Changing Demography and Your Future

White Meat, Dark Meat and Red Meat

A few short years ago I was in Arkansas speaking in an amphitheater filled with Tyson Chicken executives at Tyson’s headquarters. It stands out in my mind because it was a long drive on very rural back roads to get to Tyson’s offices and I wondered where all these well dressed, sophisticated executive types came from or where they lived. OK, so I am mired in a rural south stereotype. The issue on the table was whether or not to pull the trigger on a ten plus billion dollar red meat processing plant acquisition. This would give Tyson total dominance of super market meat cases. As a Demographic Marketing Expert I advised Tyson against the purchase. Generation Y was already trending away from red meat consumption with a vengeance with many even becoming Vegans. I maintain that if kids some how make the connection that a McDonald’s hamburger has its origins in a live White Faced Steer it could be over for McDonalds. Teen girls will not only not buy red meat, they won’t even touch uncooked meat of any kind. Going forward this poses some interesting challenges for the traditional super market meat case. In addition the peak of the Baby Boomers would be cresting fifty soon and loosing their appetites. Don’t believe me? Count the number of Boomers sharing plates in restaurants. The older you get the less fuel you need, Period. Long term there is no where for red meat consumption to go but down. Tyson himself pulled the plug and it was announced in The Wall Street Journal four days later that they were backing out of the deal. The meat processing entity alleged that the deal was already done, sued Tyson and won. To further exacerbate this situation the grain they feed to cows is now being used to manufacture fuel for cars and thus has driven the cost of grain through the roof. The red meat division of Tyson is slowly but surely taking them down.

If you can understand the principals of shifting demography you can forecast what markets are growing and what markets are slowing with uncanny accuracy. I really don’t understand why more captains of industry, commerce and government  don’t use this data. It is clear that they prefer to project the present infinitely into the future. I am sorry but that is just plain stupid and very shortsighted. Maybe it’s because it would require them to think beyond the next quarterly report. Its the think part that gets them.