In recent years, red meat has been subject to many economic “emotions.” While “Beef--it’s what’s for dinner” resonated from dinner table to diner across America, two critical food safety incidences, along with a growing disease about the safety of the U.S. food supply, sent consumers scrambling for alternative choices. While consumer confidence has since been restored, longer term demographic shifts and economic factors are already reshaping the meat case. Beef and pork are fully capable of shifting gears to meet the demands of an aging, more affluent, ethnically diverse consumer, but have competitive proteins got much of a leading edge? In this report, Mintel examines what has shaped consumer purchasing habits over the past 5 years, and importantly, what will influence them for the next 5 to 15 years.

What Mintel tells you in this report

As the increasingly health conscious baby boomer crosses the 60 mark, announcing the dawn of a new aging era, they bring with them a revitalized sense of what food should look like, what’s possible in health, and importantly, they have the dollars to do it. Pushing on the other end of the age scale, is the young and growing Hispanic population, which eats red meat eat at a high rate. This demographic has the ability to reshape both the meat case and the menu simply because of its sheer numbers.

How these factors are changing the red meat market, and importantly, animal and seafood protein choice and consumption patterns is the focus of this report. Mintel gets to the heart of what’s influencing red meat purchasing habits by examining what facts are getting consumers to buy red meat, and most important, what’s chasing them away.

In this report, Mintel answers questions such as:

When the consumer looks in the meat case, are they buying beef or pork, or are they picking up fish or poultry?

If it’s not red meat, what is the competition doing in their formulations, packaging, or even marketing to get consumers to grab their product first? Is it a “price thing” or is a “nutrition thing?”

When a white consumer versus a Hispanic consumer goes to the meat case, what are they looking for?

Is the 55-year-old consumer looking for the same product as the 35-year-old? Mintel examines what they agree on, and what sets them apart.

What’s top of mind for consumers when it comes to food safety? Do recalls really change consumer’s minds about the type of meat they purchase and which consumers really place a value on hormone-free or source-verified products?

Does “lean” really matter or are Americans just talking about it?

Which retailers are getting the lions share of meat sales and are wholesale clubs cannibalizing traditional supermarket retailers?

To add further dimension for the reader, Mintel considers both the retail and foodservice landscape. The report includes product examples from the retail sector as well as snapshots of culinary and ingredient trending on menu from Mintel’s Menu Insights database.