Eighty-seven percent of consumers say they will more than likely purchase pork harvested from the PRRS-resistant pig (PRP). In fact, 91% of Gen X respondents and 90% of female respondents say they are likely to buy the product, especially after they understood that the pork on their plates remains unchanged, both from a safety and taste standpoint.
These findings hail from a recent survey Pig Improvement Company (PIC) conducted with Circana on the consumer acceptance of the PRP. The survey surveyed 1,000 representative shoppers across the U.S., ages 18 to 70, and covered many different consumer segments, representing gender, generation and race, as well as heavy versus light pork consumers, and healthy versus mainstream consumers. Four messages, based on the findings of peer-reviewed research on the benefits of removing PRRS, were shared with the respondents about pork products from the PRP: fewer antibiotics, improved sustainability, safety and no impact to taste.
“The technology is effective, it's very exciting. But one of the things that we need to make sure of is that the entire value chain feels comfortable with utilizing this technology … so we kind of segment the value chain this way with farmer and producer, packer and processor, food service and retail, and then of course, the consumer at the end,” said Banks Banker, PIC Senior Director, New Product Strategy. “Our market acceptance strategy is fairly simple. We need to make sure that everybody in the value chain across all these different segments understands that there's a benefit for them by having a PRRS-resistant pig.”
After years of extensive research and a lengthy regulatory approval process, Genus PIC received clearance from the FDA on April 30 for the PRP to be used in the U.S. food supply chain. For more than 30 years, pork producers around the world have battled the devastating porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome virus, which negatively impacts pig health and welfare and creates pork supply and sustainability challenges. The PRRS virus suppresses pigs' immune systems, making them more susceptible to secondary infections that may need to be treated by antibiotics.
From 2016 to 2020, PRRS was responsible for an estimated $1.2 billion loss per year in U.S. pork industry production, an 80% increase from a decade earlier, according to a recent analysis by Iowa State University. The reason PRRS is the most economically damaging illness for U.S. swine producers is due to the virus causing respiratory distress in pigs of all ages and reproductive problems in breeding stock. Controlling the disease is also a continuous challenge because the RNA virus that causes PRRS evolves frequently, and vaccines have had limited effectiveness.
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