Pre-cooked ground beef that enables today’s shoppers to quick-fix many of their favorite quick meals is a market without a product. Pre-cooked ground beef is a Convenient Meal Solution that provides a solution rather than a replacement. It offers the kind of solution for meat that ready-to-dress packaged salads offered to produce. It would provide opportunities for stressed and busy shoppers to bypass fast food and pizza options nearly effortless home fixed meals – even when both time and energy are in very short supply. This basic solution product doesn’t exist in today’s meat cases or in today’s meal solution cases. It isn’t "there" plain or flavored. It isn’t there in regular or in extra low fat varieties. With some rare ethnic exceptions, it’s not available in frozen food sections either. "Yes to pre-cooked ground beef. About time. Anything to make meals easier." With consumer needs and supermarkets’ HMR struggles in mind, why aren’t today’s supermarkets selling something as need-responsive as pre-cooked ground beef? Couldn’t anyone produce a product worthy of consumers’ trust? "I don’t mind paying extra for convenience. I don’t want the whole meal/entrée etc. prepared but being able to get part of the ingredients cooked is great. How about fried onions, fried mushrooms, peppers and onions, as well?" Consumers use pre-cooked or browned ground beef as a characterizing ingredient in:Burritos Casseroles Chili Nachos Omelets Pizza Salads Sloppy Joes Spaghetti sauce Tacos And there are at least five compelling reasons why many of them would consider buying it pre-cooked if it was available:
Approximately 68% of American households regularly have ground beef in their refrigerator or freezer. Annual ground beef sales at retail are over $12 billion. Most ground beef purchased for home use is used in burgers and meatloaf but more (maybe much more) than 18% ($1.9 billion) is used as an ingredient. WHY ISN’T IT AVAILABLE NOW?Consumers aren’t demanding it. They just wonder why it isn’t there. Ground-beef-isn’t-what-we-really-want-to-sell continues to bias meat merchandising and marketing. This is the kind of bias that kept Detroit pushing big cars when the market was turning small. In meat, it is the kind of bias that supports blind spots and shortfalls in consumer research. Many of these shortfalls extend right into the supermarket – even though meat doesn’t have the clout today that it did twenty years ago. Pre-cooked ground beef is well established as a food service product. That’s one of the reasons processors gave us for it not being a consumer product. (If that makes sense to some of our readers, please explain it to us.) Many consumers, especially women, initially respond to the idea as yucky and say it’s something they can prepare quickly. Ground beef is seen as a price-sensitive commodity. Meat processors perceive it as a food service product. E-coli publicity and media-hyped stories about ground beef have been a deterrent to looking at ground beef as a source of new products. WHY WILL IT WORK?Safety concerns about ground beef can be addressed via high temperature controlled browning and safety testing. Branding and co-branding opportunities range from stores to processors and restaurants. Many of the same consumers who reject the pre-cooked concept at first mention warm up to it quickly as they realize the number of occasions on which it might be convenient. Flavoring options extend the appeal of pre-cooked ground beef to the generation of those who want more flavor but have low cooking skills, Flavored varieties offer these consumers a much better chance of preparing tasty foods than they have with unflavored product. Pre-cooked ground beef saves mess and pots as well as time, making it easier mentally as well as physically to fix a quick meal at home. The ability to fix ground beef dishes without making a mess is a major benefit. Pre-cooked ground beef can shave five to ten minutes from the preparation of quick meals. That’s a 25% to 50% reduction in meal preparation time for twenty-minute meals. WHO IS IN THE MARKET FOR IT?There is a big niche market made-up of busy male and female shoppers aged 18-54 who use ground beef in a variety of everyday and weekend foods. They would use it to save preparation and clean up and because it’s safe and easy for kids to use with microwave heating. FRESH VERSUS FROZENThere is a definite leaning toward fresh rather than frozen. Among the respondents who have indicated an interest in buying pre-cooked ground beef:
FLAVORED VERSUS PLAINThere are definitely markets for both flavored and unflavored varieties. The question we asked consumers was "Would you want options of having it cooked with onions, green peppers, seasoning, etc?"
In addition to the yes/no responses, a few consumers wrote in specific flavors such as Mexican, spicy, and garlic. ADDITIONAL POINTS TO CONSIDER:Protein is "in" and ground beef IS protein as well as fat. Ever since the publication of the updated Atkins diet and the new "Zone" diet, many Americans have been trying to increase their protein intake as a way of decreasing or holding their weight. Some consumers are using veggie burgers but lean ground beef is a protein builder par excellence. Others have learned to think of burgers as the epitome of junk food. But for others, it works – and it has the added benefits of comfort, familiarity, and being an integral part of many people’s favorite foods. If pre-cooked ground beef were readily available, many kids would be able to fix tacos on their own, without waiting for a parent to do or supervise the browning. Many consumers who react to the idea of pre-cooked ground beef with a "who needs it" yuck quickly reconsider their reaction with the realization of how useful it would be. Saving five to eight minutes of meal preparation time works out to a very significant time saving – and that says nothing about the reduction in clean up. ACTION NOTE:
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Packaged foods and beverages are undergoing a dramatic shift in American supermarkets. Farewell to many of those tall and thin and wonderfully stackable Circles and Squares. Hello to function-first packages that are frequently Soft, Squat, Cuddly, Shapely, Wrinkled and Spouted. First and foremost, what’s important about contemporary packages is that they "work" to solve problems and extend easy usage occasions. They are easy to open, pack, pass, tote, and squeeze into small spaces. Most of them use less materials and weigh less than traditional packages. Most of them are easily resealable. Many of them are cute, shapely and cuddly. And more and more of them are easy to open, hold and dispense. As a result, most consumers agree that packaging is getting better. They expect to see further changes in dairy, water and other beverages, in wine, liquor, condiments, confectionery, health and beauty items, snacks, pet food, dry mixes, household chemicals, motor oil, meat, cookies, soups, sauces, and meal kits. Since consumers aren’t usually visionary and that list almost covers the supermarket, we may be looking at some very different looking supermarket shelves during the next few years. Except for cereal, packaging is getting better and more innovative. Packages are becoming more user friendly. Packaging is getting better so there is less trash. Yes, I think packaging has improved. I think snacks should be in zip lock bags. Packaging is better. Stronger but lighter. More environmentally sound and safer. Jell-O envelopes could use a revamping. Shredded cheese packages with zip lock are the best.
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Cute and cuddly, short and shapely, Beanie Babies to delight millions of children with the support of adults who enjoy them almost as much as the kids. When we ask consumers whether they prefer packages to be short or tall, or short and squat versus tall and slender, they clearly and unambiguously tell us short or short and squat. Clearly there is a disconnect between what consumers think they want and what they see on the shelf in many categories. Liquid dish detergents and milk chugs have the kinds of dimensions that today’s consumers are enjoying. If you haven’t played with a beanie baby or squeezed some detergent from a new squat bottle, try it just for the feel of it. It’s secure, pleasant, and hand-friendly comfortable – nice attributes to have in a world that isn’t.
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Resealability is one of the major features of packages that "work" for today’s consumers. Packagers in dozens of categories have learned that consumers want resealability and that it sells and resells their products. In many categories it’s taken a long time. It’s thirty years since Dow introduced their ZipLock Storage bags. It’s a dozen years since Sargento introduced resealable bags for shredded cheese. It’s ten years since Oscar Mayer first packaged hot dogs in resealable bags, and about three years since Tropicana put spouts on their refrigerated juice cartons and Breyers switched from messy folding cartons to rounded reclosable rectangles. Today’s consumers are just as likely to see resealability as entitlement as a benefit. And because it has become entitlement, consumers are beginning to complain about it when it doesn’t meet their expectations.
ACTION NOTE:
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Food and drink are the stuff of fun and games as well as the stuff of nutrition, health and survival. Part of the problem that supermarkets are having comes from their focus on everything but fun at a time when fun is attracting more traffic than belly filling, nutrition, and value. Successes of theme restaurants from Dave and Busters to Planet Hollywood are leading many food marketers to the idea that good theatre may be just as important as good food. A visit to Jack Astor’s in Canada suggests
The décor at Jack Astor’s makes it instantly clear that this restaurant is about having fun with good food and drink. The menu pokes fun of itself and is full of surprises that create grins, giggles and great exchanges between customers and waitpersons. Listed among the appetizers is an Empty Warm Plate Special, described as "a very profitable item for us" priced at $4.93 plain or $5.93 with knife and fork. Waitpersons are ready and willing to sell you a shirt, build on the menu silliness, or to rate any serious dish on the menu on taste or on messiness. Desserts as well as meal items are offered in a range of sizes from gargantuan to midget. Our table ordered an oversized "yummy lemon cheesecake" at $4.97 and a full round of the "world’s most ridiculously small chocolate pudding" at $.48. The puddings were served in whisky shot glasses and topped with lovely globs of whipped cream. Prices end with 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 – none with 0, 5, and 9. Many customers buy shirts as well as dinner and almost everyone walks out smiling.
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It’s sad to see a creative retailer cutting staff and closing stores, especially a retailer as dynamic as Toys R Us. But comments from consumers during the last year have suggested that somewhere along the growth path Toys lost their customer focus and forgot that satisfying customers is still at the core of retailing. Among the complaints that surprised us most were those about the Toys R Us policy of refusing to give customers their money back unless they had a perfectly in tact receipt. Even if the merchandise was obviously brand new – even if it had never been opened – even if it had the Toys price tags fully in tact – no money back and no charge credit either. Nothing but messy toy money or scrip from Toys – an easily lost and maximum hassle form of store credit. Once customers want to get even with retailers who are mean to them, rebuilding the relationship is as hard as rebuilding a marriage after a breakdown in trust. |
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