Rare Opportunity

Grocers have a wealth of "brand" new opportunities to bolster meat department sales with signature items.

At a time when expectations for the quality of home-cooked meals are becoming every bit as important as the menu itself, progressive grocers from coast to coast continue to play up their status as the primary destination for fresh meat purchases, with premium-positioned programs that offer “extra value” in the form of signature recipes, wellness attributes, higher grades and, of course, reputable environmental report cards.

Take, for instance, Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans Food Markets, which has added a new twist to its popular signature specialty burgers this summer via irradiation. While industry-leading Wegmans has long sold irradiated ground beef under its own label for several years and has also offered flavored, grill-ready patties, all of its specialty burgers and sliders this season boast an extra margin of food safety because they’re now made from 80 percent lean, irradiated fresh ground beef.

Available in all of the 75-store regional grocer’s stores, the burgers and sliders come in six flavors: Mushroom-Swiss (made with gourmet mushrooms and Gruyere cheese), Bacon Cheddar, Blue Cheese, Vidalia Onion, Cracked Pepper and Plain.

"For years, we’ve told customers to cook ground beef to 160 degrees to eliminate the risk of harmful bacteria, and to use an instant thermometer to be sure,” says Jim Locicero, Wegmans’ beef and ground beef category merchant. "That advice still holds for non-irradiated ground beef. But we wanted to give our customers more latitude to cook burgers the way they like — so we switched this year to using irradiated ground beef for our specialty burgers,” which Locicero says results in "an incredibly juicy burger."

Wegmans gets extra points for carefully explaining the process to customers on its Web site, which deems the taste, quality and nutrition of irradiated fresh ground beef to be identical to those of traditional fresh ground beef, with one exception: irradiation helps reduce dangerous bacteria, such as E. coli, that may be lurking in the meat. Pre-irradiation, Wegmans’ ground beef is packed in airtight packages and shipped, under refrigeration, to a facility in Iowa.

What’s more, Wegmans hammers home the message that “myths about irradiation are not true. The meat is not radioactive, and no radioactive wastes are created by this (electron beam) process. The irradiated packages are then shipped, under refrigeration, to Wegmans stores.”

All of the family-held chain’s meat department employees follow a detailed protocol for batches of the specialty burgers, including a designated area in each store where they’re made, which is cleaned, sanitized and isolated while a batch is being prepared.

Wegmans continues to offer its own-brand irradiated fresh ground beef in 1-pound packages in 90 percent lean and 80 percent lean varieties, which Locicero says are collectively enjoying steadily wider acceptance as customers learn about the products’ food safety edge.

Hail to the (Copper River) King

In these ingredient-obsessed times, many retailers and consumers have become increasingly aware of Alaska’s Copper River king salmon. But kings aren’t the only salmon available from this fabled source — and the season for Copper River salmon species isn’t as short as many believe.

While open season for Copper River king salmon, which began May 13, may be the first and the best known of the illustrious fresh Alaska salmon run, it’s followed by other note-worthy salmon species that return to their birthplace in the Copper River to spawn: the sockeye (May-August) and the coho, whose season extends into mid-October. “That’s five whole months to enjoy some of the finest fresh wild salmon in the world — caught in the renowned waters of a river that represents one of the world’s most arduous spawning runs,” notes Beth Poole, executive director of the Cordova, Alaska-based Copper River Prince William Sound Marketing Organization.

Fresh Copper River king salmon has been making its way into many seafood cases by now, but sockeye and coho from the Copper River are also beginning to catch on, and not just in the Pacific Northwest, according to Poole. Yet, while the other species are gaining steam, she reiterates the opportunity before grocers to aggressively promote fresh Copper River salmon throughout the summer, including the Fourth of July, Labor Day and beyond.

As “the premiere choice for chefs and diners, Copper River king salmon is also a nutritional powerhouse, providing the highest amounts of omega-3 fatty acids of all the salmon species,” notes Poole. To that end, she encourages grocers to capitalize on its great flavor and nutritional benefits by promoting simple, low-calorie preparations — grilling, broiling or oven roasting — alongside Alaska seafood’s impeccable record of “wild and sustainably managed” products, as a result of being protected from overfishing by some of the most stringent, science-based fisheries management principles in the world.

More details — including retailer-specific promotional information — are available at www.copperriversalmon.org.

Black Canyon Angus: A Decade of Success

This year marks a decade of success for Kansas City, Mo.-based National Beef Co.’s Black Canyon Angus Beef brand. To help celebrate, the brand’s grillmasters are firing up the coals to make summer sales sizzle. As one of the first processor-owned brands on the market, Black Canyon has earned a reputation for consistent quality and value, and its effective merchandising, signage, labeling, ad graphics, category-leading seasonal campaigns and training support have helped make it one of the most successful beef brands in the case.

"Black Canyon Angus Beef has always been about helping us be successful,” affirms Bill Broeker of Houchens North, a division of Bowling Green, Ky.-based Houchens Industries, Inc. “They understand that you have to drive consumer interest to try product for the first time. Once shoppers taste the product, they keep coming back again and again."

Now in its fourth year, Black Canyon’s summer grilling platform will help grocers corral customers with a great grilling destination that features new merchandising and motivational support.

“This summer is going to be another great one for us, thanks to Black Canyon Angus Beef,” adds Bryan Gilley of Food Giant, another Houchens Industries company, which operates over 90 grocery stores in eight Southern states. "We’re looking forward to continuing our relationship with Black Canyon Angus Beef for the next decade and beyond."

For more information, visit www.blackcanyon-angusbeef.com.