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The closure of the burger chains this week in Ireland and the UK completed the process of eliminating the consumption of food outside the home except for institutions like prisons and hospitals.
It is terrible for restaurant, fast food and coffee shop owners, but in keeping with the every dark cloud motto, it has a massive silver lining for food retailers.
In practice, this means a bonanza for supermarkets as they are one of the few places where people can congregate (as well as speciality shops like butchers and bakers).
Appetite
Consumers’ options for purchasing food may have changed dramatically as people are confined to their homes. However, that doesn’t mean their appetite for food has changed and that appetite now has to be served by sourcing the ingredients and preparing meals and snacks in the home in addition to purchasing whatever convenience food a retailer may have available.
Grabbing a coffee and a burger rushing between meetings is off the agenda for the immediate future.
Opportunity
This is a real opportunity for food retailers and the challenge for the biggest loser from the loss of burger chains – the beef industry – is how to benefit from this.
There is now a captive market in supermarkets. The skill is how to capture a share of that for beef purchases to offset the loss.
The big criticism of beef and to an even greater extent lamb is that they are not consumer-friendly products and out of sync with the fast-moving consumer lifestyle of the 21st century. All of a sudden, it is no longer a fast-moving lifestyle and society for the moment has flipped from being cash-rich, time-poor to being time-rich and cash-poorer. How much depends on the level of government supports.
Speed
To exploit this opportunity, the industry and levy boards need to act fast. To borrow the phrase from Dr Mike Ryan, the distinguished Irish executive director of the WHO health emergencies programme, “speed trumps perfection.”
Beef needs heavy and fast promotion in the retail sector driven by advertising and good value in-store promotions.
Volume sales are required and consumers need to be encourage to buy products that have been out of favour. Roast beef sales and leg of lamb have been declining for a prolonged period.
Beef needs heavy and fast promotion in the retail sector driven by advertising and good value in-store promotions
Consumers now have time to cook and roast beef does take time but with the availability of a range of recipes can be a rewarding experience for families confined to their home. Making burgers using mince requires minimal skill and is easily taught.
Barbecue season
Similarly with steak meat. It is an expensive product and associated with special occasions in high-quality restaurants. It is time to bring it mainstream, make it affordable and publicise widely as a luxury dining experience in the family home.
As we move into spring, we are also entering peak barbecue season. This too is an opportunity for sales outside the established restaurant sector.
This is a crisis for the beef trade that for the first time has nothing to do with beef itself, unlike BSE, foot and mouth or the horsemeat scandal.
Nothing has happened to reduce consumer demand but one of the two main routes to market is closed. The other route remains open and now has exclusivity in providing consumers their food.
We need to get our product offering promoted like never before in this channel, to attract and satisfy the consumer interest that would have taken place outside the home if it had been available.
Action, not debate
We have well-resourced levy boards in Ireland and the UK and our meat processing industry has a plethora of very capable marketing personnel. Supermarkets or big-box retail has received a new lease of life because of coronavirus; we just need to make sure we get our share of that new business.
We also have several high-quality butchers across the island of Ireland and they too can pick up business and in the process inform consumers on how to make the most of the time now available to get the best from beef and lamb.
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