Company test-markets higher-fat pork in Maine

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Smithfield Foods Inc. says it’s test-marketing a new, higher-fat pork to cater to consumers following low-carbohydrate diets.

Called Smithfield Preferred Stock, the product goes in the opposite direction of the company’s Lean Generation Pork line, developed more than a decade ago to appeal to health-conscious carnivores.

The Smithfield, Va., company has spent the past four years creating a new breed of hog that would provide more flavorful fresh pork, said James D. Schloss, Smithfield’s vice president of marketing.

“This is more of pork the way it used to be – tastier with a little bit of fat on it,” Schloss told the local chapter of the American Marketing Association this week.

The Smithfield Preferred Stock fresh pork hit some test supermarkets in San Antonio and Maine in the past few months. Schloss said he didn’t know when or where the fatty pork would hit Virginia supermarkets.

Andrew Wolf, an analyst with BB&T Capital Markets, doesn’t see the new brand as any significant shift in the public’s tastes. Rather, it’s a nod to serve customers who prefer fatty, more flavorful pork and those who treat themselves occasionally with the fattier type.

“A lot of it is catering to the idea that people are going to, on occasion, give up healthiness for taste,” Wolf said. “They’re just saying there’s another market segment out there.”