HUNT FOR CHANGE, SAY MEAT EVENT ATTENDEES

STEPHEN DOWDELL

ATLANTA -- The cries are getting louder for revolution within the retail meat department, to prevent it from lagging any further behind the rest of the store as the supermarket industry lurches toward the future.

Fresh meat, a traditional centerpiece of the store, is now face to face with the erosion of its influence in a changing supermarket environment, said executives from the retail, wholesale and supply side of the business gathered for the Annual Meat Marketing Conference here.

In speeches, seminars and hallway discussions, the message was clear: Things better start changing. Fundamental weaknesses in the way meat is being bought, merchandised and marketed at retail are hurting sales, and the situation is not likely to right itself.

The meeting was in one respect historic before it even started. It was the first conference merging two forums that represented different segments of the industry: the Food Marketing Institute/American Meat Institute conference, which would typically attract major supermarket chains and packers, and the National-American Wholesale Grocers/National Grocers conference, the venue previously attracting wholesalers and independent grocers.

The union went off well, and made it obvious to all sides that meat marketing is in trouble.

Mike Bettencourt, director of meat and seafood sales for Stop & Shop Cos., Boston, put the current state of the retail meat department into sharp relief in a preface to comments about the need to catch up on technology.

"How do you measure the integrity of a meat man? Ask him

how his business is doing," Bettencourt said. "If he tells you it is doing great, he is a liar."

Bettencourt represents what he and others acknowledged is a "new breed of meat men" in the supermarket industry, transferred over from the chain's dry grocery management structure to help drag fresh meat at least into the present with category management and other forward-looking retail strategies.

However, the "new breed" of ex-grocery men and others who think in the language of planograms were not the only meat men crying out for change at the conference.

John Story, a self-described "old fart" with more than 40 years experience in meat, and currently senior director of meat and deli operations at Holiday/ Fairway Foods, Northfield, Minn., joined the chorus at high volume.

"What we are talking about is changing the culture and nature of our business," Story said, speaking to the assembly of meat executives after Bettencourt.

Story was referring to the movement, spearheaded by the National Livestock and Meat Board, to catch up with the technological advancements begin made in the other sections of the store. The Meat Board has been working for years to build a technology-based system that would modernize the meat department's ability to gather marketing data and manipulate it into detailed department strategies.

The system, called the Value-Based Meat Management system, is undergoing testing at a number of operators, including Stop & Shop and retail customers of Fairway Foods. It involves the use of detailed, accurate data collected from front-end scanners to improve meat department production, product pricing, space allocation, marketing and other functions.

In other words, the system promises to give the meat department the power of true category management. Bettencourt, Story and other speakers involved in the creation and testing of the Value-Based Meat Management project made impassioned pleas during the conference for the system's widespread implementation.

Its supporters at the conference made it clear that implementation would mean radical changes in the way retailers think about and operate their fresh meat business.

"It's called a paradigm shift," said Story. "You can't believe how excited this old fart is to make a statement like paradigm shift. I know we've heard that statement at a lot of meetings, but that is what this is really all about, so I am going to keep calling it that."

A strategic marketing consultant with a background in meat processing and marketing sounded a similar call for action now.

The consultant, Robert J. Moeller, said "there is startling information out there that causes us to ask, what can we do? The challenge is clear: we need to make the department more effective and generate better profits."

Moeller cited studies reporting that while deli sales grew 5% in 1993 and produce grew 3.2%, meat sales grew only four tenths of a percent.

"Meat, poultry and fish are dropping in the percentage of total supermarket sales," he said. Moeller is president of Moeller & Associates, Chaska, Minn. His background includes a stint at Cargill's meat division and a key role in the development of Excel's Double Diamond case-ready beef program.

Moeller's contribution to the forum was to raise the prospect of partnerships and how they can help bring meat marketing into the modern age. "It's time to ask seriously, how does the experience with partnerships in other departments really apply to the meat department," he said. "Will it really work for us?

"As an industry, we can't stand by and let produce and deli take our business. Can you identify two or three people you can partner with? Start today," Moellersaid.

Speakers and attendees also acknowledged that the traditional retail meat department establishment will prove to be one of the biggest hurdles to the expansion of the modern meat management system. They said meatcutter attrition, as well as the influx of more grocery-oriented managers into meat operations at the corporate and strategic levels, would accelerate change.

"I think Stop & Shop made a very wise decision bringing Mike [Bettencourt] into the meat department, because he does not have all those little squares and boxes in his mind, telling him what he can't do because he has never done it before," said Story.

"We are asking managers to make split-second decisions on product, advertising, procurement, sales forecasting and profit control with very little information."

The problems at the store level extend beyond a lack of ability to manage technical information; they encompass outdated attitudes about marketing as well.

Jane Andrews, registered dietitian and coordinator of nutrition programs for Wegmans Food Markets, Rochester, N.Y., relayed to the conference audience her own experiences in confronting the kind of backward thinking that is stifling the meat department from within.

She said Wegmans is reaching out to consumers with an extensive nutrition education program, which includes store tours that spend as much as 15 minutes in the meat department.

Some teachers balk at including meat in the tours; but worse than that, Andrews said, "even a store manager or two will still say that we should not include the meat department on tours through their own stores. They think meat does not offer a healthy message for children. Meat has gotten a bad rap."

Andrews added that Wegmans will be ready when the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as per the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, starts surveying retail meat departments across the country to monitor chains' voluntary compliance with the labeling law. "Mandatory regulations would mean we won't have the flexibility to meet our own needs. I hope all of you will make that information available in your stores," she said.