For those raising food products, a brand is a way to differentiate your items so that it stands out on the shelf, on the menu, in the market and, most importantly, in the consumer’s mind.  Brands are built on specific attributes – those qualities or features that make your product unique.  And beef brands, in particular, are often built around attributes that relay benefits to the consumer in the way of health, taste, tenderness, and food safety while also being environmentally sustainable and animal welfare friendly.  Creating a beef brand (or any food product brand, for that matter) that relays these kinds of unique benefits to the consumer will, in turn, create a need and demand for your product.

Traditionally, beef has been marketed as a generic product, with little to distinguish one company’s beef from another.  Increasingly, though, this is changing.  Take the Colorado Boxed Beef Company, for instance.  It’s been around for years, but it’s recently launched a new beef brand called ‘High River Canadian Angus’ or ‘Angus Ranch Brand,’ with the beef coming from Cargill’s High River, Alberta plant.  The company, which distributes beef products to grocery retailers throughout Southeastern United States,  was looking for a unique way to differentiate itself from competitors and create unique value.  The result was a high-quality Canadian branded beef program using Angus beef.

In today’s competitive markets, producers and distributors need to recognize that branded products are vital components to profitability. 

And it isn’t an easy process … creating a quality brand means that you have to make your product successful, from the gate to the plate.  From creating a marketing plan, coming up with any necessary finances, partnering with the right people, and developing and selling a product that answers consumer demand.  Or, due to the high cost of establishing and maintaining a brand and space at the retail level, it may be better to partner with an existing brand, rather than creating a new one.  In this way, the brand has already been created, and you can focus more on production, instead of marketing. 

Yet with smaller, niche farms on the rise, there exists an opportunity for producers to band together to create coordinated brands, which will then strengthen consumer’s preference for locally-produced food products as well as improve the economic viability of the region … and the industry.

So … how can you emphasize quality, freshness, environmental and economic benefits of your product to benefit your bottom line?

Written by :

FarmOn