Ontario Corn Fed Beef is earning rave reviews from officials at Loblaw Companies.

Brad Porter, senior category director for conventional meat and seafood, says they had high hopes for the brand when the company launched it in 156 stores across Ontario last May.

Not only did it meet expectations, the products also played a big role in delivering higher customer satisfaction scores in the meat departments.

Porter shared some of the consumer statistics during his presentation at the Beef Industry Convention.

Based heavily on aspects such as meat product quality and consistency, Porter said the consumer satisfaction scores were trending lower over the past three years.

But in the research done after the launch of Ontario Corn Fed Beef, some of the store banners were showing big increases.

 

For example, an impressive 11 per cent increase was achieved at Zehrs stores. “One or two (percentage) points is a great achievement; eleven points is monumental,” he added.

Porter says the company is interested in moving the brand into more stores and other store banners such as Loblaws Ontario and the Superstore. He also told the audience at the Convention that while Loblaw uses 3,500 cattle per week through the OCFB program, only 30 to 35 per cent of the carcass is utilized. The company would like to see that increase in the future.

“We are very good at selling middle meats. We’ve made it so affordable that the average Canadian consumer really doesn’t have to purchase much else,” said Porter. “What we are going to look at is how we get back to that carcass utilization, putting more value on other cuts and doing more promotion on that to get the balance in check.”

In addition to the data on customer satisfaction, Porter also shared some important consumer information related to beef and meat products. He said a consistent message is that people are looking for competitive prices on fresh beef and fresh beef sourced from Canada.

While it wasn’t prioritized, Porter said products free from antibiotics and hormones are coming to the forefront. “It’s going to be one of the key factors in our decision-making in our beef program going forward,” he noted.

The company is also setting its sights on traceability. Porter said Loblaw’s wants to be a leader in this market, allowing consumers to trace food from farm to fork.

“It’s a pretty ambitious target, but it would be ideal for a customer to walk into their store and pick up a T-bone steak, scan it with their phone and find out the age of the cattle, the breed of the cattle, the farm that it came from and how it was raised. How cool would that be?”