Health Concerns Cause Consumers To Pass Up Only An Occasional Serving Of Beef, UF Researcher Finds

July 25, 1996

GAINESVILLE—Consumers are not as worried as they used to be about fat and cholesterol in beef and other products but they are concerned enough to pass up an occasional serving, research by a University of Florida professor shows.

Consumers strongly concerned about fat and cholesterol forego 13 servings of beef a year, according to a beef consumption analysis by food and resource economist Ronald Ward, a professor at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“We already knew that concerns about fat and cholesterol were having an impact,” Ward said. “But the beef industry didn’t know whether the concern meant a difference of 5 percentage points in consumption or 25.”

Ward annually measures the impact of industry promotions on U.S. beef consumption, but this past year expanded his model to generate information about fat and cholesterol concerns.

Ward gauged consumer concern and its effect on consumption over a two-week period. It turned out consumers most concerned about fat and cholesterol passed up a half-serving of beef over the two-week period.

“That doesn’t look like much but multiplied by all consumers and over the course of a year it’s a big difference in the amount of beef demand,” Ward said.

“What this confirms to the beef industry is that concerns about fat and cholesterol clearly have an impact on beef consumption and it does affect a person’s probability of being a beef consumer.”

In his study, Ward analyzed data from a national survey of 21,000 households, conducted from 1983 through 1995 by NPD Group Inc. Over a two-week period, the survey measured the number of servings of beef consumed, demographics, behavior (such as whether a member of the household was on a diet or a fast-food eater), attitudes toward fat and cholesterol, prices and beef promotions.

Consumers were asked if they consumed beef over the two-week period and if so, how much. The group of beef-eaters with the least concern about fat and cholesterol consumed 4.43 servings over the two-week period, while the group most concerned consumed 3.99 servings in the same time. That translates into about a half serving.

In previous years, Ward’s model of U.S. demand for beef highlighted three main factors that influence demand: consumer concern over fat and cholesterol, increasing consumer preference for white meats and promotion of beef.

Under the National Research and Promotion Act, producers of beef and other commodities can assess themselves a fee for advertising. In the beef industry, the assessment is a $1-per-head levy on cattle at each sale, generating more than $500 million for beef promotions over the last eight years.

The beef industry’s advertising investment is paying off, according to Ward’s research. For every dollar spent on beef promotion, producers are getting back $5.70. In fact, in the two-week study window, beef servings increased by up to half a serving per consumer in direct response to beef promotions.

The next natural step was to use his model determine the impact of health concerns on domestic demand for beef.

Since 1990, concerns about fat have leveled off and concerns about cholesterol actually have dropped. And with fewer households expressing these concerns, the beef industry benefits. But Ward cautions that the figures do not show why the health trends are occurring.

Ward’s study shows that the checkoff program has helped in the turnaround in consumer attitudes toward including beef in their diets, said Chuck Lambert, an economist with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

“The checkoff program has helped us do nutritional research and helped us get that information out to the consumer,” Lambert said. “The educational and informational programs we fund are a contributing factor in the improvement of consumer attitudes about beef and its role in the diet.”