AUSTRALIAN agriculture has some legitimate issues with Coles, but the beef industry's outrage at the supermarket's stance on HGPs is not one of them.
Consumers would prefer not to buy meat from HGP-treated cattle. Coles has heard that message and made it a point of difference in its marketing.
The demand for HGP-free beef is driven by a sensible consumer suspicion of eating extra hormones. The suspicion of possible harm isn't backed by the science, but that doesn't matter: consumer buying decisions are seldom backed by science.
People pay extra for designer-label clothes, shampoos labelled "organic", tasteless flawless fruit over tasty flawed fruit, and all sorts of art that only has a subjective value. Why should they get scientific about meat?
Coles is far from the first brand to promote HGP-free beef. Coles, however, has applied some good Australian science to marketing its beef: the science that says that if two primal cuts are otherwise equal, the cut from an HGP-treated animal will be usually less tender.
So while Coles has responded to one consumer fear—a fuzzy notion that HGPs aren't good for them—it has put a marketing cherry on top, in the science-backed promise of greater tenderness from HGP-free beef.
Of course, Coles can get HGP-treated beef as tender as equivalent HGP-free cuts through extra aging and MSA grading.
Through the same process, you can get cow beef that eats as well as yearling. You don't often see "Cow Beef Scotch Fillet" on the restaurant menu, though. The word "yearling", like the phrase "HGP-free", sells.
And why should Coles go an extra yard to include HGP-treated beef?
It would involve extra costs. More than half the cattle in Australia are not treated with HGPs. Plenty of suppliers are delighted to work with Coles, apparently a tough client but one who rewards well—and who is paying for any loss of production from not using HGPs.
And consumers are buying more Coles beef: sales are said to be up double-digit percentage points since the supermarket ran up its HGP-free banner.
The beef industry seems to have been spurred to action by Coles's language in announcing its HGP-free move, which put HGPs on the same page as fresh food and animal welfare issues.
This troublesome association would have disappeared into the great PR rubbish pit had not parts of the beef industry, egged on by HGP manufacturers, made a noisy scene over it.
The end result? Coles is seen to be defending the interests of its customers. The beef industry isn't.
And any consumer that hadn't heard of HGPs probably has now, and will be looking for the "HGP-free" label on its next beef purchase.
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