Gen Z plans to eat more chicken, beef and pork

Technomic’s Q4 2023 Meat Institute Protein PACT survey addresses appetite for chicken, food safety awareness and health perceptions

By Ann Hess

Since 1979, trust in U.S. institutions has declined dramatically, from the military to Congress. As Lori Rakoczy, associate principal for Technomic, points out American are living in a “trust deficit” time. However, for the meat industry, trust has remained stable to positive, and those consumers are not just confident about the industry overall, they're actually telling their friends.“For the most part, we have active supporters outnumbering active detractors. We have seen a slight shift where there's a more positive feeling,” Rakoczy says. “The biggest one where we're seeing detractors is animal welfare. That’s a hard one to really budge, but one thing I want to point out here is consumers ages 18 to 24 are more likely to be detractors. So, they're more likely to tell their friends and this age group has more ability to spread those messages.”During a recent webinar, Rakoczy and colleague John Williams addressed the importance of targeting messages towards Gen Z consumers as well as key findings from Technomic’s Q4 2023 North American Meat Institute Protein PACT consumer report. Since November of 2020, Technomic and the Meat Institute have partnered on an in-depth consumer study, surveying 500 consumers a month to get their perceptions and thoughts around the meat and poultry industry, but mainly on trust. Those five pillars of trust are health and wellness, food safety, environmental impact, animal welfare, and labor and human rights (occupational safety).For environmental impact, labor and human rights, animal welfare and health and wellness, Rakoczy says there's a direct relationship between improving trust and consumption, or purchases.“We're coming in, out of a 5-point scale, between 3.4 and 3.7. If these areas all got 4s that is estimated to increase consumption by 15%,” she says. “Considering population growth, by 2030, this would increase demand by 20%.”If trust four goals are met by 2030, Rakoczy says that would translate to a $22.6 billion incremental gain. If trust stays the same, the incremental gain would only be $6.5 billion through 2030.“If things turn around, go downhill, that's potentially almost an $8 billion loss,” she says. “These are real dollars, that we see can be impacted by increasing trust in the industry.”While animal protein consumption frequency has held steady, chicken and beef have been ticking up. The Q4 survey found consumers have an insatiable appetite for chicken, especially among the Gen Z population.

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