LIVE from the RMC: Retail Meat Case Tomorrow’s

    Merchandising Battleground

    by Dan Murphy on 6/21/00

 

    COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In his heyday during the 1960s, the late Ohio

    State University coach Woody Hayes was recognized as having

    assembled one of the greatest collections of college football talent in

    the nation.

 

    That is, if you happened to enjoy watching the earth mover-size

    lineman and straight-ahead running backs who carried out the

    Buckeyes’ legendary power running game.

 

    Today, perhaps the greatest collection of scientific talent in the meat

    industry is assembled here, virtually in the shadow of the Woody

    Hayes Athletic Center on the OSU campus. But they’re focused on

    moving the industry -- not the yard markers -- forward, as they attend

    the 53rd Annual Reciprocal Meat Conference, sponsored by the

    American Meat Science Association.

 

    “It is truly amazing how much scientific research and how many top

    meat scientists are here in one place at one time,” said Jimmy Keeton,

    AMSA past president and an animal science professor at Texas A&M

    University in College Station. “That’s one of the reasons this is such an

    important conference for so many people in the meat science

    community.”

 

    The importance was underscored by this year’s RMC attendance.

 

    “We don’t have the final numbers yet, but I can definitely say that we

    have registered a record number of attendees,” said Thomas Powell,

    AMSA’s executive director.

 

    In fact, many of the meeting rooms resembled mini-rock concerts, with

    people standing in the aisles, sitting on the floor and generally

    cramming into available space in a kind of pseudo mosh pit.

 

    Except without any music, singing or dancing.

 

    In fact, most of the day-long conference yesterday was devoted to

    scientific matters, but several educational sessions dealing with trends

    in retail meat marketing and retailer-run foodservice operations drew

    overflow crowds.

 

    As part of a presentation on retail case management, consultant and

    industry veteran Ken Johnson outlined both the problems with fresh

    meat marketing and some of the innovative solutions beginning to

    merge among more progressive retailers.

 

    “Today’s supermarket meat case is a sea of color, with confusing

    names and seemingly random placement of products,” Johnson said.

    “It’s frustrating shopping the meat case -- even when you do know what

    you want. The key is to help consumers focus on solutions to

    preparing that day’s dinner, since more than 70 percent of people don’t

    even know by 4 p.m. what they’re having for dinner that evening. But

    we’re not doing a very good job with that in the meat arena.”

 

    Johnson said that a wealth of consumer and market research, much of

    it conducted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, has

    suggested that the ideal set-up would include the following categories:

 

    * Kitchen-Ready. These include meat products that are basically

    ready to cook, including marinated and pre-seasoned meats, stuffed

    chops and other value-added selections.

 

    * Prepared Foods. These include the ready-to-heat and various

    heat-and-serve home meal replacement-type products, such as

    meatloaf and pot roast.

 

    *Traditional Foods. This includes fresh meats, separated by species

    and type of cooking method in the home, whether grilling, stir frying, or

    roasting.

 

    In the Prepared Foods category, the availability -- and quality of

    products is growing, but many retailers haven’t caught up yet, Johnson

    said. “They need to merchandise these products, but most retailers

    haven’t really re-set their cases to accommodate the merchandising

    HMR foods need,” he said.

 

    Later, Tom Rourke, vice president of R&D for Milwaukee-based

    Emmpak Foods, told The MEATINGPLACE.COM that his company’s

    ready-to-heat line of prepared meat entrees was “holding its own,” but

    that problems with retailers had hindered the line’s acceptance.

 

    “We were in a major Southeast grocery chain -- some 250 stores --

    with the product,” he said. “But they were pretty much just stacking the

    product in the case. The support they gave it tended to taper off after

    the introduction.”

 

    Rourke said Emmpak’s line is due for a re-formulation, with smaller

    portion sizes to lower the per-package ring and newer, more flavorful

    sauces to accent the taste profiles of the products.

 

    “Actually, I’d love to develop a few more exotic products,” he said. “But

    if you develop eight or nine entrees, the retailer typically is only going

    to carry four, and then you’re stuck with the other five. Plus, most

    consumers won’t buy pre-packaged products that aren’t pretty

    mainstream.”

 

    Johnson also noted that many retailers are beginning to re-emphasize

    frozen meats. “That’s surprising to me,” he said, “but it’s a definite

    trend.”

 

    As proof, Johnson said that the Kroger Co. had recently hired a

    specialist whose job was solely to focus on merchandising frozen

    meats.

 

    He also noted that NCBA’s “Muscle Profiling” project, which aims to

    identify specific muscles in the beef chuck and round that can be

    economically pulled out and separately merchandised was well

    underway.

 

    He said that two smaller, private supermarket chains, Ukrop’s in

    Richmond, Va., and Heinen’s in Cleveland, had already bought into the

    program and were selling such cuts as round tip center roast (from the

    rectus femoris muscle in the beef round) and the teres major, another

    round muscle that he said “eats beautifully -- like a pork tenderloin.”

 

    Ultimately, Johnson said that as many as six or eight new muscles will

    be identified and removed from the round and the chuck, either by

    packers or by further processors, and marketed both at retails and at

    foodservice.

 

    “With the help of this program and continued R&D efforts among both

    the meat industry and their retail customers, I can foresee a day when

    we will have a lot fewer cuts in the case, but a sell a lot more meat,” he

    said. “We have a lot of opportunities to market red meat to consumers.

    But if it isn’t easy to buy and easy to prepare, consumers will simply

    obtain their food elsewhere.”

 

    MEETING NOTES . . . During a fairly animated exchange, speakers

    and audience members discussed the HACCP program -- or lack

    thereof -- that has been allegedly under development among the

    nation’s supermarketers during the past two years.

 

    Ken Johnson, a consultant and former NCBA executive said that in

    recent meetings with representatives of the Food Marketing Institute,

    which represents retailers, officials said HACCP was not suited for

    supermarkets.

 

    “They (FMI officials) said that their members don’t like all the

    record-keeping,” Johnson reported, drawing laughter and rueful looks

    from meat industry attendees. “And they don’t want to be held

    accountable in terms of liability if they had a HACCP failure at a store.”

    The net result is that most retailers -- with FMI’s support -- will opt for a

    generic “food-safety” program instead, Johnson said. Translation: Lip

    service to the principles of HACCP without having to invest in and

    maintain a real program.

 

    The Red Angus Association of America is moving forward with a rapidly

    growing program to build acceptance among producers and packers of

    Red Angus genetics, according to Bilynn Schutte, the research and

    carcass program coordinator for the Denton, Texas-based organization.

 

    She told The MEATINGPLACE.COM that Excel Corp. has agreed to

    partner into the Red Angus program, which is geared toward helping

    packers source higher quality cattle. “We’re not aiming for a consumer

    brand, such as CAB,” Schutte said. “But this breed has some

    outstanding traits, and in just over a year we’ve delivered more than

    66,000 cattle through the program.”

 

    Reports of the consumer interest in the irradiated beef patties rolled

    through Minnesota and Iowa by Chandler, Minn.-based Huisken Meats

    are not exaggerated, according to Donald Kropf, a Kansas State

    University meat scientist. Kropf sent a colleague up to Minnesota to

    obtain some boxes of the irradiated patties so KSU would have them

    available for sampling. But after checking three stores in the Twin

    Cities, Kropf said his colleague was able to finally find one single box,

    which the meat manager agreed to set aside so that it wouldn’t get

    sold.

 

    In recognition of The Ohio University’s hosting of this year’s RMC, staff

    members at the university’s Department of Animal Sciences prepared

    the following Ohio trivia:

 

    Did you know . . . ?

 

    * That development of the “Xerox Process” was commercialized at the

    Battelle Institute, across from the OSU campus?

    * That the “jeep” was developed by Toledo’s Willys-Overland company

    just in time for use in World War II? (And that the trade name is now

    partly owned by a German automaker?)

    * That Elsie the cow, the trademark of Columbus-based Bordens, was

    introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair?

    * That an Oberlin College student developed the process for smelting

    aluminum?

    * That baseball scorecards were first created by entrepreneur Harry

    Stevens in 1887 for the Columbus Saints team? (And that Stevens later

    took credit for introducing hot dogs to the Polo Grounds in New York

    City?)

    * That eight U.S. presidents were born in Ohio? (And that nobody can

    remember much about any of them: Garfield, Grant, Harding, Harrison

Benjamin, not William Henry -- Hayes, McKinley and Taft?)