Giving the Industry Guidance.
No one can tell the meat industry’s story better than someone who has actually lived it. Midan Marketing leads the conversation by bringing together unparalleled experience and deep understanding of what motivates today’s meat consumers.
Blog
Beef, BBQ, and Brand Strategy: Using Social Listening to Tap Into July 4th Consumer Insights
The Fourth of July lights up more than grills. It lights up social media. As people post photos of hot dogs, brisket, and backyard BBQs, they’re also sharing opinions, preferences, and values in real time. For brands, these conversations aren't just noise - they’re a...
2025 Midyear Trends
2025 Midyear Trends Update A lot of things can happen in a year. The world has seen several changes – political leadership transitions, evolving weather patterns, and continued technological advancements – particularly in AI. Looking back at Midan’s 2025 Top Trends...
Maximizing ROI at the National Restaurant Show: How to Make the Most of This Perennial Event
Each May, as sure as the tulips blooming on Michigan Avenue, foodservice industry professionals from around the globe convene in Chicago for the National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show. With great anticipation, they come to network, promote, buy, sell, and learn...
Top 10 Takeaways From the 2025 Annual Meat Conference
The 2025 Annual Meat Conference (AMC) in Orlando again saw another record attendance year with more than 2,500 attendees. Meat and poultry industry experts and first-time attendees from all over the world came together to network, grow professionally, and explore new...
Why Digital Advertising Needs Human Connection
Blogger’s note: While I love to eat all the time, I only like to shop when I have time. Since the pandemic, my loyalty has become more and more aligned with retailers that make shopping easy and convenient for me. A recent trip inside the actual store I am most often...
Brand Awareness vs. Conversion
A common conversation I find myself engaged in lately revolves around where a brand’s marketing strategy should focus: awareness or conversion. Understanding the balance between them and when to focus on which one can have a significant impact on your bottom line. ...
20 Years of Midan
Get your party hats ready: Midan is turning 20 this month! Think back to when you were 20 years old. Pretty naïve, right? In human years, “20” is still early days; the runway feels very long. But in business, making it 20 years is a MILESTONE, especially for a small...
5 Reasons to Keep Educating Consumers
With age comes wisdom. That is the proverbial saying, right? I'd like to believe it now that I am um... well, now that I have more experience! Perhaps the saying should be With experience, comes wisdom. This month Midan Marketing turns 20! Since we consider ourselves...
Learning From the Olympics: Lessons for the Meat Industry
I love the Summer Olympics. I love hearing the background stories about the athletes, learning of the sacrifice their families make for them to become the best at their sport. I love the suspense of the medal battle that happens when the world’s best congregate in one...
More Video Stories Equals More Success
I’ve travelled to several industry conferences this year and I’ve heard a variation of this quote at each of them: “If you don’t show up and tell your story, then your opposition, enemy or competitor will do it for you.” It honestly made a pretty big impact on me as...
The Power of Brand Strategy
Got a product that you’d love to shout about from the mountaintops, but you’re just not sure if anyone will hear you? Well, that’s where brand strategy comes in. Creating a path to market is a step-by-step journey. The formula for winning lies in leveraging brand...
Takeaways From CattleCon 2024
Beef by the numbers, and good beef sustainability – my top takeaways from CattleCon 2024 Given my background, my passion and my personal “why,” few things make me happier than arriving at a conference filled with cowboy hats, jeans and boots – worn by the “real...
AMC 2024 Top 10 Takeaways
The 2024 Annual Meat Conference was the largest ever held, with more than 2,300 attendees gathered in Nashville to celebrate all things meat. Educational sessions focused on what’s next in technology, sustainability and consumer trends, while the Exhibit Hall featured...
Gen Z Consumers: Shaping the Future of Meat
Like every generation, Gen Z was indelibly shaped by the environment they grew up in. Gen Zs were the first generation to be raised completely in the digital era, have been exposed to heightened climate awareness and experienced a global pandemic during a pivotal time...
Discover the Top 3 Ways to Reach 5 New Meat Consumer Segments
Earlier this year, Midan Marketing released our Meat Consumer Segmentation 3.0 research, giving a snapshot of today’s meat consumers. One way to get to know the five new segments is to understand how they each feel about three of the top drivers that have a growing...
Utilizing Segmentation To Better Understand Meat and Poultry Consumers
In theory, every product that goes into the food supply chain should be created with the end user (the consumer) in mind. And that thinking applies just as much to fresh beef, pork and chicken as it does to ice cream or Goldfish® crackers. Starting with the end in...
4 Things Marketers Can Learn From Crop Harvesting
Lessons from our family’s farm playbook — passed down by the generations before me Every summer, I leave my day job as managing principal of a full-service marketing agency to help with wheat harvest on my family’s farm in Kansas. As the sixth-generation farmer to be...
Poultry People: What Midan’s Segmentation Research Reveals About Poultry Eaters
I may be a beef girl at heart, but poultry is still a staple in my home. Living in rural Alabama, I pass miles of chicken houses on my way into town and can’t help but marvel at how different chickens are from the cattle I’m familiar with. One thing I’ve never...
Top Takeaways: Successful Omnichannel Campaigns Webinar
Omnichannel marketing is creating a shortened and seamless “path to purchase” journey for consumers, which can mean a larger return on investment, faster. Meeting meat consumers where they are – before they get to the meat case – allows us the best opportunity to...
Omnichannel Marketing: Crafting Consistent Experiences for Maximum Impact
Omnichannel marketing: There’s a reason why you’re hearing more and more about it – it’s a smart strategy that can lead to big payoffs. The goal of omnichannel marketing is to provide customers with a consistent and seamless experience with your brand, no matter where...
Curate Your Meat Case Using Five New Meat Consumer Segments
The last several years have changed consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic uncertainty that followed have altered consumers’ habits and behaviors in all aspects of their life, including grocery shopping. Now it’s time to get to know your meat customers...
5 Tips To Connect With Meat Consumers
The ice cream drips have dried to the picnic table, the swimming pools are calm and flat, and the campground fires where s’mores were made and stories were told have all been put out – and just like that, summer is over. A chorus of groaning kids knows exactly what...
New Consumer Segmentation 3.0 Research
Understanding today’s meat consumers has always been a moving target, but in the last couple of years the pace at which our customers are changing has accelerated. Between the pandemic, the economy and growing concerns around topics like health and sustainability,...
Reflecting on Meat’s Role
Earlier this year, “The societal role of meat – what science says” was published in the Animal Frontiers journal. This paper, along with the series of secondary papers quoted throughout, is the culmination of the work done during the International Summit on the...
Leveraging Social Media for Business Success
Over the last decade we’ve all had a front row seat to the evolution of social media from essentially a digital toy for teenagers into a tool that is integral for business success. It has been interesting to watch how much more open the meat industry, particularly...
The Power of Consumer Segmentation
Have you ever watched an ad or a short video and been perplexed, or even said out loud, “I don’t get it.” Happens to me a lot, especially during live sporting events. The reason I don’t get it is that I am not the target for what is being advertised. Frequent readers...
5 Learnings From the AMC Social Influencer Panel
In March, I had the honor of hosting a panel at the Annual Meat Conference highlighting how brands and retailers can use influencer marketing to create loyalty and drive sales. The panel included Jess Pryles, meat influencer and owner of Hardcore Carnivore; Melissa...
Tough Economic Times Impact Supply Chain – From Labor to the Consumer
In March, members of the Midan team descended upon Dallas to join the rest of the meat industry for the 2023 Annual Meat Conference. Data and insights were shared from all sides of our industry – from using influencer marketing effectively to the value of supply chain...
Do Your Marketing Claims and Attributes Matter to Today’s Meat Consumers?
Through all the ups and downs of the last several years, shopper demand for meat products has remained strong. But as consumers continue to navigate economic pressures, health and sustainability concerns, the meat industry and retailers will need to collaborate to...
Build Greater Consumer Trust Through Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing. If you hang out at all on social media you have swiped through posts where someone is confidently sharing a product or service they believe in. Some of you are utilizing this marketing tactic in your marketing plans. Influencer marketing is...
3 Key Messages About Pork in 2023
At Midan, we talk a lot about “sharing your story” with consumers in an effort to make animal agriculture more accessible. Those of us in animal ag must make a conscious effort to step back to understand the consumer perspective. Getting a clear understanding of what...
New Research: How Product Claims are Driving Fresh Pork Purchases
Product claims and attributes now appear more often on today’s fresh meat products. After successfully completing a beef attributes survey in April 2022, Midan Marketing recently completed a new self-funded market research survey focused specifically on the U.S. pork...
Get to Know Gen Z Beef Shoppers
In late August I had the privilege of tagging along with my daughter and her roommate as they went grocery shopping, preparing to start another semester at NYU. I was happy to come along as mom, but also excited to watch the process unfold as a marketer eager to see...
Programmatic Advertising: Reaching the Right People at the Right Time
The rise of digital technology has drastically shifted how businesses reach potential customers. At one time when you wanted to advertise your products on the radio or television, you had to call the sales team at the radio station you wanted to advertise with,...
Visualize It To Memorize It
In school I would read books, but I would not retain the information for long. I noticed that I remembered material better when I saw it, whether it was an image or a diagram. When I realized that I was a visual learner my world became much easier. That’s why I enjoy...
An Investment in Gen Z is an Investment in Agriculture’s Future
More and more these days, my inbox is filled with reports on what I need to know about Gen Zs - how they consume media, what they eat, how much time they spend on their phones each day. Technically a Gen Z myself (missed the millennial mark by a few years), sometimes...
Promote Beef Attributes to Keep Interest High During Inflation
Consumers today are incredibly aware of and concerned about inflation, and it’s impacting the way they shop for groceries, especially higher priced items like meat. In June, shoppers were paying 8.2% more than last year, on average, at the meat case.1 This continues...
Why 21 Is the New 7
Most of us have heard the adage that you have to repeat something seven times before it really sticks. From a marketing lens, that’s old news. In today’s landscape where ads, emails and content, content, content seep into every part of our lives, researchers say that...
How To Avoid Roadblocks in the Creative Process
Let’s imagine that you’re a company in need of creative work. Putting your vision in the hands of a marketing agency can be scary. As an Art Director, I’ve fielded many concerns working with clients from New York City to North Carolina, but the most common fear I’ve...
New Research: How Claims are Driving Beef Purchases
How many claims can you count? Marketing attributes and label claims have permeated the fresh meat case and restaurant menus as brands seek to differentiate and win sales. But which attributes have the most impact on consumer behavior and how can marketers capitalize...
Keeping Meat on the Plate During Inflation
With summer grilling season coming to a close, retailers face many challenges in keeping meat in the cart this fall. It’s no surprise that 96% of consumers – almost double numbers from last fall - are leery of skyrocketing grocery prices,1 an ominous weekly headline...
Put Emotion at the Center of Video Marketing
Emotional connection is at the very core of who we are. As humans, we value that connection not only in our personal relationships but also when we’re being communicated to by brands. While advertisers have desperately been avoiding “direct sell” ads for some time...
How Marketing Can Help You Weather Tough Economic Times
Inflation. Supply chain issues. Labor shortages. Drought. War. Soaring fuel and food prices. Interest rate hikes. And now worries about a recession on the horizon. Unfortunately, we have been here before. But many of us were too young to understand previous economic...
Fire Up the Grill for This Summer’s Three Hottest Consumer Categories
As temperatures warm up, consumers have started planning for grilling season. For this summer’s backyard barbecues, we expect there will be three distinct consumer mindsets at the meat case: the cost-conscious consumer who is feeling the effects of inflation but still...
Driving Pork Value Through Segmentation
Pork is a wonderful protein choice for consumers; it’s flavorful, healthy and affordable. For packer/processors and retailers, pork offers an opportunity to drive additional sales and dollars at the meat case if we follow the example set by beef and chicken. There are...
Now is the Time to Optimize Your Share of Stomach, Heart, Wallet
These days you can’t talk about meat without mentioning inflation — and many of those conversations center around consumers cutting back on meat. So, what’s the cost to packer/processors who don’t maintain their share of consumers’ stomachs, hearts and wallets? The...
TikTok: Is Now the Time for the Meat Industry to Embrace It?
If a Gen Z attended your recent family gatherings, odds are there was at least one conversation about a video on TikTok. Users on other social media platforms often say that TikTok is, “a talent show for people who have no talent.” It’s a funny line but TikTok is no...
How to Combat Three Critical Threats to Your Meat Business in 2022
Stop me if you’ve heard this — and I know you have, because I say it all the time to anyone listening: As a meat processor, your biggest concern is NOT other meat producers. In fact, they could be your best allies in a shared struggle to combat the biggest threats...
Midan Thought Leadership: 2021 Year in Review
Keep Your Eye on Changing Shopper Demographics Michael, a research guy at heart and a devotee of the latest and greatest meat consumer trends, shared learnings from our Multicultural Meat Consumers research in the June issue of The Shelby Report: As the U.S....
How Video Creates the Authentic Storytelling Today’s Consumers Crave
Our brains are wired to create real connections with the help of storytelling. And telling your brand’s story is critical to future success. It is that big of a deal. (I’m so passionate about this topic that I find myself blogging about it often here on Meatingplace.)...
Communicate the Value of Meat to Combat Rising Prices
For more than a year, the U.S. consumer has been forced to weigh fears around the economy and health, along with other issues a pandemic and life in general bring. In July, Americans were split on their concern for the public health crisis and the economic crisis.1 We...
Convenience and Premiumization – Two Trends Expected to Influence Fall Gatherings
This year, many Americans are hoping for a normal fall and holiday season. Vaccinations have helped many people feel more comfortable traveling and gathering again. As virus waves and variants come and go throughout the country, many retailers find they’re still...
Three Meat Snacks That Are Making a Comeback
3D printing technology is not new to the food world – chocolatiers have been using the technology for years to create intricate shapes for their pieces. Chocolate, of course, is softened when heated and then hardens at room temperature. This makes it easy to heat...
Four keys to win over Gen Zs
College recruiting is an interesting genre of marketing. I am not talking about the recruitment of athletes but of scholars. For the past year I have been on the parent side of this, fascinated by the marketing efforts that went into capturing my daughter’s attention....
Twitter + Public Relations = Mapping a Thought Leadership Path
In the meat industry, thought leadership is a challenging goal. After all, perceptions of protein and the food supply chain are constantly shifting. It’s understandable that companies want to play a part in lifting positive sentiment, helping consumers believe in the...
Does Your Meat Case Reflect the Diversity of Today’s Multicultural Consumer Base?
With each new generation, the population of the United States is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that about 60% of Americans today identified as non-Hispanic White in 2019. By 2030, that number is expected to...
Carbon Footprint: The on-pack label you didn’t know you needed
Sustainability. Ask 10 consumers to define sustainability for the meat they buy and you will get 10 different answers. Yet, all major processors and most retailers and foodservice operators have set goals for it, establishing future finish lines where they can proudly...
Midan Gives Back on the First Annual Diversity & Inclusion Volunteer Day
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." — Winston ChurchillEveryone wants to help. To contribute. To give back. But there’s often a gap between “wanting” and “doing.” It’s sometimes hard to take that first step toward becoming a...
AMC 2021 Top Takeaways Video
Not being “on-site” didn’t stop the Midan team from capturing the key insights from the all-virtual AMC 2021. Watch our team members share their firsthand insights in our AMC Top Takeaways video below. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out our AMC Top 10...
Four Key Drivers That Will Keep Meat Consumers Coming Back
The meat case has changed significantly in the last decade, but so has the consumer. Today’s meat shopper has a lot on their mind when making meat purchase decisions – sustainability initiatives, product convenience, food safety, animal welfare, the use of antibiotics...
AMC 2021 Top 10 Insights
The “State of Change” theme for AMC 2021 was more than apt, as the meat industry gathered virtually to reflect on a year of incredible upheaval wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, recognize the resilience of stake holders across the meat channel and share hard-won...
Is Your Meat Case Stocked With Claims Your Customers Are Looking For?
The COVID-19 pandemic has put health in the spotlight. During the tumultuous year that was 2020, personal health and the health and well-being of others was repeatedly a concern of consumers.1 When it comes to the meat case, consumers often equate “health” to natural,...
Consumer Insights Are The Key To Retail Success
Data – it’s at the heart of every business decision. Should you run the same St. Patrick’s Day corned beef promotion as last year? What meat cuts do your shoppers usually gravitate toward in the early spring? Is there a new opportunity to cross promote fresh produce...
Public Relations: The red-headed stepchild?
I’ve been in the public relations industry for more than 20 years, and honestly, my parents still have no idea what I do. Their explanation to friends and family always entertains me when I happen to overhear it at a function or when it’s played back to me by family...
5 things you should demand from your sales partner
For most of the country an in-person sales call is a faint memory. We all went into lockdown in March assuming it was going to last only a few weeks. Now, here we are getting ready to flip the calendar to a new year and we’re still waiting to resume in-person...
Reminisce and Reframe: Lessons from Jack’s Old South
In March and April, social media was inundated with pictures of friends trying their hand at bread baking. Now, as the weather has gotten warmer, there’s a new trend emerging: “Just bought my first smoker, what should I cook on it first?” With “safer at home” measures...
National Ag Day 2020: It’s time to (virtually) hug a farmer!
At Midan Marketing, we consider it an honor to work every day with those that produce, process, sell and serve protein. During this time of uncertainty due to COVID-19, those in the food chain are working overtime to ensure we have the safest, most plentiful food...
AMC 2020 Top 10 Blog
#MidanTakesAMC: Our team was on site at the 2020 Annual Meat Conference, hearing the latest facts and figures about the state of today’s meat industry. We’ve distilled down two-and-a-half days of heavy-duty meat data into these top takeaways:1. Celebrate: We’re still...
The State of Women in Agriculture in 2020
Fellow agribusiness movers and shakers: Our industry is changing right before our eyes. According to the 2019 Agribusiness HR Review, 63% of agribusiness companies surveyed reported that the proportion of women in their workforce has grown over the past five years....
Replace My Bone-In Ribeye? Never.
Last week you read in Steve Hixon’s blog that he and I attended the Cultured Meat Symposium last November in San Francisco. Steve shared from a very personal perspective the dichotomy he faces daily as a voracious carnivore with a family unit that includes a...
Want year-end success? Re-evaluate your plan now
“So, how did that work out?” This is a question my grandmother used to ask me with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. You can guess the “I-told-you-so” tone. It was always after I had failed miserably at something I claimed I knew how to do. Nanny — as all...
The meat industry could take a page out of baseball’s book
Another World Series is complete. While my Chicago Cubs weren’t in it this year, I always love the Series when we watch two great organizations come together to show how well they play as a team. It takes some very talented individuals who decide they want to work...
I’m a Gen Z, NOT a Millennial and I love meat.
I grew up in the time of Silly Bandz bracelets, Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. You see, I was born in ‘97 – right on the cusp of the generation change, so I may look like a Millennial, but I have many different shopping and eating habits than my older...
Millennials Want Meat
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in public and someone – presumably older than I am – makes a comment about how fast I type on my computer or on my iPhone. It never fails to surprise them – and it immediately categorizes me as a typical “Millennial.” You know...
Helping meat make the grade in college
In the last month, nearly 19 million students packed their bags and headed off to college. My son was one of them; he was starting his sophomore year. Because he was moving into a house with two other young men versus the dorm, I found myself adding cooking supplies...
Stellar Client Support to Make Meat a Star
New Orleans is a culinary capital known for its seafood dishes: oysters Rockefeller, shrimp creole and court-bouillon are just a few in a long, distinguished list. But as a former resident I know firsthand that meat is an important part of local cuisine – it just...
Join the Beef and BBQ Party
May is National Beef and BBQ Month and we meat heads at Midan couldn’t be more excited to celebrate the cornerstone of our industry: meat. If you haven’t noticed by now, Midan is a passionate bunch about meat. We’re only half-joking when we say we eat, breathe and...
One game-changing thing consumers are doing processors must address
Recently I was asked a question that has kept my wheels turning: What is the one thing processors must address to keep consumers coming back, purchasing more and more meat? Wow – I’m limited to one thing? I had to ponder this for a while. Interestingly, it turns out...
Understanding meat eaters’ key drivers to purchase
As a researcher who has been tracking the consumers’ relationship with meat for many years, I get very excited when the consumer is the headliner at an industry conference. This was the case at the 2019 Annual Meat Conference held in Dallas earlier this month. Nowhere...
AMC 2019 Top 10 Blog
The 2019 Annual Meat Conference was all about how technology is dramatically impacting every facet of the meat business: the consumer, the product and the buying process. AMC sessions on artificial intelligence, omnichannel purchasing and the rise of meat alternatives...
Segment for $uccess
“Who am I?” is one of the most fundamental questions of human existence, layered with the complexities and nuances of our experiences, our beliefs, our attitudes and our motivations. It is the same question we marketers and customer insights gurus ask ourselves every...
Why You Should Care About Segmentation Research
I know – you’re expecting a dry and stat-heavy blog about market research. But you’re only half right (I’m a research guy, of course I want to talk about research!), because what I am about to share is very exciting since it centers on the single most dynamic element...
Meat: The Benefits of the ‘Real Deal’
I love animals; they’re delicious. For me, this is more than a bumper sticker slogan; it’s a way of life. Growing up on a beef cattle farm in Georgia, no meal made it to the table without some form of animal protein on it. There was always plenty of ground beef (read:...
Weather the Next Economic Storm with Strategic Planning
Those of us in the meat industry usually don’t have the luxury of taking time to contemplate our next move. Prior to joining Midan, I lived in the bullpen of a beef processing facility as well as regularly negotiated sales from my office on four wheels and my other...
What We Can Learn from the Grassfed Movement: Amplify to Multiply
The Grassfed Movement has got it going on. Recent Nielsen data tells the story of grassfed beef’s dramatic domestic growth: U.S. retail sales of labeled fresh grassfed beef grew from $17 million in 2012 to $272 million in 2016, doubling every year.But beyond these...
Tomorrow’s Meat Consumer: Are You Ready?
I recently had the honor of presenting at the 2018 World Meat Congress (WMC) in Dallas on June 1. Hosted by The International Meat Secretariat and the U.S. Meat Export Federation, WMC brought together more than 700 meat industry leaders from 40 countries to discuss...
At Midan, What We Do Is Who We Are
Happy New Year! It’s only the second week of 2018, but some of us (no names mentioned!) might already be wavering on those ambitious resolutions we made to do more of “this” and less of “that” in the coming year. While the new year offers a chance to start fresh, it’s...
Just Another Day at the Office…
If you know anything about Midan, you know it’s not just an empty slogan when we say that we live, breathe and dream about meat. Our recent annual Team Meeting bears this out in spades. While some companies jet off to Vegas or escape to Disney World to get away from...
How to Spot an Aging Idealist
This blog is the final in our series detailing each of six distinct meat consumer segments from our recent Meat Consumer Segmentation research. My sister and I have always been very different. She likes the heat, I like the cold. She likes spicy foods, I like sweet...
Urban Eclectics, Demystified
I have raised an Urban Eclectic. I am not exactly sure how it happened: one day I was doling out Cheerios to an infant in a high chair and the next I was sitting across from a 23-year-old eating kimchi for breakfast. If you’re not familiar with Midan’s recent Meat...
Not Your Average Carnivore
I love cooking for family and friends. Whether it’s during the holidays, watching a college football game, or a simple weekday dinner, I take pride in preparing my guests a delicious meal. My husband actually says that the easiest way to insult me is to say that you...
The Selective Foodies Party
Coca-Cola. Team Fitz. Vinegar-based BBQ sauce. Dog lover. Millennial. Thanks to the Meat Consumer Segmentation research study, I can now add a new label to my list: Selective Foodie. In December of 2016, Midan surveyed 2,200 meat eaters to better understand attitudes...
I’m a Premium Player. What About You?
When it comes to my shopping habits, I have always been one to know exactly what I need. I am big on making lists and hate going out of my way to make my purchases. Hello, my name is Haley Frazier and I am a Digital Content Coordinator at Midan Marketing. But I...
Five Opportunities to Sell More Fresh Meat
At Midan, our Market Research Team is always scoping out the consumer trends that are having the biggest impact on the meat industry. A key part of our job is to help our clients understand the implications those trends can have on their business. By assigning meaning...