Boar's Head Listeria outbreak has depressed demand for ham across the industry, and experts say sales have been depressed for more than a year as consumers struggle to overcome concerns about contaminated deli meat It warns that there is a possibility that
The 100-year-old Boar's Head brand suffered a listeria outbreak at its Virginia plant in July that killed 10 people, sent dozens more to the hospital and prompted a recall of more than 7 million pounds of meat. The company did not disclose the global impact of the disaster. That business.
But Avi Kerner, co-owner of New York City supermarket chain Morton Williams, said sales of cold cuts at the chain's 20 stores across the metropolitan area were down 33%, and Boar's Head The brand said it is down 50%.
Grocery shoppers are “shifting their buying habits to other brands, and that trend is significant,” Keiner told the Post.
Another New York grocery store executive, who requested anonymity, said some New York Subway supermarkets have stopped promoting Boar's Head products in their weekly circulars.
“Too many people lost their lives in this incident, so it will take a very long time to regain consumer trust,” the executive said.
“We didn't want to advertise products or companies under investigation on our circulars, so we've been pushing forward with our own private label cold cuts,” the executive added. “But people are concerned about cold weather protection, and Boar's Head is the leader, and when a leader gets into trouble, everyone gets into trouble, so we're still behind.”
Meanwhile, sales at Twoman's, a 75-year-old family-owned deli meat brand based in Carlstadt, N.J., have fallen 10% since August, CEO Robert Burke told the Post. spoke. That's despite Mr. Tooman winning new business with the distributors and retailers who abandoned Boar's Head.
Burke declined to say how many new accounts the company has acquired, but said Tooman's posted a disclaimer on its website and social media and said its products had recently become popular for “freshly sliced deli meats.” He said he had purchased an ad explaining that he was “not involved” in the recall. ”
“We wanted to send the message that we're a brand you can trust, even if Boar's Head has squandered that to some degree,” Burke told The Post in an exclusive interview. “We spent more media dollars to get the word out.”
Some retailers have scrapped Boar's Head to save on deli sales. Schnucks Market, which operates 114 stores in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, switched to Boar's Head competitor Dietz & Watson this month. the company announced.
Mr. Schnucks was named in a lawsuit against Boar's Head by customers who became ill after eating allegedly contaminated meat.
“Following this summer's recall, many customers expressed concerns about continuing to purchase Boar's Head deli products,” Schnucks communications director Natalie Jablonski told the Post. “By moving to Dietz & Watson, we are putting our customers first.”
Philadelphia-based Dietz & Watson did not respond to a request for comment, but its CEO Louis Eni narrated a several-minute video about food safety on the company's website. are. “Trust our brand,” he promised, adding, “All of our facilities are cleaned by an external professional hygiene company.”
Even caterers are being blamed.
“Caterers emphasize on menus that the meat is homemade and hand-carved,” said Arlene Spiegel, a food and restaurant consultant. “There is a lot of concern about sandwich-based menus right now.”
Sandwich chains have already been hurt this year. Foot traffic to sandwich chains like Subway, Jersey Mike's, Potbelly's, Arby's, Jimmy John's and Panera has slowed this year, with flat to declining trends, according to food service research firm Technomic.
Some of these chains posted signs on their doors informing customers that they did not use Boar's Head products.
“We don't know whether consumers are pulling back because of food safety or because of food inflation,” said David Henkes, head of strategic partnerships at Technomic.
Food safety attorney Bill Mahler said it could take more than a year for cold-cut sales to recover, given consumer responses to other deadly outbreaks.
The 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak killed four children, sickened hundreds, and affected overall hamburger sales for more than a year.
Mahler said a spinach E. coli outbreak in 2006 killed three people and sickened hundreds, causing spinach sales to slump for more than a year.
“The entire spinach industry was devastated,” Marler said.
