Differentiation holds the Key for English Beef Industry
04/10/05

Generic promotion won't lift low cattle prices according to the English Beef and Lamb Executive (EBLEX). In a world without offsetting payments, only by differentiating our product and giving shoppers reasons to buy will we help to lift quality beef and lamb out of the commodity market and allow extra margin to be generated.

EBLEX head of Marketing Andrew Garvey said: "Our three year strategy has not been running long enough to resolve the immediate cattle price crisis but it could well help avert it from happening again in the future.

"Calls on us to market the beef industry out of the farm-gate beef price issue are misdirected. GB consumer demand for beef is already robust, retail prices are firm and heavy promotion is just likely to suck in more beef imports.

"However we are pulling forward some of our marketing and PR activity to try and focus shoppers to select our Quality Standard beef over the commodity imports."

EBLEX is six months into a two-year £14.2 million marketing campaign. The latest four-week Autumn run of Beefy and Lamby TV advertisements finished at the beginning of October. And national press advertisements run for a further week before restarting again in November with a winter beef and lamb theme.

500,000 copies of Tuck-in 8, the latest in the award winning Tuck-in recipe booklet series, have just been distributed to butchers throughout England including those who are members of the Quality Standard Scheme.

Andrew continued: "we have also brought forward a radio promotion with a Quality Standard beef focus, which will call on shoppers to look for beef and lamb carrying the Quality Standard Mark.

"Consumer awareness research has revealed that more than 70 per cent of English consumers agree the QSM is a label they can trust and 62 per cent believe QSM beef and lamb is worth paying a bit more for.

"A separate independent consumer study* has shown that more than half of English shoppers are willing to pay a premium for Quality Standard beef and the majority of those would pay up to 10 per cent more.

"Our aim is to lift quality English beef and lamb out of the commodity market. It is a first great step towards ensuring the future profitability of our industry."

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