The Rural Voice, 1999-09, Page 75only work on the things you can
control," he said, and one of those is
getting the best price for your hogs
by hitting the choice parts of the grid.
Also picking up on the complexity
of today's market was Vincent
Amanor-Boadu, of the George
Morris Centre
in Guelph.
Quoting David
Foote, author
of Boom, Bust
and Echo, he
said the Baby
Boom gener-
ation is the
wealthiest
generation ever
to walk the
face of the
earth. Those consumers are worried
about quality and about food safety
and health issues and they can afford
to buy what they want. They are
driving the campaign for food safety,
quality assurance and identity
preservation.
Those consumer trends are
changing the retail market, Amanor-
Boadu said. Food stores are getting
larger and providing not only more
choice and quality but large
convenience food sections for people
with little time to cook.
Only a few years after Sunday
shopping was introduced, some
stores have 40 per cent of their
week's sales on Sunday, he said.
And looming on the horizon is the
spectre of Wal-Mart entering the
food business in Canada. Wal-Mart
is offering 24-hour service in the
U.S.and even letting people camp in
their parking lots for more
convenience. The perceived threat of
Wal-Mart is what has led to the
mega -mergers of Sobey's taking over
Oshawa Group and Loblaws merging
with Provigo, said Don Riddell,
senior vice-president of Sobey's for
the franchise operations like
Knechtel's and IGA.
Riddell said he saw the same fear
in the faces of franchise holders as he
saw on the faces of pork producers in
the room. Rural consumers are
demanding the kind of convenience
and variety small retailers can't offer
and they're driving to the big box
stores to get them, he said. "We rank
Paul Knechtel:
Markets complex
News
the highest in the industry in
service," he said, but customers value
other things than service right now.
For instance, he said, consumers
want frozen food. A large Knechtel's
store might have 36 feet of freezer
space while a big box store has 200.
Those producers who came to the
meeting looking to blame retailers for
making money from their misery
during the price crash in December
and January heard a different story
from Riddell. Stores in his chain
didn't increase their margins during
the crisis, he said. Hogs are one of
the most processed meats of all so it
wasn't a simple matter of reducing
prices unprocessed hogs were
bringing.
Knechtel's and IGA franchises are
aware that in small communities
farmers are also their customers.
That's why they don't advertise
USDA meats in their Flyers, he said.
Customers are changing, he said.
They want convenience. Sausage
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SEPTEMBER 1999 71