MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Consumers who stop at the grocery store in search of supper aren’t likely to pick up lamb.
“Lamb is not seen as an everyday meal,” Martin Gooch, director of the George Morris Centre’s value chain management centre in Guelph, Ont., told a recent workshop.
However, his study of consumer buying habits of lamb, chicken, pork and veal turned up interesting trends that could help lamb producers change that perception.
For one thing, consumers don’t buy simply on price. The highest demand when it comes to chicken, for example, is for boneless cuts, which are also the most expensive.
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Gooch said consumers are prepared to pay more because they perceive there to be higher value in the product.
Lamb is often selected as meat for a special occasion for its quality, and consumers will pay more for that quality.
“The more important the meal, the more likely they are to seek it out,” Gooch said.
Veal, on the other hand, is not perceived as providing value for money.
Gooch’s research found chicken is included in 32 percent of homemade meals and ranks ahead of beef at 28 percent and pork at 17 percent.
Lamb and veal are included in less than five percent of meals at home.
The highest lamb consumption is in British Columbia, where 69 percent of consumers reported eating it. The lowest consumption is in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Gooch said 60 percent of men and 53 percent of women ate lamb in the previous year.
This is significant, he added, because women are usually responsible for buying and preparing meat. They also introduce children to new foods – if they aren’t eating it then the children aren’t either.
The primary driver for meat consumption is whether the whole family will eat it, Gooch said, which means producers must target younger consumers.
“Your core lamb consumer is going to be older, likely to be at least 50, in a one- or two-person household,” he said. It doesn’t include young children or teenagers and possibly not university-age children.
These consumers buy their lamb from a grocer or a butcher and likely live in cities with populations of more than 100,000.
Gooch said targeting double-income, no-kids consumers should mean they will continue to eat lamb when they do have children.
