Unseasonal demand boosts meat sales in Canterbury

Press, 4 May 1988, Page 3

Unseasonal demand boosts meat sales in Canterbury

Meat sales appear to be going well in Canterbury thanks partly to unseasonal demand and a promotion by the Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau. Mr John Verkerk, a company director for Verkerks, Ltd, which runs a retail outlet and a wholesale outlet in Christchurch, said the company’s business was - booming. It was achieving record throughputs for this time of the year. The company was selling 150 beef carcases, 400 pigs, and 500 sheep a week. “You expect sales to peak during Christmas and tail off into winter but that has not happened this year,” Ke said.

Perhaps the glum economic situation was bringing people out and into enjoying their food,

Mr Verkerk said. The Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau launched a promotion costing $1.4 million in September last year. Two retailers in Auckland had criticised the promotion, claiming it had had little effect on sales.of red meat. The bureau’s general manager, ■ Ms Robyn Cameron, said the campaign was designed to halt the decline in red meat consumption, not immediately to increase butchers’ sales. Ttie promotion had also tried to change people’s perception of red meat as a fatty, cholesterol-high food. The efforts seemed to have paid off in Canterbury where butchers had reported good sales, particularly of special cuts, she said. One supermarket in the region had reported

a 100 per cent increase in sales bf lamb since a previous promotion, Ms Cameron said. Sales had gone up in certain areas and the over-all campaign was working, although there were no figures of sales expected to be available from the Ministry of Agriculture until June, for the previous year. . “Obviously the conK sumer is switching on to the new products that are available.” Mr Verkerk said it was difficult to link the phenomenal sales he was experiencing to the actual promotion. “No-one has actually said, ‘I saw that wonderful promotion on the television,’ when they ask for the meat,” he said. "Certainly more meat is being sold, and television must have some influence on that.”