Consumers

Imagine you are on vacation and traveling to see relatives in another part of the country. Upon arriving at your relative’s home, they decide to have a barbeque to celebrate the reuniting of family and friends. You volunteer to bring the meat and ask what type of meat would be the favorite. The choice is thick-cut beef steaks. You find the nearest grocery store and ponder your choice for a thick-cut beef steak. From past experience you would purchase a Beef New York Strip Steak. As you go into the store to the meat department, you begin to look for the Beef New York Strip Steaks, expecting that this should only take a few moments. Unfortunately, the Beef New York Strip Steaks are nowhere to be found. After countless minutes looking through the meat case, you grow frustrated and finally ask the meat cutter. He smiles and says “I am sorry, but I don’t know what cut of beef that is.” You finally select a beef package that appears to look like the desired cuts. You leave feeling frustrated, confused and apprehensive, not understanding why they didn’t have the classic choice that you can get at home.

Back home you decide to investigate this issue. After asking a number of supermarket meat associates, you finally find someone that is from the same part of the country where your relatives live. He informs you that a Beef New York Strip Steak is also called a Kansas City Strip Steak where your relatives live. Your frustration with this issue now leads to another question – why is the same cut of meat called different names?

Had the approved URMIS name of “Beef Top Loin Steaks Boneless,” been labeled on the package and been universally used, this consumer would not have been confused. This name would have been universally placed on all packages of New York Strip Steaks as well as Kansas City Strip Steaks, and all other steaks that were this particular cut of beef. Using the URMIS system provides consistency with meat cut names and helps eliminate consumer confusion and frustrations.

Retailers

You are the head meat merchandiser of a large retail grocery chain with divisions all over the country. You are trying to compare sales data from different divisions around the country. If each division is not on the URMIS system and they are creating and using their own names, then reporting can be a tedious task. If URMIS was used universally it would make data comparing easy.

The URMIS system provides consistency and efficiency in the meat department in pricing, scaling and the training of new employees. Everyone knows the frustration that arises when you discover inconsistencies in scale, P.L.U. and order guides. Inconsistencies in these areas lead to mistakes in labeling and pricing. The URMIS system can provide consistency in scale guides, order guides and P.L.U. guides that leads to the accurate labeling and pricing of meat products. URMIS is beneficial in the training of new employees in that they learn the standardized names of meat once and for all. When they transfer to another store within that chain or even another retailer, they’ll be familiar with the right labeling standard.

Good communication is essential in any retail operation. Imagine how much easier it would be in requesting and setting up new items if everyone was using the URMIS system for descriptions. This would be beneficial for both the person requesting the new item as well as the person setting it up. The communication would be better between retailers and suppliers if they were all using the URMIS system.

Suppliers

Not only is the URMIS system beneficial to retailers, it is also beneficial to suppliers and the institutional meat industry. The IMPS numbers that are universally used by the meat industry are correlated to the URMIS descriptions. Therefore, the URMIS system not only ensures consistency in the retail meat industry but also the institutional industry as well.

Another benefit of the URMIS system is that it provides consistency throughout the supply chain. The USDA has adopted URMIS for fresh beef, pork, lamb and veal products that are processed in USDA inspected plants. The current trend in the retail industry is toward case-ready products; thus, URMIS provides consistency in the labeling of meat products beginning with the regulators, to the packers/processors and the retailers.

Regulatory

Before the URMIS system was created, there were grocery stores that began to label their meat “fancy” names to promote and increase sales through creative marketing. In addition, they decided to increase the price on the meat with the “fancy” name. This became a big issue because the same meat sold for a lower price at a competitor’s store and at another store in the same retail chain. This “fancy” name created consumer confusion and distracted the consumers’ ability to make comparisons. Unfortunately, this behavior brought about mislabeling and misbranding claims from consumers. Government regulatory officials recognized the issue, and over time, most government agencies that regulate retail meat labeling have adopted URMIS as the standard meat-cut identification system.

Traceability

With the current issues arising from terrorism and the increase in food safety awareness in our country, it is vital that we have traceability in the meat industry from the producer to the consumer. Tracking meat products without a universal identification system is virtually impossible. Traceability can be provided by the proper use of U.P.C. numbers and meat descriptions that are consistent with a universal standard. The URMIS system provides descriptions that can become universal once adopted by all aspects of the industry.

Meat Case Management

Another advantage of the URMIS system is that it makes sales data for marketing more accurate and efficient by error-proofing data that is taken from POS terminals. At the present time, most category management is done at the category and sub-category level. Imagine how much more accurate your sales data would be if it was narrowed down to the cut level. Narrowing sales data down to the cut level requires consistent and accurate descriptions. The URMIS system ensures both consistency and accuracy at this level. Furthermore, by knowing sales data at the cut level, it can also help reduce shrink costs in the industry.

Communication

Imagine you win a trip to a foreign country. Since you don’t speak the language, you go knowing it will be difficult to communicate. Your trip may be enjoyable; however, the language barrier is a problem. Unintentionally you say something that offends someone, and dining out becomes a discovery process. This is similar to the terminology barrier in the meat industry.

By using the same terminology, all people in the meat chain know what is being discussed. It eliminates confusion simply by use of the universal terminology. By having one common language, the process becomes routine. The URMIS system would reduce miscommunications and would be the common language.

Summary

The URMIS system is important. It helps:

• Universal naming of meat cuts
• Reduce consumer confusion
• Organization and merchandising in the retail stores
• Traceability of product in case of a safety issue
• The ability to track and compare data
• Eliminate miscommunications across the industry