CHECKOFF-FUNDED FOOD EDITOR CONTACTS REAP EXTENSIVE PUBLICITY FOR BEEF

CHICAGO (December 21, 1998) – Programs that encourage editors to feature beef more often have resulted in recipes and articles reaching millions of consumers this holiday season. Just two of many editor contacts, funded by beef producers through their beef checkoff, have reached consumers more than 42 million times recently through 550 newspapers.

A checkoff-funded beef seminar for food authorities helped generate some of this positive exposure for beef. Among evidence of the seminar’s success was a positive placement in the Sunday, Nov. 15 issue of Parade Magazine, which is inserted into 330 newspapers with total circulation of 33 million.

In "Never Say ‘What’s for Dinner’ Again," author and registered dietitian Bonnie Tandy Leblang identified heat-and-eat beef pot roast as a product that busy, time-squeezed consumers willl enjoy. Leblang attended the recent editor seminar, which included a "What’s New Beef Luncheon" featuring fully-cooked heat-and-eat pot roast.

"It’s important that we maintain contact with food editors, who provide important links to consumers," according to Pam Bontekoe, a beef producer from Greenville, Mich., and chairman of the beef industry’s public relations subcommittee. "Seminars are a way that we can let editors know what’s happening with beef, and encourage them to include this information when communicating with their readers."

Another tool used to communicate through editors is a service that provides them with ready-to-print information, photography and recipes for their food pages. The service is used regularly by the beef industry, which is one of the food industry’s leaders every year in terms of feature articles printed.

This holiday season, for instance, beef producers provided a page called "Impromptu Holiday Entertaining" to more than 220 newspapers with total circulation of 9.5 million. The article included recipes for Beef & Black Bean Burritos, Meatballs in Cranberry-Orange Sauce and Roast Beef Sandwiches with Horseradish-Fennel Sauce. Also featured were additional ideas for serving beef in holiday buffets.

Each year beef producers reach more consumers through this newspaper feature service than any other food industry. Consumers were reached more than 78 million times last year, with three individual beef feature pages ranking in the top 20 of similar feature pages provided to food editors.

"Overall, checkoff-funded efforts were responsible for positive beef messages that reached consumers 1.24 billion times last year," says Bontekoe. "Obviously, food editors rely on us for this kind of information, and if it isn’t there they’ll look to other food products to help fill up their food pages."

Both the Parade Magazine article and holiday feature page focus on promoting cuts from the chuck and round, two primals that can reduce the value of the beef carcass. In fact, a special emphasis on promoting the chuck and round is part of the beef industry’s checkoff-funded beef communications programs.

-- NCBA --

These and other food communications efforts support U.S. beef marketing programs and are funded by the national beef checkoff, which is administered by the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board. This 111-member board is appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the collection of the $1-per-head checkoff, certify state beef councils, implement the provisions of the Federal Order establishing the checkoff and evaluate the effectiveness of checkoff programs.

Food editor programs are coordinated by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a Beef Board contractor. With offices in Denver, Chicago and Washington, D.C., NCBA is a consumer-focused, producer-directed organization representing the largest segment of the nation’s food and fiber industry.