Shoppers Can Swap 'Pink Slime'-Laced Ground Beef For 'Slime-Free' At Fresh & Easy

Fresh & Easy's fresh&easy brand ground beef (above) is free of the ammonia-treated filler "pink slime," Photo courtesy of www.ninjashopper.blogspot.com.

'Pink Slime-Free Wednesday' at Tesco's Fresh & Easy - Analysis & Commentary

When the news many U.S. food and grocery retailers sell ground beef laced with the ammonia-treated filler "pink slime" (we've known about it for many years, as have many others with experience in the industry) hit the mass media like a ton of frozen ground chuck last week, we offered grocers some immediate advice via these two tweets on the Fresh & Easy Buzz Twitter feed, on March 17:

>Tweet One, March 17, 2012: #Grocers take note: If you don't sell #hamburger containing #pinkslime, tell the world. Why? It's now a point of competitive advantage.

>Tweet two, March 17, 2012: "The Corollary: if you're a #grocer selling #hamburger containing #pinkslime, drop it. Slime and #food are antithetical in consumers' minds.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which does not use "pink slime" in its hamburger, is doing just what we said grocers should do in the first tweet above on March 17, which is to tell the world - in Fresh & Easy's case consumers in California, Nevada and Arizona where it has its nearly 190 grocery stores - there's no "pink slime" being used as filler in the ground beef offered for sale in its stores.

And Tesco's Fresh & Easy is "telling the world" it doesn't and has never used "pink slime" in its ground beef in a smart and creative way.

On Wednesday, March 28, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is holding a "Pink Slime Swap Meat" at all its stores. Consumers can bring up two two pounds of fresh or frozen ground beef from another retailer to any Fresh & Easy store and exchange it for a package of fresh&easy (80/20) ground beef at no cost.

As part of the promotion Fresh & Easy is also asking interested customers to use the hashtag #SwapMeat on their Twitter and Facebook sites on Wednesday as part of the "pink slime" ground meat swap out. (80/20 refers to the ratio of lean meat to fat in the ground beef.

According to Tim Mason, CEO of Fresh & Easy, the Tesco owned fresh food and grocery chain "grinds all of its own meat, using only fresh, never frozen beef."

Mason is also inviting customers who have questions about the "pink slime" issue, Fresh & Easy's meats, or any other and Fresh & Easy private brand products to e-mail him at tim@freshandeasy.com, saying in a statement issued just moments ago: "It’s understandable that people would lose confidence in food retailers because of the use of pink slime. Fresh & Easy has never been about shortcuts or fillers - just high-quality fresh food that we produce ourselves, so we know it’s the best."

All the meat sold in the Fresh & Easy stores is cut and ground at the retailer's food and distribution facility in Riverside County, California, where its also packaged. The fresh meats are then shipped to the stores in California, Nevada and Arizona. Unlike most other grocery stores and supermarkets, the Fresh & Easy markets don't have meat departments in-store.

In our March 17 tweet advisory to grocers that don't use "pink slime" in their ground beef, we said touting that fact offers a competitive advantage if done in a timely manner.

The reason this is so is because the "pink slime issue has already a major food safety - not to mention a gastronomical nightmare - with consumers. Like we said on March 17 in our second tweet to grocers that do use "pink slime" in their ground beef: "The Corollary: if you're a #grocer selling #hamburger containing #pinkslime, drop it. Slime and #food are antithetical in consumers' minds." The conflicting concepts are also hard to swallow when it comes to consumers' stomachs.

Most grocers that have been using pink slime are doing just that - stopping the practice and announcing it to the consuming public.

In our analysis Fresh & Easy's "Pink Slime Swap Meat" is a home run on numerous levels.

First, it's a creative yet a simple concept, which are the best kind to communicate to consumers.

Second, and most importantly, it takes advantage of the competitive advantage opportunity not using "pink slime" in ground beef offers grocers like Fresh & Easy, in terms of offering to exchange consumers "pink slime"-laced ground beef for a "pink slime"-free substitute - fresh&easy brand - at one of the grocery chain's stores.

The key potential short-term competitive advantage with this is that it might drive shoppers who've previously never stepped foot into the Fresh & Easy stores into the small-format grocery markets. There's also a branding opportunity for the grocer with its fresh&easy brand in the fresh meat category.

Fresh & Easy's "pink slime"-laced ground beef swap out on Wednesday should draw some attention to the grocery chain in general, and more significantly to the healthier food store position and brand Tesco has been and is attempting to stamp on its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market operation. This offers a potential competitive advantage element in the chain's long-term efforts to convince consumers that Fresh & Easy equals healthy, safe and tasty foods.

Free, as in bring in your pink slime ground beef, and get pink slime-free hamburger in return for no charge, is a powerful message and concept, as is the fact the trade out is as easy as meat pie.

Lastly, the creative "pink-slime"-laced ground beef for "pink slime"-free swap out concept has an element of fun to it, which combined with all of the above elements adds power to the event. It's also a good news hook which we are certain the mainstream media will pick up on.

One important caveat though to such promotions: Grocers must be very careful they operate a fully integrated "clean food" operation when they go this route. Why? Because if they don't, they could be caught in a pink slime situation of their own, and having challenged competitors previously with this type of promotion therefore would put them in an extremely vulnerable place should such a thing occur.

We give Tesco's Easy Neighborhood Market high marks across the board - creativity, practical application competitive advantage opportunity, ect., for its ground beef trade out event planned for Wednesday.

Most all grocers who've been using "pink slime" in the ground beef they offer for sale are dropping it. Many have already done so. In our analysis, the rest will do so in the days ahead. After all, what food retailer in its right mind wants to be know as the grocer with the "pink slime"-laced hamburger in its stores?

Therefore, we predict any competitive advantage from the "pink slime" issue will be rather short-lived. Most food retailers are acting rapidly to no longer stock ground beef laced with the garbage. Consumers will forgive, as long as those grocers guarantee their ground beef is now "slime free."

As a result, grocers like Fresh & Easy are wise to strike while the grill is hot because a couple months from now we doubt the topic of "pink slime" will be getting much attention.

Two Grocers, Fresh & Easy and Raley's Offer Two Very Different Approaches to Ready-to-Grill Fresh Meat Merchandising

Fresh Foods Category Merchandising: Meat, Poultry and Seafood

The upcoming three-day Memorial Day weekend holiday marks the "official" start of the grilling season for Americans, although with gas barbeques, covered patios and indoor grills, grilling season has become a nearly all-year affair in many parts of the U.S.

Grilling season offers food and grocery retailers the opportunity to not only increase sales of those center of the plate fresh meat items for grilling like beef, pork, poultry and seafood, but also of related items such as fresh produce, starches, condiments, breads, beverages, non-foods and more.

Over the last few years food retailers have increasingly been competing for shoppers' grilling season dollars, looking to create not only a competitive advantage over other grocers on the price (lowest) and quality (value) of fresh meat, poultry and seafood items, but also coming up with ways to ad value to those raw animal delights, which will find their way to a hot grill soon after being brought home from the supermarket. We call it: Ready-to-Grill fresh meat merchandising.

Two California grocery chains, El Segundo (Southern), California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and Sacramento-based Raley's, have each created different ways to ad value to fresh meat, poultry and seafood items sold in their stores for the prime grilling season and beyond. The goal of both grocers is the same: To increase fresh meat category sales by tapping into shoppers' desire for convenience in the form of ready-to-prepare foods.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which is owned by United Kingdom-based Tesco and has 159 stores in California (Southern California, Bakersfield and Fresno metro-areas in the Central Valley), southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, and annual sales of about $544 million, is introducing eight new fresh meat and chicken grill packs to its stores, adding to the six varieties it already offers.

The eight new fresh & easy branded grill packs are:

>12 Quarter Pound Hamburger Patties (3 lbs)

>Smokey BBQ Boneless Pork Chops (1 lb 4 oz)
>BBQ Marinated Chicken Thighs and Drumsticks (2 lbs 2 oz)
>Buffalo Marinated Chicken Thighs and Drumsticks (2 lbs 2oz)

>Lime & Cilantro Chicken Breast (1 lb 4 oz)

>Teriyaki Chicken Breast (1 lb 4 oz)

>Santa Maria Tri Tip

>Smokey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Seven of the eight new grill pack items are value added, meaning they contain marinades, sauces and seasonings, so all shoppers (and grill-masters) need do is open the package and toss the meat on a hot grill.

The key customer proposition from Tesco's Fresh & Easy with the value-added grill packs is: convenience; ready-to-grill.

Raley's

Sacramento, California-based grocery chain Raley's, which operates 133 supermarkets under the Raley's, Bel-Air, Nob Hill Foods and Food Source banners in Northern California and has annual sales of about $3.4 billion, is taking a very different approach to adding value to the fresh meat, poultry and seafood items it sells in its stores, both for grilling season and everyday. Raley's recently introduced a "Marinades & Rubs Station" in its stores' meat departments.

The in-store kiosk (pictured above) offers 24 varieties of free meat, poultry and seafood marinades and seasoning rubs - 12 marinades and 12 rubs. Customers simply take the meat, poultry and seafood items they've selected while shopping over to a clerk at the in-store station or kiosk, then choose from the 24 varieties which one(s) they would like on the various items. The clerk then marinates or "rubs" the meats for the shopper free of charge. [You can view a list of the 24 varieties here.] Raley's offers recipes featuring the various marinades and rubs at the kiosk and online at its website.

Limited vs full mass-customization

We call Fresh & Easy's value-added, pre-packaged grill pack approach "limited mass- customization." The concept of mass-customization applied to retail food and grocery merchandising essentially means attempting to add value to and customize products, such as fresh meats, to shoppers taste preferences in a general but yet somewhat specific way.

The pre-marinated and pre-seasoned grill packs offer one option per item-package to shoppers. For example, if a customer wants a Smokey-Garlic Tri-Trip rather than a Santa Maria Tri-Tip, it's not available. The same is the case if a shopper wants a Santa Maria Pork Loin rather than a Smokey-Garlic Pork Loin. Further, You can get a Lime & Cilantro or a Teriyaki Chicken Breast - but not a Santa Maria or a Smokey Garlic Chicken Breast. In other words, the pre-marinated and pre-seasoned grill packs are limited to the variety of marinade or seasoning Fresh & Easy decides to offer in them.

Conversely, we call the Raley's ready-to-grill fresh meat merchandising approach full mass- customization. It's mix & match. Rather than offering a selection of set, pre-packaged pre-marinated and seasoned meat, poultry and seafood items (the grill packs), the retailer instead offers a choice of 24 marinades and rubs in bulk form. Customers can choose whatever variety of marinade or seasoning rub out of the 24 options - or even choose multiple marinades and rubs on the same meat item if they like - they desire for their meat, poultry or seafood purchases.

The key difference with the Raley's approach is that it offers additional choice, hence the full mass-customization definition.

Using our above example, a shopper can get his or her Tri-Tip or Pork Loin pre-marinaded and ready-to-grill in a choice of 12 marinade varieties, as well as having a choice of 12 seasoning rubs. Of course, the choice is limited to the 24 total.

Raley's value-added fresh meat approach also offers a "high-touch" aspect in the form of a store associate who interacts with shoppers and prepares their meat items at the marinade and seasoning rub station in the meat department.

We aren't suggesting one grocery chains program is superior to the other. That's for shoppers to decide. In fact, each of the grocer's programs fits their respective formats: Fresh & Easy's pre-packaged approach fits with its emphasis on pre-packaging fresh foods category wide - produce, meats and prepared foods - in its stores.

Conversely, Raley's is a superstore operator and offers both pre-packaged and service types of merchandising in its stores, particularly in the fresh, prepared foods category. Raley's also puts more of a premium on service, that "high touch" element mentioned earlier, in its stores than does Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and Raley's don't yet compete.

Raley's stores are located in Northern California's Sacramento region, Northern Central Valley, San Francisco Bay Area and south coast. Fresh & Easy has yet to open any of its 37 confirmed store locations - 19 in the Sacramento-Vacaville area and 18 in the San Francisco Bay Area - in Northern California.

Competitors at present or not, Fresh & Easy and Raley's are taking very different merchandising approaches towards the same objective, which is to add value (the mass-customization approach) to the fresh meat, poultry and seafood products sold in their respective stores, along with tapping into the desire among a high percentage of shoppers for convenience, as a way to differentiate the chains and stores among shoppers and thereby grab more of a share of fresh meat category sales in each of their markets.

Let the "official" grilling season begin.