New Trends in Marketing

by R. W. HOECKER WHAT HAPPENS in 40 million American kitchens profoundly affects our system of marketing and, through marketing, the farmer's production practices and financial returns. What homemakers want, think, and prepare make the trends that men responsible for progress in marketing carefully observe and act on.

A current trend that affects the merchandising of fruits and vegetables is the housewife's concern with the nutritive value of the food her family eats. Nutritive value is largely determined by the freshness of the product or the degree to which the processor has been able to retain its innate freshness. Successful handlers of farm products know how important it is to keep as much of the original value of the product as possible.

Just as important a trend is that women now use their kitchens less for the extensive preparation of food. Some of the duties that the housewife and the domestic help once performed now are being taken over by the marketing agencies.

Together, these trends have caused food handlers to adopt air transportation, encourage improved refrigerated and faster surface transportation, package many of the products, retail fruits and vegetables from refrigerated cases, and quick-freeze perishable agricultural products in order to give the housewife a fresher and tastier commodity. Prepackaged and frozen fruits, vegetables, and meat that have been cleaned and partly or wholly prepared for cooking help the housewife better to enjoy her work in the kitchen. Many of the changes have been at an additional cost per pound of product to the housewife, but not necessarily at an additional cost per unit of nutritive value. Insofar as the time of preparation is shortened and the quality of the food is improved, the housewife usually is willing to pay the additional cost.

Besides recognizing trends, successful distributors recognize that tastes and consuming habits are acquired over a period of time if the product, as processed by the marketing agency, is of the kind that would cause consumers to change their habits, inertia may be encountered, and the adoption of the new method will probably be slow. The new method of processing may be superior to the old in retention of nutritive value and cost, but consumers often appear to be unreasonable and reluctant to change old habits. Dehydrated foods may be more nutritious and cheaper than poorly handled fresh foods, but housewives are accustomed to buying their carrots as whole carrots and not as shriveled cubes.

An examination of some of the recent marketing developments, with an understanding of basic trends, enables us to appreciate better how the new developments will fit into the future marketing pattern.

The extensive preservation of foods by freezing has developed since 1940, although the Eskimos have preserved fish by freezing for years. Preliminary experimentation on freezing and merchandising frozen foods has taken place for 15 to 20 years before the war, but the wartime shortage of tin cans gave extra impetus to the practice.

Foods are frozen in the large commercial freezing plants, in locker plants, and in the home freezer. The bulk of the frozen food is processed by commercial handlers who purchase the raw product from the grower, prepare it, package it in consumer-sized units, and freeze it. The operators then sell to wholesalers, who, in turn, sell the frozen food to retailers. The frozen food is retailed from low-temperature cabinets.

The primary function of a locker plant is to furnish low-temperature storage for its patrons. Lockers of 6 to 8 cubic feet are leased to patrons, usually on a yearly basis. Patrons store their frozen food in the lockers and have free access to them. Practically all locker plants now have a freezing unit in which the patrons' food may be quickly frozen before being placed in the lockers. As a supplementary service, many locker plants have helpers who will, for an additional charge, prepare meat or produce for freezing.

The home freezer usually consists of two compartments, one that may be reduced in temperature well below 0 F. for quick freezing of the foods and the other compartment held at about 0 F. for storing the frozen food until used by the family.

Frozen fruits and vegetables have several definite advantages over the fresh product. They are easier to buy, require little or no preparation for cooking, keep indefinitely in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, are quite free of waste, and have uniform quality throughout the year and from store to store. Many products are available in frozen form when the fresh is out of season. Many people consider the taste of most frozen fruits and vegetables superior to that of the so-called fresh product that has been hauled and mauled through the usual marketing channels. The vitamin content is high. Most people, however, apparently prefer the flavor and texture of first-quality fresh fruits and vegetables.

The frozen products are superior to canned fruits and vegetables in almost every way except ease in preparation and relative cost or price. There is reason to believe that the cost advantage that processors of canned foods have today will gradually diminish as the volume of frozen foods picks up and chain stores feature the products more.

With the advantages frozen fruits and vegetables have, their production probably will materially increase. Frozen foods will replace some of the volume of both fresh and canned consumption besides increasing over-all consumption. But the increase in consumption will take time. Consumers will have to become more familiar with the frozen products; distribution facilities must be expanded and improved; consumers will replace only gradually their obsolete refrigerators with modern ones that have adequate frozen-food storage compartments, and production agencies must learn how to produce a large volume efficiently.

From the standpoint of quality, frozen meats are not superior in essential respects to the product now sold and the convenience in cooking is not greatly different. From the standpoint of cost, while it seems certain the cost per pound of product sold will be greater for frozen meats than for fresh, this may be partly or entirely offset if allowance is made for the elimination of-bone and trim. The extra cost of frozen meats consists largely of the cost of cutting and packaging and of additional refrigeration costs in wholesaling and retailing. To a considerable extent, if not entirely, this may be offset by savings in labor in the retail store, saving in transportation, and better utilization of various waste products.

Frozen meats have certain definite advantages. They can be standardized in weight and quality, so that the consumer who buys a package of branded frozen steak or roast can count on getting just about the same product day in and day out. They are well adapted to self-service retailing. Packers find an incentive to handle frozen meat because it can be given a brand name and advertised. There should also be a tendency to increase over-all consumption and reduce variations in price because freezing permits a more even distribution of meat, the production and marketing of which reflect seasonal influences.

The chief obstacles to the commercial development of frozen meats are : The antagonism of retail butchers whose livelihood would be endangered by centralized cutting operations; the cost of equipping packing plants, branch houses, and retail stores with low-temperature equipment; and the higher price per pound of purchased product (not necessarily per pound of edible product) to consumers, because of the elimination of bones and waste.

We expect that in time frozen meats will overcome most of the obstacles-although rather gradually, perhaps-through the introduction of one frozen specialty item after another, and with smaller packers and self-service stores taking the lead in offering more complete lines of frozen meats.

A recent development is the freezing of precooked foods. To serve these foods it is necessary only to heat them in a controlled oven for a predetermined length of time. Some processors put complete meals on disposable plates so that the meal can be prepared by simply heating the prepared plate. Frozen precooked foods have been most widely accepted by railroads, air lines, and steamship lines. Many apartment-house dwellers, with none too adequate kitchen facilities and little time to use those that they have, find such foods convenient.

These few examples show the possibilities for future expansion. But enthusiasts for the method must be prepared for possible setbacks. For example, a highly unfavorable situation might develop from a too rapid entry into the business by new plants that might draw on new. sources of raw materials. The dangers would be especially marked in a period when, with large supplies of canned goods on hand, the demand for processed foods returns entirely to a domestic civilian basis. Other difficulties may arise from the failure of equipment manufacturers to keep pace with the frozen-foods industry. Unless proper refrigeration equipment is available in sufficient volume to enable consumers to care for frozen foods in the home, the necessary balance between processing and distribution facilities cannot be maintained. Any such unbalance could have severe repercussions on the industry.

For some years the trend has been distinctly away from home processing. Commercial processors can do the work more efficiently and cheaply than the individual housewife, or even the locker plant. Even when other marketing margins are added to that of the processor, the consumer saves little by doing this sort of work. The superior quality of home-prepared foods has probably been more of a consideration to many than the small monetary savings. As complete lines of frozen foods of excellent quality and at lower prices become available in retail food stores, the locker plant will find increasing difficulty in competing with commercial processors and merchandisers. Many will survive and some will prosper, especially in rural areas, but individual freezing is not likely to become an important factor in over-all food processing.