Let's focus on what matters to 95 per cent of our customers

Sunday, June 7, 2015

That means giving priority to value, meat quality, food safety and animal care. It doesn't mean trying to satisfy all possible markets and lobby groups

by JAMES REESOR

Figure out what your customers want and give it to them, my fourth-year University of Guelph marketing course professor used to say.

This intuitively logical approach implies some tough questions. What do my customers really want? Which customers desire which features? How much are they prepared to pay? And, how much am I prepared to risk pursuing a marketing plan?

Some pork producers invest significant effort seeking higher-value, low-volume niche markets. Let me make a radical comment. My markets include the 95 per cent. Who are the 95 per cent?

They are consumers who eat meat. They primarily buy from the major grocery store, restaurant and hotel sectors. They are the 66 per cent of self-described vegetarians who eat meat (Psychology Today, Herzog, June 2011). They are to be found here in Canada and around the world. I want to align my farm with processors seeking to profitably supply these consumers. Indeed, the ability to do so represents a very large niche market.

What do the 95 per cent want? I claim they want value, high quality pork and confidence that the meat is both safe and was raised by producers providing high levels of animal care. Value is very important. The 95 per cent are unsure what good animal care means. About two per cent of consumers are trying to define this for them.

Animal care definitions are confusing. For example, the term "animal welfare" has been used, in multiple ways, since the 1970s. One of the five "freedoms" listed under the "animal welfare" definition is "the freedom to express natural behavior." This well-meaning assumption is behind the lobby effort to remove sows from "single-sow gestation pens" and push them into group housing, so they can move around.

We producers, and our veterinarians, well know that "providing the right to express natural behaviour" in group housing also means providing dominant sows the opportunity to bully and intimidate submissive sows. Some "feel good" videos of selected group sow housing facilities do not match the reality faced by submissive sows in most group housing situations.

Group sow housing systems are being implemented from a "give them what they want" marketing standpoint. Ironically, this is forcing sow housing changes with no corresponding improvements – and in fact reductions – in sow care and well-being. One measure of animal care is sow mortality. Curiously, some "animal welfare" proponents claim mortality levels are not relevant considerations when evaluating sow welfare.

At RFW Farms our pork production system has a five-year average sow mortality rate of 3.3 per cent. Industry data from sources like Meta Farms and PigChamp show sow mortality averages over seven per cent and in many cases exceeds 10 per cent. Forced facility conversions to group sow housing may well see sow mortality increases. I cannot accept changing existing sow housing facilities at the risk of lowering our animal care standards.

Our Canadian pork industry risks trying to satisfy all possible markets and lobby groups without focusing on what matters to 95 per cent of our customers – value, meat quality, food safety and animal care. Recent changes to sow housing in the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs represents "give them what they want" marketing, targeting the two per cent. We risk lowering animal care standards while also making our industry less competitive. This, I cannot understand.

Our farm wants to produce pork efficiently and professionally at the highest standards of quality, food safety and animal care. We want to market to the 95 per cent. This, I can understand. BP

James Reesor is owner and president of RFW Farms, a multi-site, farrow-to-finish operation based in Grimsby.