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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.

 

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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.

 

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She reported that about 80 percent of Wisconsin checkoff dollars come directly from the dairy industry so WBC likes to have a large presence at Expo and they are located in the foyer of the forum building.

Horkan says they use the opportunity to educate farmers what the beef checkoff does plus make recipes and nutrition information available and the beef samplings are usually new products or new ideas and recipes that were created by the checkoff.

“The dairy industry doers heavily invest in the beef industry,” Horkan said, “And all of our dairy cattle turn into beef, especially ground beef so when we’re there we like to feature what we’re doing with ground beef, how we’re adding value, we’re taking ground beef from the chuck and turning it into different cuts like the beef value cuts the flat iron and the shoulder tender and the Denver cut. These new cuts that are adding value that gets back to dairy producers,” she concluded.

The U.S. Senate approved the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act before adjourning for the August recess. The measure aims to provide an additional $4.5 billion over 10 years to federal child nutrition programs.

The California Beef Council (CBC) has made social media a new priority, according to Shannon Kelley, PR Coordinator.

 

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Speaking in Wednesday’s “Beef Board Update,” Kelley said that many groups and organizations, including our adversaries, are using social media to get their information to consumers as well as to producers and the CBC thought it was time to join that conversation.

The goal is to “get their story heard,” she said, respond to misinformation, and highlight checkoff funded tools available to members. She added that the priority started with consumers but they soon learned that the majority of the Beef Checkoff’s Facebook fans were beef producers, so now the Beef Board can reach and educate both consumers and producers.

The latest addition was a producer profile video that features a San Francisco Bay area ranch family, highlighting their environmental efforts and has been an effective tool in reaching consumers as well as beef producers.

The video is also presented at producer meetings, according to Kelley, and producers have volunteered to shoot their own videos to tell their story to consumers so the website was revamped and the CBC joined Facebook and has a Twitter handle, and a YouTube channel, and even has a ranch family that blogs for the CBC.

“Again this is supposed to be more consumer outreach and it has been,” Kelley concluded, “But this has kind of excited producers to get involved and kind of ignited a little flame. Some are Facebooking beef information, she said, and she suspects that some have even joined Twitter.

The Texas Beef Council works in partnership with the Texas Dietetic Association and DairyMax to engage dietitians and local media to communicate the benefits of lean beef and dairy in a healthy diet, according to the Texas Beef Council’s Stacy Bates.

 

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Bates reported in Wednesday’s DairyLine that they provide accurate, science-based nutrition information to consumers across the state and work with registered dietitians, via the Dietetic Association, to reach the media to teach consumers how beef and dairy fit into the diet as a “nutrient-dense food.”

Programs such as the “Creating the Perfect Plate,” and “Making Your Calories Count With Nutrient Rich Foods” programs give dietitians ways to get those messages to consumers in a way that’s realistic and approachable.

Dietitians are accepting of the information, according to Bates, especially when you consider how nutrient rich both foods are and they’re willing to communicate that information to people who are “more overweight than they have ever been but also more under nourished, so they can get the most nutrient bang for their calorie buck.”

When we think about nutrition, we’re really thinking about it differently, we’re thinking about including more nutrient rich foods like lean beef and low-fat dairy so they get the needed vitamins and minerals for the calories that we’re getting in return.

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.”

 

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Speaking in Wednesday’s DairyLine, O’Toole said the “Boilermaker” includes a 15K road race, the largest in the U.S., a 5K run, a three milk walk, and a kid’s run and beef is involved in a “massive way.” She reported that they have a large tent with the theme “Beef Up Your Health” which offers glucose and blood pressure testing, they have the “Beef It’s What’s For Dinner culinary stage to teach attendees how to cook beef properly, a “Beef Booth,” and a “Power of Protein challenge.”

Beef, veal, and dairy producers are competing in the ZIP team, which stands for zinc, iron, and protein. The local dairy princess is involved as Upstate Dairy donated chocolate milk to the kid’s run so they have a “nice recovery drink,” one of Chocolate milk’s many attributes, and the local Beef Council dietician is there for nutrition consulting.

The event draws radio, newsprint, and TV coverage and “When you have 100 runners wearing our “Team ZIP” shirts, you get the media’s attention.” The shirts read, “Beef, It’s What’s For Dinner.”

Dairy producers need to be involved and informed of what’s going on in the beef side of the business, according to Ted Greidanus of Tipton, California. Greidanus raises black and white bull calves in the heart of California’s dairy industry and is a current Beef Board member and Operating Committee member.  

Speaking in Wednesday’s “Beef Board Update,” Greidanus said there’s a good percentage of their calves that go directly to beef production along with their market ready cows thus dairy animals make up a good percentage of U.S. beef production and that beef goes throughout the world. 

 

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Dairy producers have an investment via the beef check off on their bull calves and cows, according to Greidanus, who called it a “very good investment,” based on statistical information which shows that their one dollar investment returns about five dollars to the farmer. 

“The Beef check off does so much,” Greidanus said, and he knows it first-hand because he serves on the Operating Committee which makes recommendations to the Executive Committee on how the check off money is to be spent, being it advertising, research, developing international markets, or food safety. 

The budget runs around $40 million, he said, though it is declining because cattle numbers are declining so “We need to work hard with the precious resources that we have but it’s about promoting beef and making sure that, that dollar that gets invested through the check off program returns more dollars back to the producers.”

Washington State dairy producer,  Dave Boon,  is serving his third year on the Washington State Beef Commission and encouraged his fellow dairy farmers to be actively involved in the beef side of their business at the local level.

 

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He said it’s important that they know where the beef checkoff dollars go and what they do. He said that a significant development in the recent past was the fact that there are 29 lean cuts of beef on cows and that has great implications for how beef is marketed.

Beef has come under attack by the vegetarian, animal rightists and Boon said it’s important to have the beef checkoff to respond because beef a vital part of our food supply and is an important industry.

He believes the beef check off is a good investment for dairy producers because “our animals are grain fed generally and is a great source of lean cuts. 20 percent of the U.S. beef supply comes from dairy cattle, according to Boon.

Maryville, Tennessee dairy producer Mac Pate has been a dairy farmer for 61 years and has seen a lot of change in the dairy industry in that time as well as in the beef check off which has been around for about 25 of those years.

Speaking in this week’s “Beef Board Update,” Pate had some advice for fellow dairy producers; “Stick together and have one voice.” He said he believes some kind of supply management program is needed to control the milk supply. The supply/demand equation is a factor in beef as well though “it seems easier to control the supply in beef and doesn’t vary quite as fast as in the milk business.”

Pate said he has always believed in advertising and promoting and “is one of the main things we can do to increase sales of beef.” He praised the Beef checkoff and views it as a good investment for dairy producers. He said he worked hard, as a dairy producer to try to get beef promotion started and has always felt that “it is a good instrument to increase sales for beef.”

Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania dairy producer and Beef Board member Joyce Bupp talked about the importance of farmers “telling their story” in Wednesday’s DairyLine. Bupp is in the process of completing the beef check off’s “Masters of Beef Advocacy” program. She said the program is designed to take information that farmers are very familiar with everyday but don’t give a lot of thought to and put it into a compiled, easy-to-read form that reinforces what farmers do. She said it includes information on modern meat production, animal care, beef safety, nutrition, and “things that consumers, neighbors, and friends are interested in.”

 

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She acknowledged that there is an information gap among consumers and said it’s sad because people are interested in what farmers do and are supportive once they know but “there’s such a disconnect of a lot of society today from agriculture that they just don’t understand they’re and really hungering for information.”

She agreed to the importance of farmers telling their story before someone else does it for them because “there are a lot of organizations out there with agendas and large advertising dollars.” She admitted that farmers don’t have a lot of dollars but “we do have a lot of care and belief in our industry, a lot of passion for what we do so it really behooves us as producers to be ready to step up to the plate and educate ourselves.”

The program “makes us more comfortable with what we’re talking about,” she said. “We know what we do but it just helps us to organize our thoughts and have some facts at hand and be better spokespersons for our industry.”

Jim Docheff is a Longmont, Colorado dairy producer who believes in the beef checkoff. He said so in Wednesday’s DairyLine, saying it’s “dollars well spent and something every dairy producer needs to pay into and be happy to do it.”  

 

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“Ultimately, all these milk cows become beef and enter the food chain,” he reasoned, and while he admits that beef sales on a dairy farm are a small part of its income, in financial times like now, “we looking for every dollar out there and if we can raise the price of those beef cows, $10-$15 a head for that dollar we’re paying, I think that’s a pretty good return for our money.”  

He pointed out that a lot of culled dairy cattle go to ground beef and he suggests a partnership with the dairy check off to promote cheeseburgers, especially with summer grilling upon us, he believes we could increase beef and cheese sales at the same time. He has suggested this to the Beef Board to not just promote beef, but include dairy and this would be “good for everybody involved.”  

He admits the calf issue is a tough one. They do have a value, he said, we just need to determine what that value is. It’s a sore subject for dairy farmers, he concluded, “I can’t say that we’ve seen a real bang for our buck on those but we need to get some brains together on that, sit down and see what we can come up with because there has to be something we can do with those dairy calves.”