Consumer Connect

Turning Research into Results

To grow future demand, the National Pork Board conducted extensive market research to better understand changing consumer attitudes, preferences and habits. The bottom line is pork’s consumer base is shrinking, but that decline is reversible. Consumer Connect is a new tool NPB has invested Pork Checkoff dollars in to understand even more about our core consumers.

Meeting Consumers Where They Are: Here’s What They Told Us

The path to long-term demand growth includes making pork relevant to younger generations. Younger consumers don’t know what to do with pork and tend to favor the taste of other proteins. By featuring pork’s versatility in flavor and as an ingredient, Consumer Connect will help NPB reimagine pork in the marketplace and share the right information with the right people in the right place at the right time.

Millennials and Gen Z rank the taste and flavor of fresh pork below most other proteins.
46% of Millennials consider pork to be an indulgent choice
57% of Millennials are concerned about foodborne illness from undercooked pork

_{Source: NPB Checkoff Funded Proprietary Research, At-Home Meat Tracker, 2023}

Key Ingredients: Shared Food Beliefs

No matter who they are, people make choices about food based on 3 essential considerations: taste, nutrition and convenience.

🧂 A Matter of Taste: Every meal is an opportunity for enjoyment.

⚖️ Finding the Balance: Moderations keep their health in check.

🕔 Convenience is Key: Time, cost and effort…it better be worth it!

7 Consumer Segments

NPB Consumer Connect gives the industry a new way to drive pork growth by understanding consumer needs. It represents the culmination of Pork Checkoff investments made to better understand pork consumers, the pork industry and long-term growth opportunities. By taking the insights this research found and listening to the nuances of how consumers feel and how they make decisions, NPB Consumer Connect revealed 7 distinct consumer segments that are defined by their motivations, needs and emotions.

Priority Segments

Using NPB Consumer Connect research, we’ve identified four priority segments with the most immediate growth potential based on a weighted average potential.

Confident Meat Eaters

Simple Feeders

Culinary Adventurers

Mindful Choicemakers

Secondary Segments

Tasty Value Seekers

Culture Celebrators

Meat Minimizers

What Kind of Consumer Are You? Find Out Now!

Are you a confident meat eater who loves to show your culinary skills? Or maybe you are a tasty value seeker who needs to stretch your dollars at the grocery store? Now, take the quiz and learn more about your consumer segment.

Take the Quiz Now

A Fresh Growth Strategy for Every Segment

NPB Consumer Connect details 7 distinct consumer segments unveiled by the segmentation research. Each segment is defined by its cohorts’ motivations, needs and emotions about pork. By focusing on what’s important to these consumers, we can improve our approach to positioning, activation and measurement in the marketplace – ultimately making pork more relevant and generating long-term, sustainable demand.

^{Consumer Segments and Growth Strategies by % of U.S. Households}

4 Ways to Win

When it comes to connecting with consumers, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. By getting to know each segment’s unique attitudes and opportunities, we’ve identified four distinct growth strategies:

Win Where We Are: This is all about keeping pork consumers happy. We don’t want to lose them to other protein choices.
Win Bigger: These people consume pork fairly regularly. Let’s help them choose pork more often.
Incubate for Growth: They buy pork, but barriers prevent them from choosing it more often. The usual tactics aren’t effective, so it’s time for a new approach.
Emerging Growth: This is a small group, but they are growing fast. We know what they want – so let’s be ready to serve them in the future.