The Rural Voice, 2005-10, Page 58PERTH 11T
County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER
Russ Danbrook, President
519-356-2385
. The Rural Voice is provided to Perth
County Pork Producers by the PCPPA
Any opinions expressed herein may
not necessarily reflect the views of
the Perth County Pork Producers'
Association.
As pork producers, we have
experienced the dramatic effect of a
few percentage points increase in
consumer demand over the last few
years. We as producers typically feel
it is supply that determines our price
of hogs and that is largely true, but
we rarely focus on the demand side
of price fluctuations. Demand has an
equally dramatic effect.
Statistics Canada reports show that
from 1983 to 2003 beef consumption
declined 19 per cent, pork has been
fairly stable with chicken increasing
steadily. In 2003 Canadians
consumed 32.2 kg. of chicken, 32 kg.
of beef and 25.2 kg. of pork followed
by 4.2 kg. of turkey.
I have been unable to find
Canadian statistics but the USDA in a
1999 report says the following: "The
frequency of eating out has almost
doubled in the last 20 years. About
30 per cent of meals are now eaten
out and the trend is considered to be
likely to continue, primarily due to
low prices for take out food, and with
both parents working there is little
The trend to eating out
time and energy left to prepare food
at home."
The point that jumps out at me
from these trends is that in order to
increase consumption of pork we
must position pork as a favorite on
lunch and dinner menus of all classes
of restaurant. It has to be an option
wherever we go to eat.
Pork has, and hopefully will
always be, prominent as a breakfast
choice. However. it is hard to find
pork on a fast food menu. You are
lucky indeed to find a pork dish on a
dinner menu. When 1 dine out 1
seldom see the creativity with pork
that you do with chicken.
Our processors are responding to
consumer preferences for fast. easy,
tasty home meals with boxed.
precooked seasoned pork. It would
appear that there is a considerable
profit margin' in this approach and 1
applaud their creativity. 1 can't see
our processors pushing hard to get
pork on menus in restaurants
since that would likely be in low
margin cuts of pork. 1 see this
as our job as pork producers. It
can increase demand for domestic
pork.
There is a very Targe opportunity
for us through OPPMB or CPC to
work with restaurants to create
exciting dishes to get on menus.
Perhaps we could hire permanent
full-time chefs (maybe we have them
already) to create new taste
experiences for fine dining with
education resources for chefs schools
and promotion to accompany it.
For corner restaurants or fast food
takeouts perhaps precooked.
flavoured "kits" could he developed
to make pork an easy fast and tasty
choice. We could even hrand them
and sell them. If they start to work
out at restaurants and consumers gel
to know them. we could make them
mailable at grocery stores as we
develop new treats for the restaurants.
This could perhaps he our way of
getting some of the retail price back
to farmers or just hack to do more
promotion. Perhaps this is overly
simplistic but the point is to illustrate
how it could work.
We should really look at this
opportunity. As more and more meals
are eaten out we need to he there it
we wish to maintain or hopefully
improve demand. Not doing so will
have its consequences.°
— Submitted by Joe Kolkman
PERTH COUNTY PORK PRODUCERS'
PORK PRODUCTS
• Smoked Pork Chops • Fresh Pork Chops • Stuffed Loin Chops
• Smoked Sausage • Smoked Cheddar Sausage • Bacon Burgers
• Teriyaki Pork Steaks • Vittorio's BBQ Sauce
AVAILABLE FROM:
Steve Hulshof (Kinkora) 348-8167
Walter Bosch (Monkton) 356-9000
Ted Keller (Mitchell) 348-9836
OCTOBER 2005 53