Wholestone Prestage is a pork processing company that supplies pork products to retail, foodservice, and other business customers. Since many of its customers are businesses, we are going to focus on a retail meat buyer for a grocery chain like Cub. First, we will look at the customer profile of a retail meat buyer and then create a fictional customer persona to represent this type of customer.
Customer Profile
Demographic Information
Age: Usually around 30–55 years old because this position typically requires previous experience in retail, merchandising, or the food industry.
Gender: Both men and women can work as retail meat buyers, so the position is not gender-specific.
Location: For a grocery chain like Cub, the buyer would most likely live in Minnesota.
Education: A bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, merchandising, agriculture, or a related field may be preferred. Previous industry experience can also be important.
Occupation: A Meat Category Manager or Retail Meat Buyer selects products and works with suppliers while managing pricing, promotions, inventory, sales, and profitability.
Psychographic Information
Values & Beliefs: Retail meat buyers value quality, competitive pricing, reliable supply, and strong supplier relationships. They also want products that meet consumer needs.
Personality Traits: Buyers are likely analytical, organized, strategic, and good communicators. They need to work well with suppliers and use sales information to make decisions.
Motivations: Their main motivation is increasing sales and profitability while providing meat products that consumers want to purchase.
Challenges & Pain Points: Buyers have to manage changing product costs, consumer preferences, inventory, product quality, and profit margins.
Behavioral Information
Buying Behavior: Retail meat buyers make large purchasing decisions for grocery stores rather than purchasing products for themselves. Price, quality, consumer demand, profitability, and supplier reliability can all influence their decisions.
Product/Service Usage: Buyers purchase pork products from suppliers like Wholestone Prestage to distribute and sell through grocery meat departments. They mostly buy fresh pork products and marinated products from Wholestone Prestage.
Online Behavior: Buyers may use supplier websites, email, LinkedIn, industry publications, market research, and sales data when researching products and suppliers.
Goals and Objectives
How Wholestone/Prestage Helps: Wholestone Prestage can provide buyers with consistent, high-quality pork products and a reliable supply. Its connection to Midwest pork producers can also provide transparency about where the pork comes from.
Objections and Concerns
Potential Barriers: Price, product availability, quality, transportation, consumer demand, and existing supplier relationships could influence whether a buyer chooses Wholestone Prestage.
Common Questions: Buyers may ask about price, available products, supply, product specifications, delivery, product origin, and what makes the products different from competitors.
Using this information, we can create a fictional customer persona representing a typical retail meat buyer who could purchase pork products from Wholestone Prestage.
Customer Persona
Name: Matt Johnson
Age: 42
Occupation: Meat Category Manager for a regional grocery retailer in Minnesota.
Goals: Matt wants to provide high-quality pork products that customers want while maintaining competitive prices and strong profit margins. He also wants dependable suppliers that can consistently meet his stores’ needs.
Challenges: Matt has to balance product cost, quality, inventory, consumer demand, and profitability. He also needs to keep up with changing market trends and consumer preferences.
Personality: Matt is analytical, organized, and strategic. He values strong relationships with suppliers but also relies on sales information and consumer trends when making purchasing decisions.
Sources
Cub – About Us
https://www.cub.com/store/cub/pages/about
Cub – Category Manager, Meat Job Posting
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/category-manager-meat-at-cub-4446080477
Wholestone Farms – Our Story
https://wholestonefarms.com/our-story/
Wholestone Farms – Our Farms
https://wholestonefarms.com/our-farms/
National Pork Board – Emerging Retail Trends Shaping Pork Demand
https://www.porkcheckoff.org/news/emerging-retail-trends-shaping-pork-demand/
Fillmore County Journal – Wholestone Farms: Providing Pork Raised by Your Neighbors
https://fillmorecountyjournal.com/wholestone-farms-providing-pork-raised-by-your-neighbors/