Saturday, March 30, 2024

Investing in consumers’ trust

Neal Wallace
Meat companies are using the Taste Pure Nature brand alongside their own brands as they target environmentally-conscious foodie consumers.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) market development manager Nick Beeby told the organisation’s annual meeting that this demographic cares where their food comes from and are heavily influenced by digital channels such as food websites and bloggers who focus on natural foods.

They are considered a significant opportunity for NZ red meat sales, and Beeby says during the covid-19 pandemic consumers were increasingly discerning with their purchases, which was underpinned by the message associated with the B+LNZ developed taste pure nature brand.

“Consumers chose meat products that are better tasting, nutritious and satisfy environmental concerns,” Beeby said.

While possibly having some knowledge of NZ, he says these target consumers tend to have little knowledge about the different production systems for red meat, a role Taste Pure Nature is designed to fill.

Their expectation is that meat companies and farmers will have to meet such values as trust and traceability, but of more importance is NZ’s holistic story, the environment, animal welfare and product health.

“Consumers are saying they want products that will not leave the climate, soil or water any worse off,” he said.

“This is a topic that is not going to go away.”

Online sales in the United States in August 2019 were $1.2 billion but a year later, soared to $7.2b, a trend he expects to continue to grow.

Alliance Group sales manager Shane Kingston says the Taste Pure Nature brand builds trust, reputation and loyalty among red meat consumers.

However, NZ needs to spend more on marketing.

Kingston says NZ currently spends $8 per metric tonne, Australia $34 and Wales $59.

The potential returns from boosting this investment are significant.

A recent four-week joint US promotion in 528 US stores between Alliance, Silver Fern Farms and ANZCO, resulted in interaction with 9.2 million shoppers, of which 76% were new to NZ red meat.

Sales over those four weeks were up 100%, and Kingston says the exporters expect to retain support and interest from about 10% of those they interacted with, potentially increasing sales by millions of dollars.

“We’ve got to spend the money in the marketplace, that ultimately is the accelerant for us,” Kingston said.

B+LNZ chair Andrew Morrison told the annual meeting that dealing with 2020 was an extraordinary success story for the agri-sector.

Despite covid-19 limitations, red meat exports reached a record $9.2b and he says that was a tribute to the Ministry for Primary Industries for enabling meat companies to continue to operate, and to meat companies for repositioning product in 120 countries when foodservice demand dried up.

“If we didn’t have essential service status, it would have been a reasonably dark time,” he said.

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