January 29, 2007

US poultry companies find the words ''upscale'' and ''natural'' help move sales

US marketing agencies are increasingly positioning their clients' poultry products as "upscale" and "natural" to entice consumers.

These were the two words that increasingly accompanied poultry products on packaging and reflect consumer sentiments of their expections of the product they are buying, according to David Sprinkle, research director of MarketResearch.com.

Simmons Market Research Bureau surveyed 25,000 adults in the USA about their eating habits and their attitudes. Reported eating habits, over the week prior to the survey, for meat, seafood and poultry were correlated with how strongly respondents agreed with statements in the survey.

Results of the survey are expressed as an index where a score of 100 is average or normal and scores over 120 or higher show significant relationship between the reported eating behavior and agreement with the statement. When respondents were asked if they thought the food they ate was healthy, people who reported eating healthier food had almost double the index of people who ate less healthy food,

Sprinkle said that overall, poultry benefits from distinct healthy nutrition associations and it's not only because people are eating skinless chicken breast. Poultry beats out red meat when it comes to health associations and does at least as well as seafood.

This perception is thanks in no small part to marketing. Examples of product tags frequently used to describe packaged, branded poultry items would be words like "natural," "low-fat," and "fresh."

In 2006, the most commonly used tags for new poultry products were "upscale" and "natural" whereas as recently as four years ago, the most commonly used tags for poultry were "quick" and "microwavable".

Upscale and natural have edged up the list of tags used to sell poultry. As consumers have become accustomed to microwavable poultry products it is assumed as a matter of course and thus these are not used on the package as frequently. Instead, now there are tags like "upscale" to help differentiate the products.

Sprinkle said that poultry has momentum with consumers and that this momentum ties in with the associations that consumers make between poultry and a healthy diet.