With the consumer market for pork and other protein sources changing rapidly, the Pork Checkoff is putting the finishing touches on a plan to capitalize on those changes by repositioning pork marketing, Terry O’Neel, president of the National Pork Board, told an audience at World Pork Expo Thursday. “The Pork Checkoff has embarked on a journey to determine how best to market pork today,” O’Neel, a pork producer from Friend, Neb., said. “The direction may be drastically different than we’ve seen in the last quarter century.”
The big changes that require a new marketing plan, the National Pork Board’s chief executive officer Bill Even said, are driven by what he called “the three M’s”:
Millennials: America’s largest generation has increasing buying power and makes buying decisions differently than its predecessor generations.
Mobile: The speed of communication and access to information fuels demand, requiring constant attention to new means of communication.
Multicultural: Currently 36 percent of the U.S. population, the newest arrivals to the U.S. and their families will make up 50 percent of the population by 2050.
Even said that responding to those drivers in a way that assures pork demand remains strong prompted the National Pork Board to spend the past year conducting extensive research to define the critical needs of pork marketing. The research has included in-depth discussions with producers, packers, processors, retailers, foodservice, and consumers.
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