Ranch Sustainability and Beef Sales
Food distributor explains why company's brand is defying beef sales trends.
by Kindra Gordon for Angus Journal®
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Feb. 4, 2013) — Steve Sands, vice president of protein for Performance Foodservice Group (PFG), shared how his company is working to link beef sales with sustainability efforts at the producer, feeder and packing sectors.
Steve Sands (right) visits with a producer after his presentation on the topic of sustainability at the 21st annual Cattlemen's College hosted in conjunction with the 2014 Cattle Industry Convention. Said Sands, “In my 30 years in the industry, I’ve never seen a more rapid migration away from beef on menus due to high prices.”
As a food distributor the company does $14 billion in sales annually, Sands said. “We are on the front lines of customer response to the product. We have 1,600 salespeople who interface with restaurants every day.”
About 62% of the products they distribute are national brands, but the progressive company has created several of its own “house brands” — from chemical cleaning products to food products — to fill voids in the market. These represent about 38% of the distributor's business.
On the beef side, its Braveheart Angus Beef brand, which it began offering to customers five years ago, is the company’s fastest-growing brand. Sands reported that it is seeing double-digit growth despite the consumer trend toward consuming less beef.
“In my 30 years in the industry, I’ve never seen a more rapid migration away from beef on menus due to high prices,” Sands said. It is primarily the mid-priced restaurants that are being affected. Fast-food beef restaurants and premium beef restaurants are still doing well, he added.
Sands said they developed the Braveheart brand to address some of the emerging issues of a need for smaller portions to fit a restaurant menu’s price points, quality needs, and consumer interest in sustainability and transparency. It includes cattle specifications, such as DNAing every animal to verify genetics, as well as processing specifications, one of which is trimming more fat off of cuts at the plant so the customer isn’t paying freight for fat and gets a better yield.
The company is working with Zoetis on audit points for the Braveheart beef brand.
Because PFG also distributes pork and poultry to its clients, Sands said they intend to add a source-verified pork line next and are exploring a poultry line.
Of the future for the food business, Sands concluded, “We have to be very, very vigilant. We have to be transparent. That’s not going to change. We get more inquires about animal handling than anything else. We have to do a much better job representing ourselves to the customer base.”
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