Making chickens exciting to consumers

"There is a lot you can do with chicken, as demonstrated by businesses such as KFC, Nando's and Chicken Licken that operate on a classic brand model as they innovate, differentiate and communicate," says Daly. "When I came on board I needed to develop a consumer focus to make the consumer the heart of our business."

Daly says the company's focus was previously on bird performance - and then in deciding what to do with thousands of tons of chicken.

What does the consumer want?

"Now we ask: what does the consumer want - and then we produce it," he explains. "Rainbow is making huge strides with retailers because we are not just trying to offload chicken that has, by and large, previously been sold with price being the only point of difference, but are now making the category more interesting."

As an example, Daly says that different end products require different-size birds like the company's food solutions division that supplies quick service restaurants such as KFC.

"Our clients in this case are selling specific portions and therefore need a consistent size bird, while we found that bags of frozen random chicken portions sold at supermarkets did not meet consumer needs," he says. "Considering that a mother would not give breasts - which have more on them - to two family members and thighs and drumsticks to the rest, we developed a family pack with specific portions, namely four drums, four wings , four thighs and no breasts."

Getting the mix right

Bearing in mind that the per capita consumption of chicken has grown for the past 20 years and that chicken is the favoured protein in South Africa, Daly says Rainbow's focus has not been on growing market share, but rather on getting the customer, category and brand mix right.

"Ready-to-eat food is a major trend overseas, and if we make chicken exciting to consumers in South Africa, they will buy more of it," he says.

To this end, Rainbow recently completed a R156-million food processing plant in Hammersdale, KwaZulu-Natal, which Daly says has improved the company's product mix and resulted in greater efficiency.

"We recently launched a new range of fully cooked, ready-to-eat chicken under a Farmer Brown Easy-serve brand; precooked under the Farmer Brown Easybraai range; ready-mixed chicken mayonnaise and sliced chicken; as well as new products under the Rainbow brand such as chicken steaklets, nuggets, polony and viennas," he concludes.