Prestige Marketing
In certain markets there are intangible responses among consumers that can be tapped to realize added value in products. As an example, most people find it desireable to buy something "different" or in some way special. It is the idea of bragging rights of being able to turn their friends on to something new. There is an element of discovery that can be tapped here. Certainly, the feeling that your product is not just everyday, mainstream fare has an appeal. In part, this comes from the need in many people to underscore the idea that they have the means to make choices and that they are making great choices.

Serving the Server
One growing segment of the food service sector is a phenomenon called “personal chefs.” The service caters (literally) to the people who are busy and don’t want the hassle of fixing a meal after a busy day of work. Increasingly, there is not a member of a household that likes to cook or feels competent to do it well. Hence, we see the service springing up that helps these people create special menus, then comes into the home at scheduled times to prepare the dishes.

Where this could fit the smaller pork marketer is in hooking your products and services to that personal chef. It could be as simple as being a quick call, quick response delivery of your always fresh, always tender products, thereby saving a trip to a market. Customers would know you and the quality of your goods. An added benefit to the chef would be the possibility of marketing to prestige levels and perhaps using “food with a face” as well. This approach offers benefit to the pork producer’s company by having the personal chef doing the actual consumer marketing for you.

The whole concept of “serving the server” is built on the idea of how to utilize marketing people and organizations that already exist. This allows your company to get many more “feet on the street” that are not on your own payroll. In fact, you are selling them product and potentially working an additional service fee into the transaction. This type of approach allows you to expand your product volume more quickly than if you tried to develop a direct marketing sales approach in-house. It also keeps your costs lower, giving added flexibility.

Solution Marketing
The traditional view of solution marketing in food would certainly include the home meal replacement (HMR). With the surge in households having all adult members working outside the home there is more emphasis on time management, particularly by the female member of the household. Studies continue to show the female is the primary decision maker on food purchasing. That decision is leaning toward convenience, including fast, heat-and-serve entrees and complete meals. This is an area of growth potential for pork, since this meat has not owned the center of the plate as has its competitor, beef. The challenge is to create pork-based meal options that are attractive, tasty and work well in the less than 20 minutes mode.

Two options for the pork marketer are obvious. First, you could become a specialty supplier to a company that has a brand and market place slotting already going for it. This is the high volume, low margin approach to moving pork in the short run. Keep in mind, if the target companies already have pork suppliers, the challenge is to somehow replace them through service, price or quality.

The second option is to create product and brand, then enter the retail market directly. This approach brings much higher margin but will certainly be slower to build volume. There are substantial costs involved in creating brand identity. There are costs to overcome in packaging and labeling that will be high in the early stages because volume will be low. You will also need to compete for shelf space at retail. There will be considerable cost in slotting fees paid to the store, but fees are negotiable to some extent.

Personal chefs and standard catering are also forms of solution marketing. You are providing more than the food. The service you provide is the large value item in this equation. Pork is not a traditional item in this format, a fact that signals opportunity for growth.

In a similar vein, the old idea of the lunch wagon at a factory parking lot or office complex is still quite viable. In fact, the idea of offering ready-to-heat-and-eat meals to workers as they exit the parking lot for home could be very well received. Most workers do not think about the evening meal until late in the day. The idea of stopping at the grocery or getting home to face the evening chore is not always a favorable one, so the opportunity is there to provide the solution through their car window as they leave. Among low pork user demographic groups, such as whites, this could be an ideal place to offer pork entrees and see them purchased more frequently than if the same people were to shop in the grocery store.

Ethnic Marketing
As you look for ways to sell the “whole set” of products coming from the hog it is important to take a really hard look at other cultures and countries for market outlets. Eating habits and tastes are closely tied to family upbringing and local/regional norms. This is known as marketing to the learned responses of your consumer.

The demographics favor marketing pork into black and Hispanic markets. Each of these groups eat substantially more pork per person than whites. In fact, these groups eat more meat and poultry than whites and others, with Hispanics being the highest. See Figure 1. This chart shows that Hispanics had a dramatically higher frequency of pork expenditures than whites.

Figure 1

Percent of respondents reporting pork expenditures during the week, by race and origin.

Black and Hispanic households appear to put far more disposable income to pork expenditures than whites. While this would suggest less room for growth of sales, that intuition may not be correct. As these groups move steadily to higher income levels, they tend not to change their eating habits substantially from what they know and like.

Hispanic households have about 75 percent of the disposable income that non-Hispanic households average. However, Hispanics spend about 9 percent more than non-Hispanic households on food. Significantly, these expenditures are far more likely to be for at-home consumption. Their emphasis seems to be on fresh product, and they purchase more often than whites on average. Hispanic households spend 52 percent more than non-Hispanic households on meat, poultry and fish. They spend 53 percent more on pork. The lead purchase is the pork chop, followed by other pork, non-canned ham sausage (chorizo) and bacon. Figures 2 and 3 offer comparisons of product purchase habits of Hispanic as compared to white households.

Figure 2

Type of pork expenditures, by Hispanic households per week.

Figure 3

Type of pork expenditures, by white households per week.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Pork consumption, grams per household per day per annual income.

In order to understand which markets to target, it is also important to study differences between regions and within the ethnic group.

Resources
The data supporting these graphics comes primarily from two secondary government data sources. One is the Consumer Expenditure Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the second is the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by individuals, conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.