Real-Life Communication
You are an exotic bird farmer with emus and ostriches on your farm.
You have been selling your ostrich products to a few local restaurants, but
would like to expand your market. For some reason, not too many people are
interested. What is happening to the market?
"You need to be able to
read and write to keep up communications with agricultural departments and
to find out new information," says Steve Warrington, an exotic animal farmer
in Illinois.
Exotic animal farming often means raising animals that
are new to an area or to producers. Because of this, there is lots to learn.
"Reading newsletters and articles is one way to keep up with advances," says
Warrington.
Below is an excerpt from an ostrich farming newsletter.
Read the article and then answer the questions below:
Developing
a Market
No industry sells a product successfully unless they
know their product, research their product and work on manufacturing techniques
to ensure the product is right before they try to market that product. If
the product is not right, the company does not succeed. Ostrich meat is proving
to be no different.
To date, the market has been presented with inferior
quality and variable quality meat. Too many consumers have tried it once and
been disappointed. It will take three times the effort to get them to buy
it a second time.
We are all used to eating beef -- now and again we
get a particularly bad piece. We are not put off, because we know that this
was just one bad piece and the next time it will probably be OK.
While
developing the ostrich meat market, we cannot afford any poor tasting meat,
because the chances are that the consumer eating that piece of meat will be
eating it for the first time.
The faster meat muscles grow, the more
tender and tasty it will be. That is the goal for quality meat production.
Slow growing muscles usually indicate a poor nutritional program and will
result in tougher meat with odd tastes.
(Excerpt from Ostriches Online
newsletter article by Fiona Benson. Permission for use granted by Steve Warrington,
ed.)
Questions:
- What has to happen for an industry to market its product successfully?
- Why is it easier for beef producers when an occasional piece of tough
meat is sold?
- Why can't ostrich producers afford any poor tasting meat?
- What makes good quality meat?