Four years ago, the Saskatchewan Bison Association secured funding for a marketing research program. The group hasn’t seen a dime of that money until now.
Executive director Leon Brin announced the release of the $400,000 grant at the association’s summer field day in Saskatoon on July 21.
“It’s probably the best news you’re going to hear this weekend,” he told producers gathered at the convention.
The money was delayed by the board of the Agri-Food Innovation Fund, which had attached a number of conditions to the release of the funds.
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The biggest caveat was the board’s insistence that a federally inspected processing plant be constructed in the province.
It took three years of intense lobbying to convince the board that was a backwards approach, Brin said.
One thing that helped sway the board was shifting the focus of the research project.
Originally, the project focused on the likes and dislikes of European consumers. Now, North American customers will be asked what they want in a bison product.
The study will also seek out markets for bison trim, the less than prime products, which has been the Achilles heel of the young industry. Millions of dollars worth of unsold trim is sitting in freezers at processing plants across North America.
Selling prime cuts hasn’t been a problem. The Europeans and the “white tablecloth” market in North America are gobbling up steaks and roasts. The goal of the research is to learn how to market lower value products.
There will be four phases to the study, which is headed by University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Jill Hobbs.
The first phase consists of consumer preference trials for products such as sausages, stews and buffalo burgers. Hobbs will also attempt to gauge what people are willing to pay for those items. Phase one of the study will take place between August 2001 and February 2002 on a budget of $85,410.
During the second phase, Hobbs’s team will attempt to develop new value-added products based on low-value bison cuts. Phase two is scheduled to last from March through September 2002 and is forecast to cost $75,490.
The third phase is a retail market trial, which will be contracted out to a private food marketing company. The trials will be conducted in the winter of 2002 and are budgeted at $129,000.
A long-term marketing plan will be drafted in the research program’s final stage. Hobbs hopes the plan will be completed by March 2003. The budget for phase four is $31,100.
An additional $74,000 will be spent acquiring the 9,000 kilograms of meat needed for the first three phases. Brin said the association will be accepting tenders from processors in Alberta and other provinces that have federally inspected processing plants.
Producers attending the field day had some questions and comments about the study.
Len Ross, who owns Prairie Buffalo in Taber, Alta., was pleased with the announcement because no product sampling and price sensitivity data has previously been gathered by the bison industry.
But not everything about the project satisfied the producer who runs a 50-cow, 150-head operation in southern Alberta.
“I’m disappointed but not really alarmed that they’re looking at value-added products,” said Ross.
He thinks it’s a mistake to try to create a product that will compete head-to-head with sausages, wieners and smokies made from pork.
“They’ve got a real job trying to educate the world to convert them from a $2-a-pound pork breakfast sausage to a $5-a-pound buffalo breakfast sausage. I wish them well.”
Ross thinks the market research project should focus on trying to determine who wants to buy buffalo burgers, a product that has already had some consumer success.
Brin said every bison farmer has an idea of how trim should be marketed but it’s all based on “assumption, speculation and personal experience.
“We need something more solid than that.
“In today’s consumer world we have to know who our consumer is, what they want, what they don’t want and what they are willing to pay.”
Hobbs said the August start date for the project might be ambitious because the association hasn’t yet received the money.
