What is the Canadian pork value proposition? What gives Canadian pork the edge over commodity products? First of all, world class genetics combined with high energy feed grains result in the highest quality product. Grown by dedicated farmers on Canada’s plentiful land served by abundant fresh water, these animals are raised according to HACCP based on-farm food safety standards.
Animals that are then processed by an export-driven business culture with over four decades of experience, the industry delivers a product that meets the exacting specifications of the most demanding markets.
Growing the commodity category means identifying the opportunity and differentiating the product through market segmentation, categorizing attributes, leveraging the quality and communicating to the customer. Here is a brief overview:
Market Segmentation
It’s important to review the marketplace by sector (i.e. foodservice or retail), by sub-sector and then by end-user customer to understand their needs and develop the right product for the right market.
Ensuring the supply chain is the “right size”, with the product assortment, specifications, quality attributes, volumes and frequencies needed is an important part of the process.
Product Differentiation
The key to success is to differentiate, highlighting the benefits of a product over their competition.
We can talk about the following attributes when differentiating Canadian pork from commodity product:
| — | Meat quality attributes |
| — | Traceability |
| — | On-farm food safety |
| — | Animal welfare |
| — | Exclusivity |
| — | Consistency |
| — | Exacting specifications |
| — | Financial performance |
| — | Promotional support |
| — | Consumer marketing |
The value of all of these benefits – whether functional, emotional or exclusive – lead to a premium price for Canadian pork.
Leverage the Quality
Customers are willing to pay a premium for quality standards that consistently deliver pork with the following attributes:
| — | Reddish, pink meat colour |
| — | Consistent marbling scores |
| — | Firm, fine textured meat |
| — | White fat |
In fact, when surveyed, 90% of respondents said that a quality program that delivered those attributes would give them an advantage in the marketplace – 67% said they would pay a premium to be able to offer this product…and 71% believe their customers would pay a premium for it.*
To demonstrate the opportunity, it is important to redefine value, yield and financial performance through competitive benchmarking, retail meat case engineering, food service menu engineering and fresh vs cooked meat yield processing.
Engage the End-User
It is critical to communicate to the end-user in ways that make sense for them - focus on sector and culturally specific performance drivers. Provide them with tools to help them promote and share information to enhance product quality, sales growth and the Canadian brand equity to earn a premium.
Understanding the marketing, differentiating the product, leveraging the quality and engaging your customer is a winning combination for adding value and growing the commodity category.
*Source CPI Pork Quality Perceptions Audit 2007-2008
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