Some of the greatest tools that retail stores possess to drive consumer demand include various promotional incentives, such as circulating advertisements or digital circulars featuring items, displaying items in prominent positions or with signage in the stores, coupons, and markdowns. These different promotions help draw shoppers’ attention to store departments and the fresh meat department is no exception.
In 2020, the fresh meat department sold 37% of dollars and 40% of volume with one form of promotion or another attached to the item.1 This article will focus generally on the featuring of items at the retail level, as this is the most prominent and popular way to showcase various products within the industry.
The various definitions of promotional items include featuring items, which includes products featured in circulars (digital or print) or displaying items in high-traffic areas inside the retail store to attract consumer dollars. Fresh beef is a common item for the retail store to feature in different advertisements and is frequently featured on the front-page of circulated newspapers or digital circulars from retail stores; in fact, beef is such a commonly featured item that 56% of all featured dollars sold were derived from some type of beef feature in 2020.2 Comparing beef to other proteins, one can see that beef has outperformed chicken and in terms of featured dollars sold; in 2020, chicken totaled 25% of featured dollars, while pork totaled 11%.3 Beef is a very popular item with consumers at the retail level and featuring this protein will help increase the amount of sales generated and attract shoppers to the store.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Beef Checkoff
