From The August/Sepember 2003 Issue of Natural Grocery Buyer

Producers Egg on Meat, Dairy Sales

Managers benefit from organic education

Dan Luzadder

Ask Cyd Szymanski which came first, the chicken or the egg, and she's likely to tell you that it was neither. The education of the retail dairy manager came first.

Szymanski's homegrown operation, Colorado Natural Eggs of Denver, is helping keep dozens of small egg farms in business with its cage-free, organic system. But the marketing of its organic eggs under the Nest Fresh brand has depended heavily on first educating grocery managers who make decisions about placement and promotion.

Proactively educating grocery managers could be a helpful strategy for any organic meat or egg producer, says Szymanski, and one the fast-growing organic industry is still learning.

"The most important thing from the merchandising perspective is the commitment of the grocery chain," she says. "It is their decision to take the product, put it on the shelf and give the vendor time to get the dairy manager or the meat manager educated, and then provide the space to help educate the consumer."

Without that commitment, she says, "You get shunted off to the side, and consumers can't find you. If the dairy guys don't know how my eggs are different from regular commercial eggs, that is not their fault. It's not their job to know that. It is my job to let them know."

Szymanski is just one of many in the growing organic industry who see themselves as not only creating value for consumers with organic meats and dairy products but re-creating sustainable agricultural practices in the United States to address concerns about the quality of food Americans eat—and what is in it.

New organic labeling standards enacted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last year have helped standardize organic products and inform consumers. Under those standards, organic meats must be produced without pesticides, antibiotics or feed that contains animal byproducts—typically used in commercial meat as a cheap source of protein.

Those standards have helped boost industry performance.

According to statistics from the organic industry, Americans are embracing organic animal products (beef, pork, poultry, eggs and dairy) at a rate that has been increasing by some 20 percent annually. While those sales are still a fraction of those of conventional products, they've attracted corporate attention, resulting in more organic products from large producers being muscled onto mainstream shelves.

However, "people are not leaving conventional meat in droves," says Michael Levine, organic meat manager for Organic Valley of Lafarge, Wis., a farm cooperative. "It would be wonderful if they would, and to everyone's benefit. But that is a naive dream at this point. Still, I think people are becoming aware that there are organic and natural alternatives that are safer and better, and taste better."

To some degree, industry experts say, sales increases can be traced to concerns that consumers have expressed over feeding and safe-handling practices for meat. News stories about tainted beef and New Castle disease in chickens; the use of pesticides on grain fed to livestock; animal byproducts fed to animals that are consumed by humans; and the routine injection of animals with antibiotics and growth hormones cause concern for many people.

The recent discovery of mad cow disease in a single cow in Canada is another factor. "I don't think something like the mad cow disease incident really benefits anyone," Levine says. "But it does add some legitimacy to concerns people have. That is not how we want to get our message across. But because animals used for organic meat are not fed parts of other animals, [organics] consumers are protected from mad cow disease.

"On the positive side for marketing, what such incidents do is give us a chance to educate the consumer and to educate those in the trade as to what organics have to offer," he says.

A recent industry survey with mixed demographics showed that almost 74 percent of people are concerned about antibiotics used in meat products, says Scott Yacovino, marketing manager for Applegate Farms of Branchburg, N.J., which produces organic and natural meat products.

"Despite that, less than half of those consumers were aware that the meats they buy have antibiotics in them," Yacovino says.

Such issues drive some consumers toward organics, only to be deterred by higher prices. That is one area, says Szymanski, where education comes powerfully into play with grocery managers.

"When consumers ask questions, they turn to the guy who is stocking the shelves for answers. When I started 12 years ago, we had to guarantee the product to get it into stores," Szymanski says. "Most of the stores said, 'Nobody is going to buy eggs at this cost.' We had to sell every single store on the idea. Fortunately the eggs sold, because the customer saw value."

She tells grocery managers that the eggs cost more because "we don't feed the hens ground-up chicken and meat parts, or grain that is not organic. We use soy products and sunflower seeds ... in order to give the chickens the protein they need. And soy products and organic feed simply cost more. Of course, regular eggs only cost about what they did in 1920, which brings additional pressure on us."

Szymanski, like most small producers of organic products, says she is in the business because of a belief in sustainable agriculture and humane treatment of animals.

But some producers are skeptical that large conglomerates will share the same ethic as the organic farming community.

"Agribusiness people are definitely getting more into this product," says Yacovino. "They are going to try to capitalize on it. But hard-core 'naturals' people will never accept a General Mills trying to do an organic product. That's because they don't feel those companies have the philosophical beliefs about sustainable agriculture that we have, and are just trying to cash in."

Levine says he is personally less skeptical than some that agribusiness concerns will adhere to the organic ideal. And he sees positives in the fact that larger producers will mean more organic product lines in stores and better-informed consumers.

"We are a co-op at Organic Valley," says Levine, "and one of our driving missions is to provide a living for the family farmer. So we don't have an enormous budget to advertise and educate consumers, but the multinationals do. So anything that will help invigorate the promotion of organic foods, to me is positive."

Individual attention to educating retailers can be a step toward educating the public about organic foods.

"Where we have been most successful with Nest Fresh Eggs," says Szymanski, "is where we had a really strong program for the dairy managers. They became my sales force, and they became loyal. They were loyal to private label brands as well, but when they knew the features of Nest Fresh, they became our grassroots support."

Dan Luzadder is a freelance writer in Evergreen, Colo.