Making the Cut

Prepared Foods, April, 2000 by Jennifer Timpe

The old standbys--convenient and healthy options--once again ruled the roost.

As in past years, the quest to offer consumers greater convenience drove innovation in the processed meat & poultry category.

Cooking with meat or fish isn't as easy as popping a pizza in the oven, so manufacturers focused their efforts on making it as simple as possible to prepare a fast and relatively healthy meal with their products. Whether it was beef, pork, poultry or seafood, the story was the same across the board. Marinated, fresh or frozen case-ready cuts for baking, roasting or grilling were dominant.

Red Meat Rebounds

Although the category as a whole suffered a slight dip in introductions, the processed meat subcategory bucked the trend with 300 new product introductions, a 13% increase over 1998 figures.

Today, many of the same options you once only found on a restaurant menu are available in your grocer's meat case. Take Tender Plus Chops from Hatfield's, Hatfield, Pa., for example. The gourmet-style thick chops are marinated, trimmed, deboned and then packaged with a Cook'd Right Sensor to let you know exactly when your chops are done. The sensor offers an important benefit, as many consumers avoid cooking with fresh meat because they simply don't know exactly how to prepare it.

Some companies went beyond marinating or seasoning and actually cooked their products for consumers who are truly cooking challenged. Typifying this trend, Emmber Heat & Serve fully cooked entrees from Emmpak Foods, Milwaukee, features varieties such as Butter Garlic Beef London Broil, Boneless Roast Turkey, and Boneless Roast Pork Loin. These lines were often packaged in plastic trays that go straight from refrigerator or freezer to the microwave.

Manufacturers also sympathized with the fact that even though many supermarkets are "open 24 hours," their meat counters are not. Several companies offered cuts in case-ready, pre-weighed packages so consumers can just grab and go any time of the day or night.

Another convenience item introduced last year had been a long time coming. In 1998 we predicted that bacon would be a hot item for the coming year. While bacon did show up as a flavor in cheese and some other products, a more interesting development was the introduction of fully cooked bacon that literally takes seconds to heat. Hormel Foods, Austin, Minn., offered Fast 'N Easy Fully Cooked Bacon strips, and Lundy Packing, Clinton, N.C., introduced Lundy's Round Sandwich Bacon, fully cooked and just the right size and shape for your club sandwich.

Succulent flavors were plentiful again in 1999, shaking up traditional profiles for lunchmeats and sausages in particular.

Land O'Frost, Lansing, Ill., introduced Taste Escapes Sliced Meats in six regionally inspired flavors such as Beale Street Chicken and Hula Hula Pineapple Ham. And Triad Food Service, Austin, Texas, licensed the Schlotzsky's Deli name to offer sliced meats in a wide variety of flavors, including Cajun Style Roast Beef and Mesquite Smoked Turkey Breast.

Sausages also got tweaked in 1999. Two companies infused their breakfast sausages with maple flavor, saving consumers the hassle of dipping their links in sticky syrup. Dinner sausages also got the treatment, with flavors like Tomato & Basil Beef Summer Sausage from Smoky Valley Meat Products, Manitowoc, Wis., and Garden Herb Turkey Sausage from New Glarus Foods, New Glarus, Wis.

Lighter fare such as seafood and poultry got much of the same attention to detail from manufacturers as the meat cuts. Gold'n Plump, St. Cloud, Minn., introduced its Sauce with Chicken line of chilled, fully cooked chicken and sauce products that consumers just heat and pour over a plate of rice or pasta. VDK Frozen Foods, St. Louis, went upscale with its healthier Van de Kamp's Crisp & Healthy Baked Fish Fillets sold frozen in two varieties.

Barber Foods, Portland, Maine, even made preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner a snap. Barber Carver Stuffed Turkey Breast is boneless and comes complete with cranberry sage stuffing. Meanwhile, Icebrands Seafood, Portland, Maine, simplified seafood by offering Steam 'N Net Cooked Maine Lobster to consumers in the Northeast. Aside from picking your favorite out of the tank and having the chef prepare it for you, it doesn't get much easier.

A Surge for Substitutes

Traditional meats might have led the category in overall numbers, but meat substitutes posted the largest year-to-year percentage increase in product introductions. The subcategory's 102% increase is a direct result of the booming natural products industry and increasing consumer awareness of the health benefits that veggie- and soy-based products provide. It's now common to see these products in both mainstream and natural products stores.

Consumers still had their pick of meat alternative burgers in 1999, but a variety of other "meats" are also now available for vegetarian consumers to enjoy. NeatLoaf meatloaf and SoyTaco ground beef taco filling from El Burrito Products, City of Industry, Calif., have the taste and texture of the real deal, as do Morningstar Farms Meat-Free Corn Dogs, Worthington Foods, Worthington, Ohio. We expect this trend to continue. We'll be watching Worthington Foods in particular now that the company has been sold to cereal giant Kellogg.