What a post COVID-19 world could mean for the meat industry

The next 30 years are the most important in the history of animal agriculture.

We’re going to need to double the protein by 2050 to feed the world’s population. The chances that alternative protein developers can deliver on this are pretty small and so, there is room for dramatic growth for both animal and alternative protein. The current efforts to demonise each other can be counterproductive and therefore how can we co-exist and leverage each other to meet this goal of feeding the world’s population?

There are a few obvious plausible futures and narratives, post COVID-19: 1. Business as usual, 2. Growth – a greater appreciation of animal ag in which we come out of the crisis stronger than before and 3. Contraction – consumers building greater concern towards animalagriculture, in which the meat industry comes out weaker.

The key is to identify the forces/signals that are shaping the future and figure out ways to leverage those insights to get us to the future that we want.

Because of the supply chain issues there is a disconnect in high prices for consumer and low prices for the producer which can lead to long-term disruptions. Prices are getting higher and consumers are dealing with potential reduced income, therefore consumer behaviours are starting to change. Will this lead to long-term consumer behaviour change as they shift to alternative sources of protein that are more affordable?

Questions will also arise around consumer psychology and how they feel about these new protein choices – are they choosing them solely due to price and what are the ramifications of this (is there a perception they are lower quality because of price) or are they enjoying them?

Not necessarily, any concern over short-term future as when people are in need of something, in this case protein, they tend not to worry about risk like the future of animal agriculture. However, we need to begin to address concerns now to take advantage of the current appreciation for our industry.

  There are three other potential narratives we can explore: 1. Acceleration – i.e. In the USA, 5% of people were regularly using at-home delivery, now one third of people in USA have used in the last month with 50% of those using for the first time. This is a trend that we were seeing already but which has been greatly accelerated by the current crisis. 2. Disruption – things that are happening today that we never thought were going to happen. 3. Reversal – i.e. eating at restaurants vs. cooking and eating at home becoming a trend as a result of COVID-19, which could quite possibly continue afterwards. These ‘reversal’ trends are ones that could be quite positive for the industry as they make people feel comfortable as they’re looking to the past (familiarity) when facing so much uncertainty.

IMS Marketing Forum, 24 April 2020