The health and wellness movement is revolutionizing the food industry, particularly driving demand for high protein. This places the meat and poultry category in a strong position moving forward, especially as consumers become increasingly interested in clean-label meat products and continue to avoid processed and ultraprocessed foods. To further explore the booming health and wellness movement in relation to meat and poultry products, we sat down with 84.51's Director of Customer Strategy Maria Arand.

The National Provisioner: How is the health and wellness movement influencing meat and poultry purchasing decisions?

Maria Arand: Health and wellness overall is becoming more and more of a trend with consumers. Specifically, I would say on the wellness or the well-being side of the equation. A lot of times we think about health, and we think about attributes like weight loss. But really, what we're seeing today is that consumers are engaging with food and many other aspects of their life to really supplement their overall well-being. And that becomes really important for protein, as protein is resonating with customers with all types of health needs. We see it on sort of a condition management, we see it with weight loss, and we see it with customers who are also just looking for more energy. I think from a customer need perspective, that protein element is really resonating across generations, across concerns. And really, universally, as people think about wellness.

We've seen that translate to a lot of growth in a lot of different categories. Certainly meat, poultry and seafood are areas that have seen growth as a result of that trend. So when customers talk about wanting to engage more in protein, we hear about the animal-based proteins, but then we also hear about a lot of the protein enhancement products as well. 

The National Provisioner: How is this movement impacting sales for plant-based protein? Are consumers opting more less processed products like animal-based meats?

Maria Arand: I think early on we saw a lot of relationship there. I think people saw that plant-based protein as again, another way to achieve their health goals. Recently though, over the past year, we've seen more and more declines in the plant-based space. And I think that kind of comes down to two things. One, we were hearing about a mismatch in expectations on what these plant-based proteins were. Customers thought it was a way for lower fat, for a lot of others, to get the protein without maybe some of the things that they at least would associate with negative elements of animal-based protein.

I think the realization that often the nutrition labels look relatively similar, and the benefits are not fundamentally different. The other piece is a movement in more recent years toward less processed products overall. And while plant-based protein is a high protein and fits the trend in that sense, there is more of the processing that's associated with it. We've seen that really begin to become more and more important to customers.

The National Provisioner: How can meat producers and retailers address tailwinds for health and wellness-driven meat purchases?

Maria Arand: One thing that we talk a lot about is balanced value, because customers want more and more out of their products. Yet, if you look at the broader macro environment, it's also very clear that cost is becoming more and more of a factor in their decision making. And I think meat has a lot of opportunity to balance that value.

There's this element of, customers want to save money. We know costs are going up, but they don't necessarily want to buy the cheapest option or the lowest cut, especially if things like health are a priority. A lot of times, the cheapest option is not necessarily the healthiest option due to fat content and other things. So I do think ensuring that both producers and retailers are having the right balance of products so that customers can really balance their purchasing between what is low cost, what is healthy and what kind of meets their quality expectations as well.

What we hear customers talking about is the balance between saving and slurging. In a lot of situations, food at home in and of itself is a splurge. So it's easy to think just within our retail space that, "Oh, well, if times are tight, they're gonna cut back." But sometimes we actually see the opposite, that instead of going out to eat, they'll cook a much nicer dinner at home, or they'll kind of splurge on the dinner at home. Instead of hosting a large party at a venue or around an activity, they'll really splurge at home, which is often centered around food. I do think, despite the environment, there is still that appetite really for splurging and ensuring that they're putting the highest quality products in their body.

The National Provisioner: How can the industry bring more consumers into the meat category, considering current purchasing trends?

Maria Arand: We know that today's customers are in that active balance, so how can we facilitate those choices, whether it's inspiring them to make a choice to stay home or go out, to build confidence that a splurge is worth it? There's always that trepidation, especially when you're cooking something, that "I'm going to splurge, but I'm going to ruin it. And it's not going to be worth the extra money that I put in." The key right now is that there's a lot of win-win situations that are out there for both consumers and retailers and suppliers, and it's finding those and really communicating that to customers where there's some untapped potential.

The National Provisioner: What future do you see for the health and wellness movement? How do you anticipate this movement to continue impacting the meat industry at retail?

Maria Arand: We see the trend continuing, at least broadly. Every year that goes by, every generation that matures, and as we continue to keep a pulse on them, this idea of general well-being becomes more and more important. And the well-roundedness of not just trying to maintain a healthy weight or manage nutrition facts, but asking what role can food play in my life to achieve financial well-being, to achieve energy.

I think protein really resonates at that energy element. We see all of that continuing to gain momentum, that wellness is is critical to consumer's lives. I think GLP-1s have really intensified the conversation around protein because protein is a prescriptive answer to using a GLP-1. I think that's been a really interesting dynamic that, certainly will continue to have an impact on the role that protein plays in that health and well-being element.

As I mentioned, we do see that every generation really puts high protein as a key goal of their diet, which is really interesting. There's not a lot of things that kind of rise to the top for every generation, but it's number one or two across the board. I think that really speaks to the potential longevity of protein as an important element of consumers' lives. It's really up to the retailers and the producers of animal-based protein to ensure that it remains just as relevant as some of these protein-enhanced products that get some of the benefit of being a new product. Beef is not new, but it's still a great way for consumers to achieve their goals. Owning that message should probably be important moving forward.

One more thing is the idea of transparency and trust is also really key. And that's inspiring some of the clean ingredient trends, but more broadly as well. Consumers are just eroding trust in a lot of institutions, and food is not really where we've seen the greatest erosion. There's relatively strong trust there still, but continuing that is really dependent on things like transparency and keeping ingredients on the cleaner side, and ensuring that consumers are aware of those efforts and have trust in them.