V.RMH.0106 - Completion of Customer personas – Wellness carcass map meat and Size of the prize value proposition identification (2Morrows Foods)

Summary

The purpose of this research was to determine whether there is new value to be created from wellness attributes of individual cuts of red meat. If so, Australian red meat processors and producers may be able to develop new business models to capture value associated with consumer wellness benefits.

Objectives

1. Interrogate past/current MLA activities in personalised nutrition and preventative wellness innovations – including AgResearch carcase mapping project and “desirability-feasibility-viability” assumptions and market feedback to date. As directed by MLA, discuss outcomes with research partners to capture key insights and data to report on.

2. Extrapolate the forces, drivers, costs and returns in this opportunity space and construct a CBA model to demonstrate what value is created and captured for the Australian red meat industry. In particular, this is to include commentary for future modes of operation where carcases maybe objectively graded and efficiently fabricated based on key quality cues and mapping for wellness traits, and the size of an addressable market who desire this type of merchandising through to a value chain where this may be in addition to (or in place of) MSA for value-based marketing.

3. Final report to MLA summarising key findings and assumptions along with CBA model to demonstrate measurement and evaluation metrics.

Key findings

The Consultant was able to aggregate the qualitative results across all the previous projects reviewed. Many of these findings are based on claims made on product packaging or from consumer testing. The three highest claims were ‘immunity boosting’, ‘sustainable meat’ and ‘joint health’. There are also interesting country specific findings on reduced fat claims and nutritional benefits.
The results from AgResearch in section 4.2 for this project were not as anticipated. Because there were no research/interview questions aligning emotion to wellness benefits of each individual cut (and the differential wellness benefits between cuts), there is no conclusion about whether consumers are prepared to pay more for wellness at the expense of eating quality. Hence, there was no basis from which to develop a cost benefit analysis.

Benefits to industry

People buy food for a range of reasons including health benefits. Chinese medicine has viewed food as medicine for centuries. More and more, consumers globally are viewing food as medicine. It stands to reason that grouping cuts with higher concentrations of wellness elements to meet a consumers wellness needs will attract a new level of demand from a new type of consumer, and therefore deliver value to industry.
At this stage, the benefits to industry cannot be quantified. Specifically, the trade off in value between wellness claims, existing eating quality claims, cooking methods and shifts in value between these different value systems cannot be modelled with any meaning. Once cuts-based differentiation of wellness claims, and willingness to pay trade-offs are collected, the benefit to industry can be estimated. This should also take into consideration the trade-off in buying decisions between other food sources.

MLA action

Publishing the final report on the MLA R&D website.

Future research

Future research will need to integrate the questions and steps outlined below:
1. What are the biological / wellness differentials between cuts?
a. There must be existing research (meat science literature review) about the wellness of individual cuts, such as minerals and trace elements, bioactives, collagen, and saturated and unsaturated fats
b. Consumer trials need to incorporate underlying meat science, with re-designed emotion-based questions that reflect this
c. Also need to include ‘willingness to pay’ for wellness attributes.
2. Are the secondary cuts better in wellness concentration? If not, then this will further devalue secondary cuts. If Yes, then there may be an opportunity to elevate secondary cut value.
3. Will consumers pay more for wellness?
4. Will they pay more for wellness, even with lower eating quality?
5. Can high wellness/low EQ cuts be value-added to create new consumer value proposition? For example, is there an ability to value-add lower eating quality cuts such as burgers or mince, but with a wellness claim based on selecting cuts high in that wellness element?
6. If Yes, then what are the business models, messaging and communication to realise this value.