Marketing is the business of identifying and understanding consumer needs, tailoring products to best meet those needs, then delivering the product to achieve maximum consumer satisfaction in tandem with maximum financial return. Marketing channels include transportation, handling and storage, ownership transfers, processing, and distribution.

California has two major advantages over other goat producing areas in that it has a major goat consuming population, plus has the capability to produce meat goats. As Dr. Frank Pinkerton has described it, “The meat goat industry is now rapidly developing. Market channels are becoming discernible, points of origin are better defined, and new processing plants and marketing techniques designed to better meet consumer needs, are increasingly evident.” Many areas of the country have local markets for goats, but the infrastructure to market goats is still new and developing.

Driving forces behind the increased demand for meat goats are the growing ethnic populations in the country. The Hispanic population is expected to swell to 25% of the U.S. population by 2050. Muslim and other faith-based populations such as Buddhists are increasing more than 150% in number. They have created a demand for goat meat and other cultural products.

Many farmers are already taking advantage of this new type of market. However, consumers are demanding different sizes and kinds of products; producers, processors or packers lack this niche market information. Presently, demand surpasses supply and the lack of sufficient market information and an organized market is evident. In this section I will try to focus on several potential marketing possibilities. However, as indicated in the earlier sections, the meat goat industry is in its infancy in this country, and the U.S. needs important industry leadership to reduce our dependency on imported meat and safely serve domestic consumers.