牛肉干：下一个百亿美元市场？

    好时公司本周宣布将收购一家牛肉干生产商，此举如果放在五年或十年前，肯定会被许多人认为不可思议，或者至少有点奇怪。但现在我们似乎正处在肉干大爆炸的时代。对处于困境的好时公司来说，收购Krave Pure Foods食品公司或许是最好的选择。

    对巧克力类零食的依赖，使得好时公司一直受制于波动起伏的大宗商品市场。牛奶和可可豆的价格最近迅速上涨，不仅迫使该公司提高售价，还蚕食了它的利润。可可豆的价格现在已有所下降，但这在很大程度上是宏观经济力量（比如中国经济放缓）导致全球需求疲软所带来的反应。

    与此同时，美国和其他西方国家的消费者越来越倾向于选择蛋白质类零食，而不是含糖食品。通过收购一家大型牛肉干供应商，好时公司正在将营销目标直接对准因这种趋势而流失的那部分消费者——他们并没有走远，通常还在相同的杂货店通道，只不过现在挑选的是牛肉干。

    但这可不是你的父亲或曾祖父吃的肉干小吃。牛肉干正在经历一次复兴。许多产品均被冠以“手工制作”的名号，这往往意味着更高的零售价格。Krave公司的牛肉干产品包括“罗勒柑橘土耳其口味”、“咖喱牛肉味”、“蜂蜜墨西哥风味”和“烟熏烤猪肉味”。这些产品完全不同于康尼格拉公司批量生产的Slim Jim香肠，或那种使用研磨好的肉泥制成的牛肉干，后者通常也会打上“牛肉干”标签，但一般都会带有“研磨成型”和 “切碎成型”等警告信息。真正的牛肉干是从一整块肉上切下一小块，然后经过腌制和熏制制作而成。牛肉的品质和添加的调味品，让Krave牛肉干成为一种“高端”食品。

    最近的牛肉干大爆炸其实肇始于十多年前，只是近期开始迅速流行起来。《经济学人》杂志早在2006年就指出：“几年前，牛肉干还被视为是一种老式食物。然而，阿特金斯健康饮食法引发的热潮令其重新焕发光彩。”

    好时公司进军这个行业的时机有些晚，但迟做总比不做好。

    2010年，Krave公司创始人乔恩•塞巴斯蒂亚尼在进行马拉松训练的时候，品尝了一块让他久久不能忘怀的牛肉干，随后就在加州索诺玛的葡萄酒乡创立了这家公司。

    Krave公司8月份发布报告称，它已经成为美国食品杂货店的第二大牛肉干品牌，今年的营收预计将比2013年的1690万美元增长300%。好时公司并未公布这笔收购交易的数据，但路透社估算称，交易金额应该在2亿至3亿美元之间。

    Krave并非一家独大。市场上有许多“高端”牛肉干供应商，如Jeff's Famous和Gary West手工烟肉——《今日秀》节目曾将Gary West的安格斯牛肉产品称为“牛肉干中的劳斯莱斯”。

    这类产品的价格往往很高，利润估计也相当可观。一包16盎司“超值袋装”Krave黑樱桃叉烧猪肉干在亚马逊的售价为18美元。本月早些时候，CBS新闻台报道称，纽约市食品零售店Dean & Deluca出售的美洲野牛肉干的价格超过每磅70美元。仅在过去五年间，牛肉干的销售额就增加了10亿美元。据好时公司透露，目前该市场的价值约为25亿美元，而且未来仍有巨大的增长空间。

    如果说近期的埃博拉病毒危机给Krave创始人塞巴斯蒂亚尼带来了财富，并促使好时公司改变了策略，那未免太过肤浅，甚至有些无礼。但两件事之间确实有一定的联系。可可豆的价格在去年暴涨有许多原因，其中之一便是担心埃博拉病毒蔓延到科特迪瓦造成供应短缺，因为科特迪瓦是可可豆的头号生产国。（西非的可可豆产量约占全世界产量的70%。）

    这一幕并未出现，可可豆价格迅速下跌。但对于好时公司来说，因乳制品价格上涨和疲软的全球需求造成的损失业已形成。这家美国最大的巧克力制造商正在做许多吃糖成瘾的美国人正在做的事情：给自己的菜单中添加更多蛋白质。像这些美国人一样，这样做肯定也能让好时公司变得更加健康。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    审校：任文科

    Five or ten years ago, Hershey’s announcement this week that it will acquire a maker of jerky snacks might have seemed a little odd, if not downright weird. But we seem to be in the midst of a dried-meat explosion, and buying Krave Pure Foods might be the best possible move the struggling Hershey could make.

    Hershey’s reliance on chocolate snacks puts it at the mercy of fickle commodities markets. Prices for both milk and cocoa have spiked recently, forcing Hershey to raise prices, and crimping its margins. Cocoa prices are falling now, but that’s largely in response to weakening global demand due to macroeconomic forces like China’s slowdown.

    At the same time, Americans and other Western consumers are increasingly opting for protein-based snacks in favor of sugary ones. By picking up a major purveyor of jerky, Hershey is directly targeting the consumers it has lost to that trend—and often right in the same grocery aisle.

    But this is not your father’s (or great-grandfather’s) dried-meat snack. Jerky is undergoing something of a renaissance. The word “artisanal” is actually being applied to many of these products, which command high retail prices. Krave’s varieties include “Basil Citrus Turkey,” “Curry Beef,” “Honey Chipotle,” and “Smoky Grilled Teriyaki Pork.” These products are a far cry from the mass-produced tubes that are ConAgra’s Slim Jim sausage snacks, or the faux jerky that is basically ground-up meat mush flattened into strips — but is often labeled “jerky,” though with the caveat “ground and formed” or “chopped and formed” appended. Real jerky is sliced from a single piece of meat, salted and cured. The quality of the meat, and the addition of flavorings, is what pushes it into the “high end” category.

    The recent jerky explosion really started more than a decade ago, though it has trended up more recently. “If only a few years ago, jerky seemed an old-fashioned kind of food,” The Economist observed in 2006, the carniphilia inspired by the Atkins diet has given it a new life.”

    Hershey might be a little late to the party, but at least it’s finally here.

    Krave was launched in 2010 in the Wine Country town of Sonoma, Calif., after its founder, Jon Sebastiani, took to eating jerky while training for marathons.

    In August, the company reported that it had become the No. 2 jerky brand in U.S. grocery stores, and that it expected revenues this year to be 300% greater than the $16.9 million it reported in 2013. Numbers were not disclosed for the Hershey deal, but Reuters estimates it was worth between $200 million and $300 million.

    Krave is not alone in the market. There are many purveyors of “high end” jerky, including Jeff’s Famous and Gary West Artisan Smoked Meats — whose angus beef-based product The Today Show once dubbed “the Rolls Royce of jerky.”

    Prices (and, it’s safe to assume, margins) in this segment tend to be hefty. Krave’s Black Cherry BBQ Pork Jerky is selling for $18 on Amazon for a single package — the 16-ounce “value bag.” CBS Newsreported earlier this month that the gourmet grocer Dean & Deluca was selling bison jerky for more than $70 a pound in New York City, and that jerky sales have increased by $1 billion in the past five years alone. The market is worth about $2.5 billion now, according to the Hershey, and there seems to be plenty of more growth ahead.

    It would be far too facile (and a little offensive) to say that the recent Ebola crisis led to riches for Sebastiani and a new strategy for Hershey. Nevertheless, a line can be drawn between the two events. Cocoa prices last year spiked for a bunch of reasons, but one of them was potential shortages if the disease were to spread to the Ivory Coast, the top cocoa producing country. (West Africa as a whole produces about 70% of the world’s crop.)

    That never happened, and cocoa prices are dropping fast. But for Hershey, the damage was done, aided by rising dairy prices and softening global demand. The country’s biggest chocolate maker is doing what many formerly sweets-addled Americans are doing: adding more protein to its diet. And like them, it’s likely to feel better for it.