison and their long history in North America – the conservation of the species, their ability to handle the wide variation of weather patterns on the high-altitude arid areas of the west etc. We educate via social media, brochures etc., in order to help our grocer customers develop more bison consumers.”

It is hard for grocers to distill this great story about bison for shoppers always pressed for time, but Great Range Bison has found that social media in particular has helped the company reach consumers more cost effectively than in traditional printed media advertising, Schmeling said. "As an industry, we have a small but very active National Bison Association that we support. They have also been promoting trial of bison products. We strongly believe that when a consumer tries Great Range Premium Bison, they will become a regular bison customer.”

Verelli with NorthFork Bison said the key objective in outreach has always been product quality awareness. “Our packaging along with our website is filled with all kinds of information designed to help the consumer make informed buying decisions,” he said.

Skogen’s Festival Foods last fall, in a reaction to reduced demand for bison, relocated those offerings to better highlight the premium nature of the category. “We continue to offer bison but have moved our retail-ready bison into refrigerated sections of our service cases that we call ‘knee knockers,” Bruce said at the time. “These low-profile cases perfectly present retail-ready products to those guests shopping the service case for our ultra-high-quality meats. Bison being offered alongside other premium proteins such as lamb, veal, grass fed, USDA Prime, etc. front and center vs. off to the side in our multi-deck cases seems to work well. It elevates the ‘feel’ of our service case environment as being the destination for premium meats. We've swapped some of bison middle meat cuts over to bison stew and ground bison for our fall/winter months. This should be a win-win by offering bison with retailers that are not as intimidating as middle meats while catering to fall/winter related recipes such as chili, stews, etc.”

Average bison carcass weights are actually smaller than average choice/ prime beef carcasses, said Bob Dineen, Founder and President of Great Range Bison. “Bison produce all the same cuts that are produced from beef carcasses. There is a limited quantity of steak cuts per animal. Some grocers merchandise whole primals in the full-service meat case, but we have found providing these cuts in case-ready vacuum packaging helps the grocer with labor and food safety concerns. Providing precut steaks, roasts, stew meat etc. in a caseready package has opened the doors for us to move more middle meats. With restaurants putting more and more steak cuts on the menu, we also produce portion cut steaks to offer the convenience this provides. It is always a balancing act; we try to distribute the available cuts as best we can.”