Discovering Veal’s Deliciousness

When consumers think about veal, they likely think that fancy, Italian, white-tablecloth restaurants are the only places that serve veal nowadays. The Beef Checkoff is changing that narrative and promoting veal as a nutritious, delicious option for any consumer.

The Checkoff-funded National Veal Program, executed by the New York Beef Council and the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) developed a new brand and website to invite consumers to “Discover Delicious” in veal.

Veal – Discover Delicious, integrates the former vealmadeeasy.com and vealfarm.com platforms and was developed with veal stakeholders’ input. The website features upcoming events, blog articles and cooking school information. Veal producers and other industry stakeholders can use the site to see extensive consumer outreach efforts. This website also shows consumers where to buy veal online, in butcher shops or at grocery stores.

Along with this website launch, the brand has several other ongoing campaigns and events. Here’s a program snapshot:

Family Features Campaign Highlights Veal’s Versatility – This social media and digital-focused campaign with Culinary.net uses veal as a popular and trending recipe ingredient for families. One new recipe was a buffalo baked veal cutlet sandwich. To date, this campaign has 725 total placements across the country in print media, online and social media networks, totaling 68,183,494 impressions.

Veal Wins Big on Chicory Promotion – An important goal of veal’s outreach is to touch different and new consumers, making them aware of veal as a protein option and how it can fit into their weekly meal choices. One way this was accomplished was through a campaign with Chicory, a digital shopper marketing platform that turns recipes into a retail environment and reaches consumers through an online recipe network. Consumers had the opportunity to add veal directly to their virtual shopping carts with the click of a button. Beef Checkoff dollars invested in this campaign were doubled by contributions from other brand partners, such as Victoria’s Pasta Sauce. Brand partners were complementary to veal, allowing consumers to see veal in a cooked application. The overall campaign was then supported by the Florida and Wisconsin State Beef Councils. This campaign ran from mid-February to mid-March, and at the second performance report in early March, there were more than one million impressions and 2,531 veal orders were added to baskets.

Consumers Gather for the ‘Love of Veal’ – Nine consumers joined both in-person and virtually from around the nation to take part in a veal cooking experience with Chef Patrick Rae and a wine tasting with Laurie Forster. The class taught consumers how to make two veal recipes with a romantic theme for Valentine’s Day. There was a 45 percent increase in comfort level among the participants in cooking veal following this class. Overall, participants gave the class 4.5 stars. More consumer cooking classes are planned for the rest of the year.

“SO enjoyed your For the Love of Veal virtual cooking class last night! I appreciate you taking the time to ‘de-mystify’ beef industry practices regarding veal, and I followed along with Chef Patrick’s instructions to make veal marsala, green beans and fingerling potatoes.” – Participant feedback.

National Collegiate Veal Cooking Competition – State Beef Councils in Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, Arizona and Florida connected with their culinary institutes and students to extend the opportunity to be a part of the State and National Collegiate Cooking Competition. Students take the time to learn about veal production and then create a recipe of their own design for a consumer audience. One winner from each state will receive a scholarship prize and compete at the national level for additional scholarship money. There has been a 125 percent increase in State Beef Council participation in this program since 2019.