Pennsylvania Beef Council Gets The Word Out About BQA Program
The Pennsylvania Beef Council (PBC) recently began an innovative way to communicate to its
producer members, using a monthly e-newsletter. PBC director of communications, Carrie Bomgardner, talked about it on Wednesday’s Beef Board Update.
She says the newsletter inform producers of coming events for its Beef Quality Assurance program (BQA) such as the latest training dates and where they will be conducted.
The newsletter also tells producers how their checkoff dollars are being spent, consumer events and retail and foodservice partnerships.
The biggest surprise, according to Bomgardner, was the response they received from their producer members whenever they send out the e-newsletter. She said it’s been an effective way of getting producers to sign up for the BQA program.
Pennsylvania serves as a hub for BQA efforts in eight states in the Mid Atlantic; West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, New York, Maine, Vermont, and New Jersey. More than 3,000 Pennsylvania producers alone are now certified.
Bomgardner’s office helps facilitate these meetings and regional meetings and encourages members to be certified, though each program has its own unique spin on the DQA but the PBC serves as a coordinator to make sure they’re all on the same page.

One of my favorite exhibits at World dairy Expo is the Wisconsin Beef Council (WBC). Don’t tell anyone but they serve beef samples and Angie Horkan, WBC director of marketing, said in Wednesday’s DairyLine that they love exhibiting at Expo because the dairy industry is an extremely vital part of the WBC.
State Beef Council check off dollars help add value to beef and dairy farmers and help drive consumer demand for beef through events like the “Boilermaker” event in Utica, New York, in July, according to Jean O’Toole, New York Beef Industry Council director of retail, foodservice, and consumer events.”

