RED DEER – Orders were delivered in plain brown boxes when Sunterra Meats started shipping pork to Japan 18 years ago.
The meat was fine, but Sunterra soon learned Japanese customers felt a plain brown box was indicative of what was inside.
These days, the company carefully places every piece of pork in white boxes illustrated with a Price family photo, said company president Ray Price.
Sunterra took three years to break into the Japanese market, and along the way it built a policy of giving customers whatever they wanted.
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This approach has paid off for the company. It raises 300,000 hogs per year and sells 80 percent of production to Japan.
“We would like to diversify, but in reality the Japanese market has been the best for us. They pay their bills,” Price said at the recent Alberta Beef Industry Conference in Red Deer.
The meat is processed to Japanese specifications at Sunterra’s federally inspected plant at Trochu, Alta., and sold with the company brand.
The main operations are at Acme, Alta., where family members hold key jobs throughout the hog, lamb, beef and retail operation.
Sunterra has six grocery stores in Calgary, with another opening this year, and two in Edmonton. One of the downtown stores serves one million customers a year.
Price said presentation, freshness and quality are everything to Japanese customers, who are willing to pay more for these characteristics.
“Success in the Japanese market requires us to meet their needs, not what we think they should buy,” he said.
Communication is critical, and misunderstandings can lead to problems.
“Sometimes we got it wrong and we fixed it,” Price said.
“We delivered what they wanted every week, every year, no matter what the market.”
Sunterra ships mostly chilled pork with a 45-day shelf life, which takes about two weeks to travel to Japan from Trochu by container. Shipping fresh product to Japan costs about $7,000 per container, which holds 16 tonnes.
