Rush, rush, hurry, hurry
I scoffed when I saw Maple Leaf’s new pre-cooked bacon, ready for your plate after only a few seconds in the microwave.
Isn’t bacon a pretty fast dish anyway?
But I’m reconsidering my initial reaction.
In the morning rush, many people have time only for something they can pop in the toaster. Food processors know this. That’s why we see those TV commercials for Eggos about a million times a night.
Now you can have bacon with your Eggos: A breakfast somewhat like what Grandma fed the threshing crew.
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OK, Grandma’s food tasted better, but it took her a lot more than three minutes to prepare it.
If pre-cooked bacon takes off, it should increase consumption and that’s good news for pork producers.
A story on meat consumption on the front page of the Markets section this week shows that pork has been barely holding its own in the battle for meat counter supremacy.
Chicken lengthened its lead in 1998 and beef again lost some ground.
Beef is the problem child of the meat family – lots of unrealized potential.
You might think today’s consumers have lost interest in beef. Maybe they don’t like the taste or all those vegetarians have stricken it from their diets.
But studies by groups such as the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association Beef Information Centre indicate there is still lots of interest in beef.
Beef meals ordered in restaurants are on the increase. And the number of vegetarians is not skyrocketing, as some would have us believe.
Perhaps the biggest strike against beef is that it hasn’t kept up to the frantic speed of today’s household.
Just a few years ago, studies showed people wanted to prepare meals in 30 minutes. Today they want them in just 10 minutes.
Food companies have only recently started to put fast cooking beef-based meals on store shelves. More such products are needed.
Individual cattle producers can’t do much about developing new supermarket items, but they can address beef’s other problems – consistency and quality.
The CCA started the Quality Starts Here program to try to reduce problems with injection site lesions, bruised carcasses, tag (mud and manure) on carcasses, dark cutters, horns and other problems associated with downgraded quality.
A binder from the CCA called Good Production Practices for Cow-Calf Producers should be required reading for livestock farmers.
