National Meat Case Study 2010
Sealed Air’s Cryovac Food Packaging Unit, The Beef Checkoff Program, and the National Pork Board teamed up again in 2010 to conduct an extensive audit of the nation’s meat cases. This research project, the National Meat Case Study 2010, was benchmarked against the same study conducted in 2002, 2004 and 2007 to provide further insights into emerging retail trends nationally. It delivers a comprehensive look at the changes in retail meat cases over time.
Surveyors audited 124 retail supermarkets and nine club stores in 51 metro markets across 31 states on various days of the week at random times. This summary only addresses the more than 160,000 packages representing more than 288,000 pounds and 21,000 SKUs of meat products that were captured in supermarkets to further understand the growing transformation seen in the retail meat case during the last eight years.
Key Findings
Each protein’s share of package count and pounds found in the meat case during the audits remained relatively stable in 2010 when compared to 2007. Other key findings, however, surfaced and pointed to the important role information and marketing claims now have at the meat case.Each protein’s share of package count and pounds found in the meat case during the audits remained relatively stable in 2010 when compared to 2007. Other key findings, however, surfaced and pointed to the important role information and marketing claims now have at the meat case.
- Store branding numbers changed the most of any audited categories in the study. The percent of packages with store branding in the meat case has tripled since 2004.
- General consumer information on package grew. On-package nutrition labeling numbers and cooking information continued to increase. This year’s study also captured production claims, COOL labeling and the use of bilingual labels for the first time, giving further insight into the marketing activities taking place at the meat case.
- Packaging also changed. The amount of case ready packaging increased, while average package weight remained steady at 2 pounds.
- Products with a natural claim grew in 2010, up 10 percentage points from 2004.
- The zero stock analysis shines a spotlight on potential lost sales by documenting top selling cuts that were out of stock.
Beef: In addition to store branding, another major development in 2010 for beef was value/family packs. Most beef categories increased the percentages of total packages that were family/value packs. The category that increased the most was offals, which increased from 2% in 2007 to 14% in 2010. Ground beef had the second highest increase from 3% in 2007 to 11% in 2010.
Pork: Among the data for pork, the most change was in the area of enhanced product. Enhanced product counts for pork significantly declined 6 percentage points from 45% in 2004 to 39% in 2010.
Chicken: Many retail areas have seen an increase in family and value size packs. Chicken saw a significant increase in the value/family packs sold. It increased from only 6% in 2007 to 15% in 2010.
Turkey: For turkey, the major change was in natural claims. Natural claims increased 45 percentage points to 61% of turkey packages. Also, 71% of turkey packages are now exact weight, driven by ground turkey. Cooking information increased 9 percentage points to 76% of packages, leading all proteins.
Lamb: Nutrition labeling was a big story for lamb. It doubled to 36% of lamb packages. Also, ground lamb increased 4 percentage points to 13% of lamb packages.
Veal: Ground veal increased 11 percentage points to 23% of veal packages. Veal Scallopini, a higher priced cut, increased 10 percentage points to 21% of packages despite the economic conditions. Nutrition labeling also increased for veal, up 19 percentage points to 29% of packages.