Consumers still like beef at the center of their plates, but their needs are evolving, explained Danette Amstein of Midan Marketing. By understanding those changing needs, cattle producers can adjust their production practices and marketing to better meet them, she added.
Amstein shared Midan’s consumer insights at the Kansas Livestock Association’s annual meeting in December. The first step is to understand the five different types of meat consumers.
1. Protein Progressives typically skew younger — are Gen X or Millennials. “They like our product,” Amstein said. “But they like to eat all the proteins.” They’re looking for an adventurous meal, and to keep them engaged with beef, we have to provide them that adventure, she added.
2. Family First Food Lovers are those who pay attention to the health and wellness product claims that they’re buying, “but their most important goal every day is to sit the family down at the table,” Amstein said. “She’s more interested in our natural and organic-type products that we have available to her.”
3. Aging Traditionalists are those loyal consumers of beef who don’t believe it’s a real meal until there’s a hunk of meat sitting in the center of the plate. “They aren’t really paying attention to all the hullabaloo; they just want a good steak,” Amstein said. They’re really important, but this is also a shrinking group, she added.
4. Convenience Chasers are focused on getting the meal to the table the quickest and least expensive way possible, Amstein said. They’re focusing more on value and efficiency; to keep them engaged within their tight attention span, beef marketing has to up its game. “We have to grab her attention as quickly as we can to keep her talking about beef, and keep her engaged with us,” Amstein said.
5. Wellness Divas, quite honestly, don’t want to eat beef, Amstein said. And if they’re eating beef, they’re looking for an extreme amount of claims on it, she added. They’re more likely to eat chicken and plant-based alternatives.
Postpandemic shifts
When the segmentation research was first conducted in January 2019, the largest group was the Convenience Chasers. But then the pandemic hit, and suddenly more people were staying at home and needing to juggle home schooling of their children, working from home, and just trying to find products on shelves and in the cases at their grocery store.