Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is talking with the Senior Executive Director of Scientific Affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Dr. Mandy Carr Johnson, about beef consumer market research.
“We monitor their changes in perceptions, their buying habits, and what is truly driving demand,” Carr-Johnson explained. The information is gathered through daily field surveys recording data from thousands of consumers each month.
Over the past couple of years, the data has indicated a shift towards a greater desire for health, nutrition, and wellness. Additionally, consumers are more curious about animal welfare and learning how their food is raised.
“We know that consumers like eating beef, and we don’t want to jeopardize that great eating experience, but we need to make sure they know that beef can be convenient and versatile and fit many different budgets,” Carr-Johnson explained.
A tool that has proven helpful for her and her team is focused on consumer groups. “We get groups of consumers together on a topic and we dig deep into their thoughts about how animals are raised, or what their beliefs are about sustainability in beef, what are their underlying challenges or what are their positive perceptions. We dig into things like nutrition and what consumers are looking for.”
A major focus of research has been related to food safety and things that affect it, such as pathogens and microbiology. “We know salmonella has had the least reduction across all foods when it comes to human illness, so what does that mean for beef and how can we reduce the likelihood that a beef product causes a salmonella outbreak,” Carr-Johnson detailed.
After the most recent National Beef Quality Audit, conducted once every five years, denoted an increase in foreign objects found in carcasses, cuts, and consumer products. “We don’t ever want a consumer to ever get a beef product with foreign objects in it, like BBs,” Carr-Johnson said.
Every packing plant in the nation has reported finding foreign objects in beef, so research is being done on foreign object detection in live animals so adjustments can be made in processing to remove the object before it reaches the consumer.
Johnson emphasized the importance of a strong science foundation backing the Beef Checkoff’s marketing techniques. “Conducting research on beef and understanding how it can fit into a healthy diet, in a healthy lifestyle, is important,” Carr-Johnson said. “As diets come and go, what role does beef have across all of them in helping maintain good energy, maintain good muscle mass as we age, post-surgical recovery – how can beef be part of that every day in any life stage, whether it’s an adolescent wanting to play sports, or it is aging Americans who want to stay strong.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
