Importantly, processors support the concept though they are awaiting more details of how it will be implemented as well as cautioning not to expect too much too soon.
The development of what is essentially a country of origin brand is in response to competition from other meat exporting countries, notably Australia, Canada and Ireland, which have more advanced programmes and, in a number of markets, greater awareness than NZ.
This isn’t a new idea, when one remembers the NZ Lamb Rosette from the 1980s, but the latest campaign signals a more ambitious and coherent exercise in building the total red meat brand based on NZ’s particular points of advantage: wide open spaces with lush green grass for animals to graze, a gentle climate and light touch of the natural environment.
The overall objective of Taste Pure Nature is to build a strong brand image for NZ beef and lamb as a premium product with unparalleled taste and raising practices by establishing culinary legitimacy and advocacy among chefs and food influencers, leveraging brand equity to expand the footprint and spreading the brand story through retail partnerships.
This objective clearly recognises the need to work with key food ambassadors and retailers if the message is to achieve a significant level of awareness. Social media will also be an important factor in spreading the word as mass advertising is an impossibility, either because of cost or media fragmentation.
The NZ Lamb Rosette was entirely funded by producers through B+LNZ and its predecessors while meat exporters promoted their company brands and previous attempts to get meat exporters to contribute to a market development programme in addition to their own brand marketing activities have largely been unsuccessful.
The new brand will now be unambiguously a levy-funded origin brand, owned by B+LNZ, which provides the context within which the individual company brands can be promoted.
The companies will pay a licence fee to participate in the programme and will receive a toolkit including trademark and brand for use on packaging, consumer insights, promotional and educational material as well as a co-ordinated marketing programme in the pilot markets.
Meat companies contacted are positive about the origin brand.
Greenlea chief executive Tony Egan expressed the company’s position enthusiastically, saying “We are totally in favour because of the mutual benefits to be gained and we see a strong possibility of it leading to further co-operation between meat exporters.” Alliance chief executive David Surveyor said “We welcome the initiative as it will support the growth of the entire red meat sector. It’s also an example of the entire industry, B+LNZ, the Meat Industry Association, farmers, processors and Government coming together.
“NZ’s Red Meat Story highlights who we are and what we do from farm to consumer. We need to protect our natural food production systems and ensure consumers globally recognise NZ farmers are in the natural food business.
“This is one of the great things about the Red Meat Story. B+LNZ deliberately designed it as a platform we can all get behind but use as a springboard for our own unique customer propositions.”
Surveyor and others noted the critical aspect of participating processors having a NZ Farm Assurance Programme or equivalent in place with which their suppliers will be required to comply. It will serve as a guarantee of the growing conditions under which NZ beef and lamb have been raised, ensuring the integrity of the claims behind the brand.
In fact, some processors have suggested the Taste Pure Nature brand is more a farm assurance programme than a quality story though the one is an essential component of the other.
In addition to a large amount of quantitative research B+LNZ has had 85 focus groups in six countries to test the concept for Taste Pure Nature as a country of origin brand. Key findings were the potential increase in consumer price expectations for product backed by an origin brand and an even larger increase if the origin brand includes a story but, while there are great prospects for naturally raised, grass-fed, hormone and antibiotic-free red meat, NZ red meat suffers from low awareness.
The Taste Pure Nature brand assets will be available for NZ exporters to use in all markets by the end of the year. It will be in the form of a brand toolbox and include insights from research linking to a how-to activation guide by country.
The immediate plan is to restrict promotional activity for Taste Pure Nature to China and the United States, specifically Shanghai, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, which will be the initial pilot markets.
Market segmentation has identified the Conscious Foodies as the prime target group because they are keen to try new experiences, are quality conscious, mindful of the environment and animal safety and are aware of origin and animal raising claims. This provides the opportunity to build trust in the NZ brand using influential chefs as the first brand champions in the selected target markets.
The most exciting aspect of the Taste Pure Nature story is the enthusiasm of the most important participants – farmers and exporters – but results won’t happen immediately.
It will be essential to maintain and, as permitted, increase the investment year after year.
This will gradually enable NZ red meat to move up the value chain and earn what it’s really worth.
