Consumers aren’t easy to figure out.
On one hand, they want green, hormone-free product from family farms with the highest environmental and animal-care standards. On the other, they will eat supper out of a bag on the way home.
To illustrate this behaviour, let us take a hypothetical look at the day in the life of one working mom with three little children.
Mom starts her morning by bringing out breakfast cereal high in carbohydrates and sugar. She smiles – that was easy – and the little ones have all day at school to wear off that sugar.
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On the way home after work, she stops for groceries. This is often a hurried affair as the three children are chirping like starved birds. A healthy snack in the form of fruit is passed out to tame the tummies. Satisfied, the children will more or less behave in the store, mother carefully squeezes the tomatoes, presses the peaches, smells the baking, checks best-before dates, and reads labels.
Like a well-trained professional, she keeps her cart on track sticking to the outer aisles of the store. (The exception is made for more cereal and toiletries.) It is getting late and all three youngsters are thoroughly bored and starting to pull on mother’s coat sleeve while whimpering in perfect harmony. Everyone is testy but mom is satisfied that she has done her utmost to buy the best in healthy ingredients for her growing brood. She has focused on the safety and nutritional welfare of her family to the best of her ability.
On the way home, chaos erupts from the back seat where the complaining has risen to a fever pitch. Mom is tired and time is slipping away. In an effort to calm the crying, she offers fast food as a treat. Everyone has a favourite to order! One wants the meal with apples, another with lettuce and cheese, one likes milk and they all want a burger. So mom pulls up to the drive-through and orders the meals. And then, as she pulls away from the window, she hands back the paper bags, without so much as glancing inside. She has not seen, touched or smelled the contents. She simply hands back the bags with complete trust.
The moral of the story is this: We in the beef industry have to remain diligent in telling our story and assuring our customer that what they eat is safe. We want to enjoy the same level of trust that our hypothetical mom places in the food service industry.
There’s an old joke about how the only place the floor is worn in the grocery store is in the front of the meat case. Women, who continue to make 98 per cent of the food buying decisions, struggle with food safety, nutritional and preparation questions. We could improve as an industry to ensure that the consumer can buy with full confidence at the meat case.
Certainly that’s an issue recognized by those in food service industry, and many will admit to still staying awake day and night thinking of ways to prevent any type of disaster from occurring. Even in the face of error, they repeatedly tell their story on food safety and have stringent regulations to ensure that further processing, forming, cooking and delivery of product is foolproof. They are experts in procedure, and the full engagement of process allows for continuity and traceability within the food-service system.
So how does the beef industry earn the level of trust that the food-service industry enjoys? Who is responsible to make that happen? Few grocery stores have the high level of process and procedure that is evident in the food-service sector. And even fewer producers have the level of process and procedure that is evident in the packing industry. So the food-safety chain is somewhat diluted by the time we go back to the place in which the animal was raised.
Trust can only be earned. By the time a burger hits the takeout counter there is a tremendous amount of science, technology and research behind it. If the buyer is still pacing in front of the meat case, our industry has failed.
When we ask those in food service what the beef industry can do to ensure food safety, consumer satisfaction, and ultimately trust, they simply remind us that we cannot talk our way out of something we behaved our way into.
And so it is more than what we say we will do – it is what we do. It’s what we do on every farm, on every packing floor, in every processing plant, in every cooler, and on every shelf that counts. Only then, will the purchase of beef enjoy the highest level of trust.
BrendaSchoeppisamarketanalystandtheownerandauthorofBeeflink,anationalbeefcattlemarketnewsletter.Aprofessionalspeakerandindustrymarketandresearchconsultant,sheranchesnearRimbey,Alberta. [email protected]
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Wehavetokeep diligentinthebeef industryintellingour storyandassuringour customerthatwhat theyeatissafe.
