DINZ venison marketing manager Nick Taylor says the targeted marketing and promotion is buoyed by growing interest among American consumers in naturally raised exotic and novel meats, noting retail sales of bison having markedly increased in recent years.
The 2021 promotion will be jointly funded by DINZ, venison and marketing companies and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) through the Passion2Profit initiative.
In addition, DINZ invests $400,000 a year on a 50:50 basis through its joint promotion fund into individual company promotions.
Some of this spend will also be in North America.
“Pre-covid, sales had grown to the point where the US was our largest year-round market for chilled venison,” Taylor said.
“Now we are aiming to grow sales at retail in bricks and mortar stores, as well as online.
“Our chilled venison sales are of premium cuts sold to restaurants, demand that was largely stopped in its tracks by the pandemic.
“The initial retail focus is largely on ground venison to get shelf space and to familiarise customers with venison as an option.”
Taylor says the US has been selected as a focus because of growing demand among a population already familiar with venison.
Venison marketers also have solid relationships with importers in the US.
While this makes it easier to get traction in the market, there are significant challenges launching new products in supermarkets and other stores during covid.
“Sales reps can’t make store visits and in-store tastings are still out of the question,” he said.
“And while the covid vaccination programme in the US is ahead of schedule and restaurants are starting to reopen, there are still significant stocks of premium meat in storage in the US that will need to be cleared before significant new orders come through.”
Taylor remains optimistic and takes heart from recent retail sales figures from the US that show a significant increase in venison volumes over the past 12 months.
But he says most of the market development work now under way will take time to bear fruit.
The European market is a different story.
“Understandably with so much uncertainty, companies are reluctant to put any timeframe on when venison prices to farmers will return to pre-covid levels,” he said.
Farmers are advised to talk with their venison marketing company about its plans for the traditional European chilled season.
Some of the companies will be offering minimum price supply contracts for these markets.
“Because deer farmers have traditionally been able to bank on getting good prices during the chilled season, they can target getting venison animals away for shipment to Europe during September and October, if that fits with their farm system,” he said.
