The following is an article from October 13, 2009 Meatingplace.com in which MSR’s CEO, Dennis Stiffler, PhD, discusses lamb marketing.

Lamb and veal processor touts marketing as key to success

Reprinted with permission from Meatingplace.com

        By Ann Bagel Storck on 10/13/2009

Mountain States Rosen takes pride in its unique position as a U.S. lamb and veal processor that is completely vertically integrated. The company was created in 2003 as a joint venture between B. Rosen and Sons and the Mountain States Lamb Cooperative. Today it sources only U.S. lamb and veal from various western states and Pennsylvania and processes those animals at plants in the Bronx, N.Y., and Greeley, Colo., where it partners with JBS on the harvesting side of the business. With 2008 sales of about $150 million, Mountain States Rosen counts itself among the largest U.S. lamb and veal companies. Lamb comprises about 75 percent of its business, and its focus is largely on the retail market. That's good news in that at least the company isn't overly reliant on the struggling foodservice sector, but as CEO Dennis Stiffler explained to Meatingplace, Mountain States Rosen is committed to aggressive retail marketing to compete in a tough economic climate.

How have the U.S. lamb and veal markets trended overall in recent years?

You're probably looking at a $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion combined value of the lamb and veal markets. There has definitely been some decline in that market over the last 10 years. We track some things through FreshLook [Marketing Group for the retail market], and year to date for our last 52-week period, veal is down in dollars about 6.9 percent, and lamb is down about 2.3 percent. So the market is feeling some pressure as a premium, specialty market in this economy.

How can you make the higher price point of lamb and veal more palatable to retail consumers?

We look at lamb as a non-commodity product compared to what the poultry, beef and pork folks do. There's just a tremendous amount of protein, and it faces stiff competition for real estate at the retail counter. But being a unique product, if we can get [lamb and veal] into consumers' mouths and they can see the uniqueness of it, they'll come back for it.

What are the most promising areas of potential growth for lamb and veal right now?

Lamb, in particular, is a unique and distinctive product. It is under-developed in the marketplace. A lot of chefs have recognized its versatility and its positioning, the taste, the tenderness. I think the opportunity to position it is there. The key to that is making sure that your go-to-market strategy is such that you can get presence in that retail case and presence on that menu.

There's opportunity in emerging consumers. There are a lot of ethnic groups that are in the second and third generation, so they're becoming more westernized, if you will, and they're good lamb eaters. The real emerging markets are Middle Eastern, Indian, that cultural group. For years, and globally, they've been good lamb eaters. We've got to make sure our product is fitting their wants and needs.

We feel we can do that by having better category management and working more strongly with our retail partners so that we do have the product out there on the shelf. One of the things we've done on the East Coast in particular is develop a strong case-ready program. A large part of our growth in the past two to three years has been through having various technologies and using an assortment of packaging footprints so that the consumer can have a good selection of products to choose from.

Mountain States Rosen takes pride in its unique position as a U.S. lamb and veal processor that is completely vertically integrated.

How have the U.S. lamb and veal markets trended overall in recent years?

You're probably looking at a $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion combined value of the lamb and veal markets. There has definitely been some decline in that market over the last 10 years. We track some things through FreshLook [Marketing Group for the retail market], and year to date for our last 52-week period, veal is down in dollars about 6.9 percent, and lamb is down about 2.3 percent. So the market is feeling some pressure as a premium, specialty market in this economy.

How can you make the higher price point of lamb and veal more palatable to retail consumers?

We look at lamb as a non-commodity product compared to what the poultry, beef and pork folks do. There's just a tremendous amount of protein, and it faces stiff competition for real estate at the retail counter. But being a unique product, if we can get [lamb and veal] into consumers' mouths and they can see the uniqueness of it, they'll come back for it.

What are the most promising areas of potential growth for lamb and veal right now?

Lamb, in particular, is a unique and distinctive product. It is under-developed in the marketplace. A lot of chefs have recognized its versatility and its positioning, the taste, the tenderness. I think the opportunity to position it is there. The key to that is making sure that your go-to-market strategy is such that you can get presence in that retail case and presence on that menu.

There's opportunity in emerging consumers. There are a lot of ethnic groups that are in the second and third generation, so they're becoming more westernized, if you will, and they're good lamb eaters. The real emerging markets are Middle Eastern, Indian, that cultural group. For years, and globally, they've been good lamb eaters. We've got to make sure our product is fitting their wants and needs.

We feel we can do that by having better category management and working more strongly with our retail partners so that we do have the product out there on the shelf. One of the things we've done on the East Coast in particular is develop a strong case-ready program. A large part of our growth in the past two to three years has been through having various technologies and using an assortment of packaging footprints so that the consumer can have a good selection of products to choose from.