The coals are glowing in backyards around the country and so are sales of grilling items. That's no surprise, given the season and the current climate for low prices on beef. But for many retail meat merchandisers, this successful season is being fueled not so much by hot dog and hamburger volume, but by increased interest in nontraditional grilling items.
That's what retailers told SN in the weeks following the important Fourth of July weekend. Specific promotions and featured items are varying from region to region, judging from retailers' comments. Still, meat executives are finding a common thread: satisfactory seasonal sales increases, tied at least in part to the departments' attempts to answer consumer demand for options beyond burgers and dogs.
"The hottest thing in our area is kabobs," said David Young, director of merchandising at Marsh Supermarkets, Indianapolis. "[They require] very intensive labor, to do the cut vegetables, cut meat into a number of pieces, and then the time it takes to put them on the skewer -- but the customers here really enjoy kabobs," he told SN. "The tendency is that people think it's more healthy because they're eating vegetables [as well]."
Young said the kabobs sell for around $2.99 a pound.
"You have to kind of keep in mind you're selling vegetables at a higher retail; you're selling the skewers. [But] there's only a limited amount of steaks you can put out there, because some are $6 or $7 a pound."
Kabobs are the hot new item in the barbecue section at Mayfair Super Markets this year, according to Harry Pappas, vice president of meat merchandising at the Elizabeth, N.J.-based chain.
The skewered, ready-to-cook items are the latest addition to a healthy assortment. "We generally have a barbecue section with beef, pork, chicken and turkey kabobs, ready-to-cook items, sliced ribs, cooked ribs and marinated items," he added.
Pappas said he has seen an increase in customer purchases of ready-made items overall. Alternatives to beef also are proving to be hits this season, he said, including an up-and-coming rookie, vegetarian burgers.
"Veggie burgers are doing real well. Ground chicken and turkey have been escalating in demand over the last couple of years, and veggie burgers are now sitting in that shadow.
"So if we sell 1,000 pounds of turkey burgers, we sell about half that in veggie burgers."
Veggie burgers are also good sellers in the "beef substitute" category at Steele's Markets, Fort Collins, Colo., said co-owner Russell Kates.
"Out of tofu burgers, veggie dogs and veggie burgers, veggie burgers sell best," he told SN. Kates said beef is still the dominant choice for grilling in his region, however. "Beef sales have been strong. Sales in ground beef are up -- we're selling it for 79 cents [per pound] and we're making money," Kates noted.
"Ball-tip steaks, the tip of the sirloin, is our biggest seller," he continued. "It's very lean, with hardly any fat. We're known in town for them, and we had them on sale at about $1.99 per pound. We sell about 10,000 pounds with a sale like that."
Steele's routinely cross-merchandises barbecue cuts with bakery buns, onion rolls and baguettes, according to Kates.
The seasonal promotions benefit not only the meat department, but often the entire store as well, Kates added. Current favorable market conditions have made these grilling features extremely viable.
"Wholesale prices have [convinced] us to get hot on meat," he told SN. "A meat ad drives sales for the whole store.
"We just finished a really successful promotion, where we put a grocery bag in newspapers, 60,000 bags, and customers got 10% off whatever could fit in the bag; even lunch meats.
"Our meat sales were between two and three times" as much as usual, he recounted. "Our customer counts were 20% to 25% up for the whole week, and [overall] sales were up 10% to 12%. It did bring customers in."
It was the first time Steele's attempted such a promotion, Kates said, and its success means it will be used again, but with modifications for even better profitability.
"It ran for a week, and it won't run as long next time," he said.
In spite of the local emphasis on beef, chicken still commands a fair share of the meat case at Steele's. "Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are the biggest seller out of poultry," Kates said. "A lot of people marinate and grill them. We ran [a feature on them] about a week ago at $1.99 per pound, and they're usually $3.99."
Chicken is also the favorite for grilling customers at Clemens Markets, Kulpsville, Pa., said Al Kober, meat and seafood buyer/merchandiser. "Boneless and skinless chicken breast is the No. 1 grill item. [And] quarters go good when they're cheap."
Kober said the operator has not put a lot of effort behind grilling promotions overall this year. Prices of specific beef grilling cuts are still a factor.
"We haven't done any major pushing," said Kober. "We have been featuring strips and tenderloins. We try to go to shoulder London broils, which are excellent on the grill.
"Right now we're doing a lot with ground meat because prices are reasonable -- others are at a [premium] price. Beef pricing throughout the summer will be very favorable. We've got some hotter features [on beef] than we've had in a long time."
Thus, price is still the main consideration for features, Kober said. "I hate to use that as the only tool, but it does have a major effect on what people decide to grill or not to grill."
Beyond beef, however, Clemens also introduced some "alternative" items this year, such as a salmon burger. Kober said he was "very impressed" with this item, taken from a supplier in Washington state.
"It's doing better than expected. We just put it in stores and ran a reduced price [on it].
"I wasn't so sure, but we've got it out there -- after you feature it and [then] go back to the regular price, that's when you find out [the degree of success]. We're still moving enough that everybody that tried it must have liked it."
At the Marsh chain in Indiana, however, salmon burgers have apparently been less of a success this summer.
"Salmon burgers do not [sell] so much, because people instead buy salmon steaks and they buy salmon kabobs," Young said.
Fish sales, meanwhile, are getting quite a boost in the grilling season, he continued. "More people are grilling seafood than ever before, [particularly] thick muscle steaks like halibut, salmon and swordfish."
Young said he doesn't think this growth is prompted by consumer concerns about the nutritional properties of other grilling meats, however. "I think people have figured out they can [cook fish] as well as a chef can, and it's something different. It's nothing to do with 'healthy,' " he said. It's just that "more people are experimenting."
Although burgers are still among the best-selling grill items for Marsh, Young says just as many customers are purchasing boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
And while salmon burgers may not be hot, other ground meat alternatives are. "Here in the Midwestern states, ground beef was always what people buy. Now they're buying lamb, veal and especially pork patties. He added that the National Pork Producers Council "really went all out" with a summer promotion program this year built around the theme, "Pork: The Other Burger."
According to the council, that promotion is part of a marketing effort that began last autumn. "The Other Burger is a versatile, fresh ground meat that will add flavor and excitement to nearly any consumer's taste as well as profits to your bottom line," the council said in printed matter intended to encourage retailers to use the program.
"Simply feature The Other Burger tag line, display the four-color point-of-sale materials in your meat case, then watch how the consumers' desires of versatility will add to your bottom line," the council said.
From Young's perspective, it is helping that pork is also the other cheaper burger. "Pork patties sell for a lower price than beef patties -- about $1.29 to $1.39 for an 80% lean patty," Young said. "A really lean ground beef patty goes for about $2."
Rib-end boneless pork loins are also having a good year at Marsh, he added.
In Texas, beef for grilling is still the king in the meat department, at least in the marketing region of Minyard Food Stores, Coppell, Texas.
"Located where we are in Dallas, beef sales are strong -- substitutes don't do very well," said Arley Morrison, vice president of meat, deli and seafood.
"We have a signature type of broiling steak for the summer months. I decided to select beef T-bones, which we feature at $2.98 per pound, [and which are] in an ad on a weekly basis," he said.
But even in Texas, beef does not stand alone. The T-bones have brought good business through the stores, but so have salmon steaks, Morrison said. "We have had excellent sales. [Sales have] at least doubled on those items.
"Plus, all the stores are displaying shish kebabs. In the cook-out sections, we have broiling steaks and chicken, boneless pork, and pork, chicken and beef kabobs."
Boneless pork loins have not proved as profitable as they started out to be, he noted. "We were able to buy boneless pork for $1.70 to 1.80 per pound, but [they're] now up over $2."
The chain is able to run features on hot dogs, with a 1-pound package of Wilson jumbo hot dogs at 78 cents, and Oscar Mayer at 98 cents. "All are less than $1 per pound," said Morrison.
"Also a good seller is chopped steak, per ground and 85% lean. [It] comes in a 5-pound tube, our markets cut chopped steaks out of it and they have really sold well for us."
A retail meat merchandiser for another Dallas chain told SN that "fat-free hot dogs probably breathed a little life into the hot dog category, which has been waning in recent years. [Fat-free] has been creating gains in sales."
The merchandiser agreed with his competitor at Minyard, however, that the demand for beef overall had not waned this year. He gave most of the credit to strategic public relations by the industry.
"Beef is getting better press -- one thing I've seen is people really want to find an excuse to eat beef, and they're beginning to find things in the media that [give them that excuse]."
Briskets are the hottest selling barbecue items for his Texas chain, which ran a Fourth of July feature on the cut at 77 cents per pound. "The biggest sellers were franks and briskets. Briskets are easy to promote," he said.
"One issue is the price of rib eyes, strips and T-bones; they're so high in the summer months, we can't really feature them. Rib eyes are prohibitively priced right now.
"In the long term, chicken is cutting into beef [sales], but when we have a barbecue holiday it takes a back seat," the Texas merchandiser said.
According to a recent survey conducted by The Wirthlin Group for the National Cattlemen's Association, of the 70% of Americans who grill at least two to three times per month during the summer, 62% choose beef, 25% chicken, 4% pork, and 1% each turkey and fish. Out of the beef eaters, 44% favor hamburgers, 39% steaks, 5% beef ribs and 3% beef shish kebabs and hot dogs.
In order to further exploit these preferences, the beef industry has set up point-of-sale Recipe Centers in 13,000 stores nationwide, according to Jerry Kelly, beef retail manager for the National Livestock and Meat Board.
Five different grilled beef "meals" were detailed in the recipes, which were available to shoppers at participating stores from the second week in June.
"What we found from doing research on a similar unit last year was that 23% of the people that picked [the recipes] up intended to purchase more beef as a result," Kelly said.
