As of the midpoint of 2024, Circana’s data for Fresh Meat shows that the demand for turkey isn’t wavering. In fact, turkey leads with the highest growth rate in pound sales versus a year ago across all proteins.
After all, while consumers turn to turkey for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, there are endless opportunities to highlight turkey outside of the holiday season.
“Turkey burgers on the grill in the summer, turkey sausage links at a fall tailgate, and breakfast sausage during hectic weekday mornings are all great examples,” said Rebecca Welch, director of brand management, retail and international for Butterball.
Jessica Pianalto, marketing manager for Cargill’s turkey business, noted there are several trends impacting consumers’ decisions, including a greater focus on personal well-being and trying to eat healthier, convenience and saving time in the kitchen, value-orientation to combat food prices and inflation, a desire for new and exciting flavors including multicultural cuisines, and recreating restaurant meals at home.
“Last year, our proprietary Future of Turkey research found that younger turkey consumers (Gen Z and Millennials) are consuming turkey products more often and planned to eat it more often in the coming year,” she said. “This stems from several reasons including trying to eat healthier, being more budget-friendly than some other proteins, and because of the versatility that turkey offers.”
She added that younger consumers are more likely to seek out new and exciting flavors including multi-cultural flavors/cuisines and to experiment with new and different recipes. Turkey is a great option to fit these desires.
“Products that provide added value, such as pre-seasoned, marinated, or thin-sliced turkey, address the consumer desire for convenience even further,” Pianalto said. “Pre-seasoned ground turkey has a higher repeat purchase rate than traditional ground turkey, which shows the households that do purchase these products are experiencing the added value.”
New and improved
Seeing that turkey was under-represented in the fully cooked sausage category, Butterball recently launched its Hearty Sausage links, offering to give consumers a healthy grilling alternative, available in Old World Smoked and Polish flavors.
“The fully cooked turkey links are packed with flavor and have a coarse texture similar to a brat, and the juicy snap of a traditional pork or beef sausage with 70% less fat,” said Michelle Lieszkovszky, brand manager, new consumer solutions for Butterball. “We knew these links would be a winner with the consumer because a 2023 Attitude and Usage study with Ipsos found that among buyers of turkey products, 50% were buying pre-cooked turkey dinner sausage.”
This Thanksgiving, Butterball will unveil a new product innovation surrounding the must-have centerpiece of the meal, sharing that the turkey product will have broad appeal with both new and experienced hosts, who expressed in company research that its benefits solved their preparation and cooking pain points.
Butterball’s extensive retail portfolio is designed to meet this demand with delicious turkey products like turkey breakfast sausage, fresh ground turkey and frozen turkey burgers.
The latest and newest turkey offerings for Cargill’s protein North American business include pre-seasoned ground turkey chubs in Taco-Seasoned and Italian-Seasoned flavor profiles, which address consumer desire for multi-cultural cuisines, value and convenience, and thin-sliced turkey cutlets which saves added steps in the kitchen.
“While whole birds and bone-in-breasts are more of the traditional products, we know consumers have instances where they still want to celebrate with turkey but desire a different product experience,” Pianalto said. “We have a bacon-wrapped turkey breast in our product portfolio that is flavorful, easy to cook, and great for smaller gatherings. We also have our new stuffed turkey breast which is stuffed with cranberries and smoked gouda cheese.”
Perdue offers fresh ground turkey patties, fresh turkey thighs, turkey wing drumettes and fresh turkey drumsticks, providing consumers with high-quality turkey variations for every occasion.
“The versatility of all turkey products has helped increase usage opportunities, as consumers can customize the poultry for their taste preferences,” Andrew Smyth, Perdue’s senior marketing manager, said. “Perdue has a long history of tapping into consumer insights and sentiment and responding with products that conveniently meet their needs to bring simplicity to their busy lifestyles.”
Kim Anderson, senior brand manager of Hormel Foods’ Jennie-O brand, noted the brand is excited about its pre-seasoned flavored grinds, including Taco and Italian ground turkey and its oven-ready boneless breasts that are pre-seasoned.
Health and wellness
Turkey is a naturally lean protein and is a great option for consumers seeking alternative meat options. Because of its versatility and convenience, ground turkey continues to be a year-round staple product for consumers who seek to eat healthier.
“Consumers have started viewing ground turkey as a healthier replacement to red meat, while still being a quality protein option,” Smyth said. “Like ground chicken, the versatility of ground turkey allows consumers to adapt the protein to their liking using different seasonings to fit most any type of cuisine.”
In fact, Mintel has reported an increase in turkey consumption, tied to greater availability of ground turkey and acceptance of it as a healthier alternative to red meat.
“Consumers are aware of the health halo turkey provides, which is why resolution season is a key time of year for the category,” Pianalto said.
Savvy marketing
With marketing, Pianalto recommended highlighting convenience, affordability and versatility to resonate with customers.
“Consumers also want to see more authentic content on social channels which is why partnering with influencers and just everyday consumers who use our products is key,” she said. “As the retailer digital shelf and online ordering experience becomes more robust, it’s critical to have strong product content, visuals and display campaigns to encourage online purchase.”
For in-store merchandising, having QR codes on signage that drives to relevant content is a smart tool to provide further education at the meat case. For instance, guiding consumers on how to plan for Thanksgiving to ensure they are purchasing the right size of whole bird for the crowd is an added step of confidence for shoppers, Pianalto said.
For Butterball, an “always on” purpose-driven marketing platform has proven to engage its core demographic.
“Our ‘Today, we turkey’ platform is directly aligned with our company’s purpose — why Butterball exists in the world — which is to help people pass love on,” Welch said. “Our research shows that consumers across generations are resonating with the marketing assets that we’ve created. As a brand, we want to meet consumers where they are engaging with media so we utilize a wide variety of channels such as social media, streaming TV and audio, display, and search, depending on the audience and occasion. We’re successfully promoting our wide array of everyday turkey products, building on the brand equity we have established with older generations, and turning Millennials and Gen Z consumers into Butterball fans.”
Hormel’s research shows that sales rates for turkey products improve when they are merchandised alongside similar items from other protein-rich products.
“For instance, fresh turkey burgers see a boost in sales when placed next to fresh beef burgers, as shoppers coming in with burgers in mind are more likely to explore nearby options,” Anderson said. “Similarly, turkey dinner sausages and marinated tenderloins experience higher sales when positioned near their pork counterparts, such as pork sausages and marinated pork tenderloins and roasts.”
Packaging matters
In Butterball’s recent packaging redesign, its research indicated the readability of labels and claims was very important to consumers and that packaging is one of the best marketing tools.
“We know over 70% of buying decisions are made in the store, and up to one-third of those product decisions are based on packaging and first impressions,” Welch said. “In response, we revamped how we displayed our labels and claims information on our packaging, and added a QR code to the package that, when scanned, will take consumers on the specific product page at Butterball.com to view nutritional information, as well as recipes, storage instructions and additional product varieties.”
At the end of last summer, Perdue began rolling out a graphic refresh across its entire ground turkey portfolio to increase consumer awareness, trial and consumption of this already fast-growing category. Some of the key elements of the new packaging include a bold design to catch the eye of shoppers, more relevant claims and benefits, color coding for improved shop-ability, and end dish recommendations for further inspiration.
“We have found that eye-catching packaging is crucial in connecting with consumers at retail,” Smyth said.
As the turkey market continues to innovate and cater to evolving consumer preferences, it’s clear that this versatile protein is poised to remain a staple for meals year-round, not just during the holiday season.
This article is an excerpt from the September 2024 issue of Supermarket Perimeter. You can read the entire Turkey feature and more in the digital edition here.
