Beef is still king in the meat case, but with younger generations wanting to expand and explore different flavors, competition will rise.
Some competition will come from other meats. Pork, lamb, chicken, turkey and bison are showing up in the grind, or as we know it in the beef industry, ground beef or hamburger products.
Through the years, if there ever was a success in the beef business, it was ground beef.
I’m dating myself, but I can remember when hamburger was frowned upon in the ranch cookhouse. Years later, in drive-ups – or what we now call fast food joints – ground beef exploded.
More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and current record-high beef prices have made ground beef over 50 percent of today’s beef carcass.
Millennials account for around 67 percent of the unit growth in ground beef today. This is not because they’re rediscovering burgers, though they are eating them. It’s because they are using ground beef across a wide range of cuisines and meal occasions.
The current popularity of all meat grinds and their convenience are the tip of the iceberg for broader trends in the meat industry. It seems experimentation is baked into Millennials’ and Gen Z’s relationship with food.
But even though many say they want to experiment with different types of meat and cuts, studies show poultry and ground beef remain the favorite choice, mainly because these individuals’ favorite meals involve meat but don’t revolve around it.
Studies show Millennials now account for a large part of meat buying, and their preferred meals are very different from older generations. According to the Power of Meat survey, 54 percent of Millennials love to try new types of protein, compared to 40 percent of Gen X and just 27 percent of Baby Boomers.
Furthermore, while 44 percent of Millennials said they were very interested in worldly meat products, just 23 percent of Boomers shared the same view.
Meat processors are aware of the changing definition of favorite meals, and what people cook at home is an opportunity for other proteins, cuts and value-added products. They realize younger consumers are no longer content cooking Italian food, rather, they want to cook regionally specific dishes, such as pea pesto tortellini with pancetta from Genoa.
As many know, older people are creatures of habit and tend to buy the same proteins and cuts of meat. We also realize the meat industry is not doing a good job of communicating cuts in a consumer language to make it accessible to everyone.
With labor prices rising and younger generations wanting vacuum-sealed, case-ready meat, supermarkets continue to lose consumers to supercenters and club stores.
In 2007, 72 percent of Americans considered supermarkets for their primary grocery needs, compared to 23 percent for supercenters and just three percent for club stores. Today, the supermarket share is down to 48 percent, and 34 percent of grocery shoppers shop at supercenters for groceries and club stores just up to five percent.
All grocery stores are aware of the need to reinvent their meat cases as they have to find ways to keep all ages coming back to purchase meat products, no matter their age. They are going to be more convenient, more educational and hopefully suit the customers’ needs.
Dennis is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup.
