Latin America is a very important poultry producing region in the world. It has large producers like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Peru. There are first class exporters, like Brazil and Chile. Latin America also has large consumers of both chicken and eggs. Notwithstanding, people in Latin America, to say the least, need to buy affordable foods.
Latin American producers keep on improving efficiencies, production, consumption, and marketing, particularly in these times of high feed costs and pandemic impacts. This is why the Latin American Poultry Producers Association (Asociación Latinoamericana de Avicultura, ALA), through the Latin American Egg Institute carried out a few days ago an Egg Marketing Seminar.
Producers are looking for ways to improve marketing and commercialization of eggs in a region where you have the highest per capita egg consumer (Mexico) as well as some of the lowest rates too. There is plenty to be said and learn about that.
The first speaker was Mar Fernández, the superb director of the Spanish egg organization, Inprovo. She is a knowledgeable and wonderful speaker, and among the many experiences she conveyed to the audience on the Spanish egg sector was the impact of pressure groups in Europe.
Fernández gave two eminent concepts: the fact that these groups have the strategy of pointing out at production systems and products and making people ashamed of consuming them, and the fact that they generate the perception that consumers do not want traditional systems and products.
I think this is a clever way to put it, whether we are talking about cages (in this particular case) or feeding systems, ingredients, or animal management. You name it!
It is really shameful to see what the pressure groups think and act in the name of consumers, contaminating the public opinion. It is shameful to push hotel chains, restaurants, grocery stores, egg product companies and many others to use what they say consumers are requesting. But the worst is that we are all believing it!
So here I go again. We need to educate the consumer so he or she can choose. Be straightforward. We not only need to focus on what we do well and very well, - which is a lot - but we need to have a strategy of pointing out these good things, or showing how proud we are of producing animal protein for the sake of humanity. We need to tell people that there is no shame in consuming eggs or chicken.
What do you think?
