Looking at the Loin Differently
Fresh, safe, humanely raised, identity-preserved, tender, juicy, flavorful – all these attributes are important when it comes to meat quality. The term means different things to different people, but the bottom line is that the pork industry has some work to do when it comes to changing the image of the pork loin.
“Across the whole meat case, we’ve had a pullback in domestic demand,” says Glynn Tonsor, professor in the department of agricultural economics at Kansas State University. “In my opinion, the reason it’s slipped is macroeconomics. Buying power for consumers has eroded. It’s not a product quality concern, per say.”
Still, the needle for pork loins has barely moved in 50 years, says David Newman, the new senior vice president of market growth at the National Pork Board. “We haven’t changed per-capita consumption in 50 years. It’s still at approximately 50 lbs. We can’t do the same thing we’ve been doing. We have to go out and sell it,” Newman stresses.
“For a number of years, we’ve pushed product into the marketplace – the reality is there’s a lot of competition out there,” says Kiersten Hafer, vice president of strategy and domestic market development at the National Pork Board. “We’re using consumer pull-through and reminding them how to use it. We need to move beyond price and promotion to keep pork top-of-mind, and move beyond price as the primary metric.”
New initiative: Loin Complex Task Force – Areas for Exploration
To address the continuing demand lag in pork loins, the National Pork Board is putting together a Loin Complex Task Force. The task force will comprise stakeholders from all market segments: producers, packers, retailers, foodservice, consumers, government representatives and more. It will explore five primary areas:
1. The role of pork
• As a protein
• Quality and consistency
• Pork as an ingredient
• Ownable position for taste and flavor
• In mealtime
2. Space and place
• Cross purchases
• Position in the case
• Value – accessible and value for the money
• Geographic implications
3. Innovation
• Fabrication
• Beyond traditional cuts
• Value-added versus fresh
• Premium cuts/quality
4. Consumer education
• Nutrition
• Assortment (cuts that make up the primal)
• How/when to use
• How to cook
• Versatility
• Eating experience
• Sustainability
5. Consumer pull-through
• Usage queues
• Merchandising
• Cooking appliance
• Recipes
• Multicultural
• Generational focus
• Lifestyle focus
It’s an all-encompassing effort to address issues associated with merchandising pork loins and with input from a wide range of people, the task force should provide some needed direction, says Hafer.
“There are so many consumers who are stuck in their ways,” she says. “Younger consumers think pork is an ingredient and we want to help them understand what to do with it. We’re going to talk about how we can shake things up. We need to grab the low-hanging fruit and be helpful in guiding consumers without being preachy. Consumers want the full story – they want to know where their food came from so we need to talk about the investments and the improvements the industry has made.”
Retail is the most complex category to solve, says Hafer, “because we lose control when they take the product home. We also need to find ways to get pork into foodservice.
“We invite you to provide feedback and ask questions and we truly mean it,” Hafer appealed to the seminar audience. “We want to bring this learning to the domestic market and unlock the growth opportunity by bringing the best minds together to attack it. It’s a multi-year approach. Everything is on the table and we’re all going to be talking about the loin.”
She encourages stakeholders to reach out to her at the National Pork Board if they’d like to learn more about the initiative and/or be involved. Read Part 1.
