Beef Checkoff News

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Strategies Adapting to Driving Demand By Samantha Riley, Director of Education and Marketing

While the last several weeks have been anything but normal the Checkoff has still been hard at work educating consumers about the protein powerhouse that is beef. Consumers perceptions and behaviors about beef are as strong as they’ve ever been.

Restaurants are focusing more on “To Go” menus, free delivery and family style meals. When consumers aren’t ordering food curbside, they’re focusing on ground beef recipes, comfort foods, including meatloaf, pasta and slow cooker recipes, and healthy recipes. Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. expanded their target demographic to reach more consumers, created new batch cooking, pantry staples and kid-friendly articles to share with consumers and added in heavy rotations of Nicely Done, Beef. ‘Sizzle” videos and Beef 101 videos on social platforms, focusing on preparing beef at home.

Since launching these new initiatives, they have received 5 million video views (as of April 7th) and there has been a 51% increase in recipe-related page views on BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com (as of April 7th).

The Missouri Beef Industry Council is ready, willing and responsive to the situation at hand. Missouri Beef Industry Council staff have been hard at work at adapting and responding to the situation and continuing to stay flexible to changes. Many steps have been taken on the state level, much like the national level, to reach more consumers and producers alike to move the

message that beef is important in the diet, sharing at home recipes and educational resources. Now, more than ever, digital marketing has played a huge role in reaching those we cannot see in person.

Digital Marketing

From mid-March to mid-April, MBIC reached more than 56,000 people and had more than 102,000 impressions across all social platforms. Our digital tactics have changed, focusing more on beef preparation, beef safety and preparing easy, fast and simple meals at home with staples consumers have in their pantries. Providing educational materials has also been a priority for adults and kids alike, featuring activities, coloring pages, and educational games to do together as a family on mobeef.org.

MBIC has added a page for consumers to visit to find producers selling beef, provided by Missouri Cattlemen’s Association and Missouri Grown, as consumer interests have changed from solely purchasing from the grocery store. Development of cooking videos started in midMarch, including a Kids in the Kitchen and KidFriendly Meals, and Batch Cooking for the at home chef. MBIC has also been sending out weekly emails including recipes, beef preparation tips and resources. If you would like to sign up for Checkoff updates via email or postal mail contact Samantha Riley at samantha@ mobeef.com.

Consumer Affairs

Consumer affairs efforts continue to move forward as well. While some events have been postponed, others have adapted to the situation. The Missouri Association of Nutrition and Dietetics (MOAND) made the decision to turn their annual conference into a virtual event via webinar. MBIC sponsored the keynote speaker and a panel. Cara Harbstreet MS RD LD, Street Smart Nutrition, was the keynote speaker, focusing on Rethinking Health: Building Sustainable Plates with Beef.

MBIC also supplied the panelists for the Beef Up Your Communications Toolkit: A Conversation with Industry Experts including: Tiffanie Weekley, a registered nurse, board certified lactation consultant and owner of Morning Glory Farms, Kelly Ast, West Central Community Action Agency’s Health and Wealth project director and Mark Russell, Executive Director of the Missouri Beef Industry Council. There are still plans to move ahead with the Southeast and Southwest MOAND event in St. James this summer focusing on some of the same topics, but in a more hands-on environment.

Efforts have been made to reach all influencer groups in new ways, including providing resources they can share with members and clients to answer questions about cooking beef at home and beef nutrition. While MBIC may not be able to reach consumers face-to-face during this, it’s still important to find new ways to reach them virtually – either through email, phone conferences or video conferencing.

Mo Beef Mo Kids

Mo Beef Mo Kids (MoBKF) has been working diligently to provide consumers with educational tools while students are out of the classroom. MoBKF has been focusing on sharing recipes, education and participant spotlights and health and wellness information. The FFA/4H Leadership Academy is also slated to start this summer with high school students serving as representatives for the program and gaining valuable leadership and communication skills. Internal infrastructure is being built to better assist those participating in the program on all levels: schools, processors and producers.

Looking Forward

As the Missouri Beef Industry Council starts planning for the new fiscal year starting in October and events coming this summer, we will continue to stay flexible and adaptable in our strategies to reach consumers to provide them with the tools and resources they need to keep choosing beef again and again.

Metal “Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner”. signs are still available to purchase through the MBIC cost-share program. Contact Barb Reynolds at barb@mobeef.com to order. There are currently 50+ Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. signs across the state.

Please follow us on social media @beefcouncil on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.

Source: NCBA

DENVER, CO (April 14, 2020) – Promotion programs being managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association as a contractor to the Beef Checkoff have shifted and grown in response to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. These efforts reflect a consumer population that is concerned for their day-to-day health and the availability of delicious, safe and wholesome food products, like beef.

“It was only two months ago that Beef Checkoff committees got together in San Antonio at the Cattle Industry Convention to work collectively to develop plans to improve beef demand,” says Buck Wehrbein, a feedlot manager from Nebraska and chairman of the Federation of State Beef Councils. “In a few short weeks our entire world and the way we engage with each other and our communities have changed, and our response through the Beef Checkoff has had to change with it.”

Wehrbein notes that many events and conferences the Beef Checkoff had a role in have been canceled and some research projects have paused. In addition, the current issues called for the program to shift messages to meet the needs of consumers immediately. “Our market research and market intelligence staff members are keeping a close eye on what is going on in retail and foodservice channels, as well as how consumers are responding and what they need from us,” Wehrbein says. beef nutrition to help consumers while they are home during the pandemic.

Wehrbein says the supply chain is leveling out and beef is becoming more available in retail meat cases. According to IRI, a market research company, meat has been the leading sales driver for the perimeter of the retail store, up more than 90 percent for the week ending March 22, year-over-year. While those numbers have moderated somewhat, they are still considerably higher than they were for the same period in 2019. Those figures can seem frustrating to producers who feel they have not received a fair share, Wehrbein says, but they do help demonstrate the checkoff is doing its job, which is to strengthen beef demand.

With three out of four consumers under stay-at-home orders, they are cooking more meals for more people, more often. NCBA staff, along with staffs of state beef councils across the country, are leveraging their extensive library of content, including advertisements, recipes, cooking videos and educational materials about

Tips on beef preparation and recipes are being provided to consumers through Beef Checkoff-funded content on the Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner web site, including recipe collections, cooking lessons and beef safety information. Meanwhile, both national and state programs have shifted advertising dollars to deliver this content to consumers and provide it on social media platforms, too. In addition, the checkoff is reminding consumers that Chuck Knows Beef, the digital assistant based on artificial intelligence, is available to help them with their beef questions.

Recipes and resources are also being provided to food influencers, supply chain partners and the news media to support their efforts to educate consumers about food preparation and healthy eating. NCBA, in its checkoff role, is also keeping in close contact with supply chain partners to provide support as they adjust to the current consumer and business environments.

Wehrbein encourages interested producers to follow Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. on social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to see how Beef Checkoff dollars are helping consumers feel confident in choosing and preparing beef, and is assuring those consumers that the beef industry is committed to providing safe, healthy, wholesome beef to the food supply.

Beef in the “Substitute” Seat

To reach those consumers, a new campaign was released April 1 to highlight the versatility of beef. NCBA, as a checkoff contractor, partnered with three nationally recognized chefs who found creative ways to substitute beef for more commonly used proteins in one of their favorite dishes. The resulting recipes include: • Peking Chuck: In this nod to Peking Duck, Top Chef finalist Joe Sasto replaces the duck with a Chuck

Roast for a unique Asian-inspired beef meal. • Korean Fried Beef (KFB): Who needs fried chicken when you can enjoy fried beef at home? Acclaimed NYC chef Esther Choi shows how to make this classic dish with a beefy Korean twist. • Cowlamari: For this tasty treat, beloved Chicago chef and Food Network regular Lamar Moore replaces the surf with turf and turns Calamari into Cowlamari.

and retail outreach. Through advertising alone, it’s projected the initial campaign flight will secure 31 million impressions. A special webpage that includes the chef videos and recipes provides an overview of the campaign, and the recipes, which use a play on words, complement the Beef Checkoff’s “Nicely Done Beef” campaign.

Results show the campaign is already paying dividends. The recipes were shared with major news outlets and resulted in the Associated Press picking up the story. The chefs, who have thousands of followers, are also pushing the recipes out on their own social media platforms. Since the new videos launched, there have been more than 1.2 million video views and nearly 1.5 million social engagements with the content. The team also activated Masters of Beef Advocacy graduates asking them to share their own “beef substitute” recipes. Cooking with the Cowboy making a Steak Pot Pie and Girl Carnivore serving up Beef Parmesan were two results.

Extensive engagement with national consumer media reporters was also conducted by NCBA as a Beef Checkoff contractor. As part of the outreach the team distributed four press releases, which were also utilized by state beef councils in extension with local and state media outlets. NCBA has also been pitching media to Finally, Wehrbein points to a summer grilling promotion planned to begin Memorial Day and run through Labor Day that will celebrate beef as the center of grilling activities. The “United We Steak” campaign will feature each state in the country and highlight the favorite steak of that state. The campaign is being developed in close partnership with state beef councils to develop the state features, including individual web pages highlighting that state’s unique components. It’s hoped the timing of the campaign will leverage consumers coming together after the extended “stay at home” orders.

“Federation board members, who represent their state beef council on the board, can take pride in the work they’ve done to make these national programs possible. But they can also be proud of the work of their own state organizations,” says Wehrbein. “There are innovative efforts to reach consumers and influencers being conducted on many fronts, including through online platforms.”

At the national level those online platforms includes the Beef Quality Assurance website where producers can become certified online, or the Masters of Beef Advocacy that allows industry supporters to take their voices to a broader audience.

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