Competitives strategies on the meat pro­ducts market

Lakner, Zoltán – Réti, Attila

The Hungarian meat-market can be characterised by intensive transitions both in market actors and product-structure. There is a decrease in the consumption of pork and at the same time in this category an increase in the share of processed meat products. There are also increasing differences in the quality and price-level of processed meat products. This transition highlights the importance of relations between the meat production industry and the meat retail trade. In the framework of a field-study we have analysed the opinions of more than two hundred meat trade specialist on supplier-retailer relationships. The responses have been analysed by one- and multivariate statistics. The results of the research confirm that the overwhelming majority of retailers consider a wide choice of products and flexibility to be a necessary precondition of success. The cheap product-line is no longer in itself enough for the achievement of sustainable market development. Retail enterprises attach great importance to marketing activities undertaken in partnership with the meat industry.

The competition between meat suppliers is an especially intensive one in larger towns and in the capital. The maintenance of their partnership with the meat industry is regarded as an important success factor among managers of dynamic, growth-oriented firms.

As confirmed by our structural mathematical model, the conflict level between meat-processor and retailer is diminishing with increasing levels of competition. The level of co-operation is increasing with the flexibility of meat producers and the sharing of market intelligence.

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