Beef is back in the saddle, and the shopping cart, after recapturing market share from pork and poultry. Can beef hold that position?

Nevil Speer

March 7, 2016

2 Min Read
Beef recaptures market share from pork and poultry

Growing a business or industry is reliant on consumer spending – no matter the product.   Topline, or revenue growth is the lynchpin to new opportunities. And it is far more important than simply looking at sales volume, as that doesn’t reflect total dollars coming into the business.

With that in mind, the beef industry struggled with generating more revenue between 1980 and 1998. New spending on beef products wasn’t occurring; meanwhile, pork and poultry were actively growing market share. During the nearly 20 years in which beef lagged its competitors, it received only $11 in new per-capita spending. Meanwhile, pork and poultry garnered about $110 – a 10-to-1 advantage.   

This week’s graph highlights historical spending growth by protein source since 1990. Beef spending was flat between 1990 and 1998. However, since then, the beef industry has captured new spending at a faster clip than pork or poultry. In fact, beef spending eclipsed a new record in 2015 at $340 per person – that represents an increase of $155 per capita since 1998. Beef’s market share now stands at about 48% of all dollars spent on protein. 

annual per capita meat spending

From that view, how do you perceive beef’s competitive position shaping up in the years to come? Will the economy drag beef’s position down, or does beef still have some room to run to the upside? What does beef need to do to ensure maintaining and growing market share in the future?  

Leave your thoughts below in the comments section below. 

Nevil Speer is based in Bowling Green, Ky., and serves as vice president of U.S. operations for AgriClear, Inc. – a wholly-owned subsidiary of TMX Group Limited. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the TMX Group Limited and Natural Gas Exchange Inc.

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About the Author(s)

Nevil Speer

Nevil Speer serves as an industry consultant and is based in Bowling Green, KY.

Nevil Speer has extensive experience and involvement with the livestock and food industry including various service and consultation projects spanning such issues as market competition, business and economic implications of agroterrorism, animal identification, assessment of price risk and market volatility on the producer segment, and usage of antibiotics in animal agriculture.
 
Dr. Speer writes about many aspects regarding agriculture and the food industry with regular contribution to BEEF and Feedstuffs.  He’s also written several influential industry white papers dealing with issues such as changing business dynamics in the beef complex, producer decision-making, and country-of-origin labeling.
 
He serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the National Institute for Animal Agriculture.
 
Dr. Speer holds both a PhD in Animal Science and a Master’s degree in Business Administration.

Contact him at [email protected].

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