Importance of Checkoff-Funded Foodservice Beef Backer Awards
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Suggested Lead: Each year at the annual cattle industry convention, the beef checkoff honors an industry chain and independent restaurant with the National Beef Backer Award. This award recognizes restaurants that excel in menuing and marketing beef. Winners are chosen in three categories, including Innovator of the Year, chosen at the judges’ discretion based on all selection criteria with special consideration given to those who demonstrate excellence in menuing and promoting unusual and/or new beef cuts. October 2009 marked the deadline for this year’s award nominations, and as Bill Jackson, beef producer from Oakdale, Calif., explains, the award really offers an opportunity to link the end user with the producers and helps create a conversation between the two parties to better understand the successes, needs and challenges facing both industries…tape
Cut #1 :25 O.C...”product ends up”
Jackson has had the opportunity to visit with some of the Beef Backer award winners during the cattle industry conference and has asked them what the award means to them and their business…tape
Cut #2 :28 O.C...”beef comes from”
The checkoff continues to maintain and foster foodservice relationships in hopes of finding avenues to leverage checkoff dollars and ensure a market for beef products. Jackson explains other opportunities the checkoff is seizing within the foodservice industry…tape.
Cut #3 :30 O.C...”going to get”
Even in a tough economy, consumers are expected to spend more than $500 billion on food prepared away from home. And, the more than 900,000 foodservice locations sell more than eight billion pounds of beef annually. That’s roughly half of the total beef volume in the United States. That’s why the beef checkoff is committed to helping restaurants deliver exceptional dining experiences.
For more information about foodservice iniatiatives, visit www.beeffoodservice.com. For more information about the beef checkoff, visit www.MyBeefCheckoff.com.
The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.
Funded by the Beef Checkoff.