MEAT TRENDS 2010
Wonder what is coming down the pipeline in the world of the carnivorous consumer this year?
According to Brad Frenette of the National Post there are ten top meat trends to watch over the coming year and it seems pork has the potential to be very vogue this year...
(http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theappetizer/archive/2010/01/07/the-meat-lessons-10-carnivorous-trends-to-watch-in-2010.aspx)
· Heritage Breed Pork - good taste for the discriminating consumer.
Do It Yourself Sausage - butchers create a plain sausage mixture with customized fat content for the in-home sausage maker to spice to their liking.
Sous Vide: The home version of the sous vide apparatus is now available (sous vide is quickly described as boil in a bag).
· Get to know your Butcher: For info on special products, inventory cycles and how to cook each cut. Be proactive, introduce yourself and discuss the kinds of cuts you like to cook with.
Cured/Smoked: In house cured and smoked items will continue to be popular.
· Gourmet to Go - You will start seeing incremental or partial meal replacements whether they are starches, protein, veg or sauces. Our customers know how to cook well but sometimes time is limited.
· Poultry: Free range and free run have entered the lexicon of customer vocabulary. However shoppers should also be asking if their poultry is water or air chilled (the latter being superior).
Clever Cuts: Home chefs will continue to be non-primal cuts of meat.
· Top Sirloin Cap: Grilled and cut against the grain produces a bettering alternative to the top sirloin (with some customers preferring over strip loin).
· Local Lamb: New Zealand and Australia have great lamb and have figured how to affordably ship to Canada a fresh, not frozen, product. We see customers shifting not only towards local lamb consumption.
Language: Start looking for the term “foodies” when describing a passionate food enjoyer.
Other sources such as Datamonitor’s ‘Product Launch Analytics’, which tracks new product launches in food and drinks around the world suggest some other trends to watch for:
· Animal rights have emerged as a growing worldwide concern, as consumers want to know more about how the foods they eat were raised and prepared. For example, the ‘free range’ product claim commonly used to identify how poultry are raised has nearly doubled in frequency for new food products launched worldwide since 2006. Poultry has recently been joined by free range pork, lamb and beef, and the free range trend will accelerate in 2010 as foodservice chains follow the trail blazed by leading consumer packaged goods companies into humanely raised products.
· Meat-Flavoured products such as Das Lolli Man Bait (meat-flavoured lollipops), Mo’s Dark Bacon Bar and Backon (bacon-flavoured Vodka) are poised to enjoy growth this coming year as well.
These are just a few of the popular trends being highlighted in the media recently. Pork Marketing Canada has purchased some data from AC Nielsen with the intent to do a variety of research projects such as: confirming if consumer consumption is dropping, identifying if pork sales are up, benchmarking any further programs, identifying trends in branded, verses unbranded sales. As this data is utilized we hope to continue to keep producers informed of current trends in the meat industry.