Marketing Livestock in the Philippines

After raising your livestock, you are now ready to sell them. Marketing poultry and livestock is another phase of farm operations. It involves important jobs such as slaughtering, dressing, transporting, holding, and distributing produce from the farm to the local market.

Animal raisers can sell their animal produce live, dressed, slaughtered, or frozen. Animal products are sold in 3 ways by animal raisers:

• when they sell their produce to buyers or consumers
• when they sell their animal produce through wholesalers or middlemen, and these in turn will be sold to retailers
• when they sell to cooperatives or associations of animal raisers which have sure buyers of animal produce.

Marketing animal produce and their by-products must be done efficiently and orderly. Vehicles in transporting live animals should be in good condition so that they would not be hurt.

Knowing the value of the produce you are to sell would ensure that you don't lose in the business you're engaged in.

Recording the list of expenses and sales lets one know if his or her business is a success or a failure. List of expenses ranges from feeds, medicines, labor, fares, etc.

Consumer trends indicate the growing interest in locally produced livestock products. People are increasingly interested in knowing where their foods come from including how animals are raised and slaughtered.

Some promising opportunities for livestock producers lie in niche marketing (targeting a specific gap in the market) and relationship marketing with people (building relationships with people by meeting their needs). Target a gap in the market, develop strong relationships with customers, and stick to your marketing program. If you deliver quality products on a consistent basis, word about your operation and products will spread in favorite ways.

The high perishability of some livestock products means marketing may require a little more research and preparation than other farm products. A thorough market research could develop a good understanding of the regulations concerning the sale of meat products.

Once you've decided the type of livestock operation you want to have and the product you want to sell, you must decide on a market. Perhaps the first of your decisions should be whether to sell retail, wholesale, or a combination of both.

Selling livestock products directly to consumers involves word of mouth advertising, relationship marketing, and consumer education through direct interactions.

Some opportunities include targeting ethnic or religious groups, establishing a mail order business, or selling through a farm in which two or more farms pool their resources to supply customers.

However, if you sell other farm products at farmer's markets, you may be able to do some relationship marketing by letting regular customers know they can buy directly from your farm.

Although word of mouth and relationship marketing may still be a part of wholesale marketing of livestock products, wholesale marketing usually involves more formal consumer education of buyers, such as restaurants and grocery stores. Information shared about the way the animals are raised and the way products are processed must appeal to potential buyers and their clients. Such stores may be just the place to market locally grown meat. Restaurants that promote local produce may also show interest in serving locally and naturally grown meat.