UNITED STATES,

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

Muriel Elizabeth Hayes

November 18, 2008

A livestock and beef expert from the University of Kansas, gave a broadside of criticism against the American beef industry, who he claimed had rested on their laurels while Brazil grew and grew.

Ted Schroeder said “the United States was the worlds second largest beef exporter after Australia in 2000.We hit a wall in 2003 when the first case of BSE was discovered in the country, our export markets shut-down overnight. In the meantime Australia and Brazil shot past us, the beef packing house in Grand Island is owned by Brazilian giant JBS SA, that is the kind of competitors we have in the world. The US beef industry didn’t respond, rather complained about the competition”.

Mr Schoeder was of course refereeing to the outcry, that has been the focus of blocking the JBS-Swift takeover of National Beef Packing Co.

Source:

Muriel Elizabeth Hayes

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Marketing specialist: Beef industry needs to focus more on consumer

By Bob Hamar

GateHouse News Service

Posted Nov 16, 2008

via The Grand Island Independent – Colorado

GRAND ISLAND — Better focus on consumer's needs and demand can help the industry rebound, said Ted Schroeder, a Kansas State University livestock marketing specialist.

Schroeder was a recent speaker at the annual Ag at the Crossroads Conference in Lincoln, sponsored by the Nebraska AgRelations Council and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Agricultural Economics.

Schroeder said the United States was the second-largest beef exporter in 2000, behind only Australia. "But we hit a wall in December 2003," when the first case of BSE was discovered in the country.

"Our export markets shut down immediately, overnight," Schroeder said.

While that resulted in a $4 billion loss to the industry in 2004, Schroeder said the export market has bounced back and is expected to be worth about 75 percent what it was in 2000.

In the meantime, Brazil passed both Australia and the U.S. in beef exports.

The beef packing house in Grand Island is owned by JBS, a Brazilian company.

"That's the kind of competitors we have in the world," Schroeder said.

But he said some in the U.S. beef industry did not respond constructively to the challenges of recent years.

He said packing plants were a scapegoat, along with speculators in the cattle-futures markets and Canadians.

Some of these efforts only made matters worse, Schroeder said. Meanwhile, he said, consumers "were walking away from our product ... and we weren't doing anything."

Schroeder said consumers cited a number of expectations for meat products: guaranteed safe, tender, flavorful, consistently high quality, healthy and nutritious, environmentally friendly production, animal friendly production, local production, convenient to prepare and competitively priced.

But consumers don't know, at the time they buy a product, whether it meets many of those attributes, Schroeder said. He said the industry needs to commit to meeting these expectations and then market to them.

"Explicit labeling and brands are essential to convey and assure information," Schroeder said. "We don't tell our story enough. We don't let the consumer know what our product is about."

Schroeder cited five errors the industry makes:

-- Defensiveness about criticism. "All that does is feed the fire."

-- Too much secretiveness. "We need to be open and honest about what we're doing."

-- Camouflaging through labeling gimmicks. For example, Schroeder said, "The word ’natural' in the meat case means almost nothing."

-- Assuming "consumers are stupid." "They're not stupid. They're very savvy, and they have lots of information."

-- Scare tactics.

Schroeder offered these tips for the beef industry to better connect with consumers:

-- "Give 'em what they want."

-- "Show and tell our story."

-- Invest in new technologies that are aimed at consumers.

-- Coordinate and share information within the industry, rather than keeping it secret for what may be a short-term competitive advantage that hurts the industry in the long term.

-- "Give 'em your 800 number." Encouraging consumer feedback sends the message, "I'm proud of this. Come talk to me about it."

The entire continuum of the beef industry needs to be part of the solution, Schroeder said -- "from the 75-year-old rancher out in western Nebraska ... to the 14-year-old in Chicago who's working in fast food."

"I am optimistic. I think there's lots and lots of opportunities," he said.

The Nebraska AgRelations Council is a statewide, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that focuses on telling the story of Nebraska agriculture and promoting a better understanding by both agriculturalists and nonagriculturalists of its achievements as well as its challenges.

theindependent.com