Charlotte - New beef products that can be cooked and on dinner tables in as little as 10 minutes are just now reaching supermarkets and industry leaders said more will be coming as the demand for quick-fix foods increases.
“The industry needs it and needs it fast,” said Carl Blackwell, executive director of product development for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. “You are probably witnessing the ground breaking now.”
Beef consumption has fallen steadily since the mid-1980s and much of that demise has come because of the rise in quick- to-fix poultry items the past few years. To recover some of the lost business the beef industry, using check-off dollars, in January began a $25 million marketing campaign focusing on quick-to- fix items.
Part of that $25 million financed the industry's new television ad slogan “In the next 10 minutes good things are going to happen. Beef, it's What's For Dinner.”
The theme for this week's National Cattlemen's Beef Association annual convention here is “Building Demand for Beef.”
Some of that demand likely will be for new items just reaching the market. Excel Corp, the nation's second largest beef packer, has introduced a “Butcher and Cook's” line of pre- cooked beef products.
“It's almost in its infancy right now,” said Del Holzer, an Excel vice president, who was a panellist at a convention session.
About five percent of Excel's beef sales are in the Butcher and Cook's line and Holzer said “we are very aggressively forecasting a lot of growth in this area.”
At Harris Teeter Inc's 145 supermarkets in the southeast U.S., sales of quick-to-fix Certified Angus Beef items increased 20% since they were first offered 18 months ago, said Luke Laperriere, manager of the chain's meat and seafood department and an NCBA panellist.
“Because of the food safety aspect, it will be pushed a lot harder. It minimises contamination and eases tracking,” he said of the items, which are prepared at beef processing plants and reduces handling at supermarket meat departments.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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