October 2011
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Look for Beef Briefs to be delivered the first of each month – your snapshot of beef checkoff news affecting the dairy and beef industries. Editor’s note: please feel free to use these news items as space allows in your publication or online content. If you would like to expand on a certain topic, please e-mail Melissa Slagle at mslagle@beefboard.org.
In case you missed it…
… Get the latest updates by “friending” MyBeefCheckoff on Facebook.
… The beef checkoff sponsored a session at the recent Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo.
… Here’s the checkoff’s California dairy producer survey on BQA.
Food Dialogues
The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance recently launched a new effort to bring together different viewpoints on farming and ranching to discuss the issues and challenges facing the U.S. agriculture industry, and to work together to solve our most challenging problems. The Town Hall-style Food Dialogues featured a series of panels which focused on answering the questions that Americans have about how their food is grown and raised.
The Food Dialogues featured live panels in Washington, D.C., California, New York and Indiana, on industry topics based on feedback from a recently conducted national consumer survey.
We encourage you to sign up to be a part of the USFRA Community.
* U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance is funded in part by the Beef Checkoff.
Making the Cut
The beef checkoff-funded Muscle Profiling project, initiated in the late 1990s, has invigorated the beef industry by providing profitable opportunities for new beef choices from the chuck and the round. By combining product development, market research, nutrition analyses, culinary applications, and a targeted marketing effort, these “diamonds in the rough” have become the beef industry’s new value-added cuts. To date, 17 value cuts have been introduced in the marketplace, including the Flat Iron steak, a great-tasting cut from the shoulder clod. Among all beef cuts, only Filet Mignon ranks higher than the Flat Iron in tenderness.
To learn more about the Muscle Profiling project and development of the value-added cuts, or to download a graphic illustration of these new cuts, go to Product Enhancement Research and scroll down to "Evolving Consumer Needs."
Checkoff-Funded Market Research
Home Plate – Recent analyses conducted by the checkoff reveals current trends in how consumers are purchasing and preparing beef. A look at beef consumption, both in-home and in restaurants, confirms some perceptions about how beef fits into our lives, but also offers up a few surprises and identifies new opportunities to grow beef’s market share with U.S. consumers. For details, visit Hitting the Plate.
Inflation and Consumer Behavior – Research indicates that American consumers are feeling economic pressures and price pressures, including higher prices at the pump and escalating food prices, and one of their most common methods for cutting household costs is to reduce food expenses. A checkoff market research study – Economics and Food Choices – examines consumer cost-reduction strategies and how beef purchases are being affected, and identifies some strategies to position beef as a good value with price sensitive shoppers.
Poisoned: A Review
A recently released nonfiction book by bestselling author Jeff Benedict chronicles the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak that was tied to undercooked ground beef patties. The book has implications for industry participants as it highlights the outbreak as a turning point for the industry, government officials and consumers in their understanding of the threat of foodborne pathogens.
Poisoned centers largely on the role that personal injury attorney Bill Marler played subsequent to the outbreak, but does not chronicle very thoroughly advancements made in food safety research since the early nineties.
Click here to read the full review from the Beef Issues Quarterly newsletter.
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.
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