Veal Industry Long-Range Plan To Include New Marketing Efforts

DENVER, Colo. (November 9, 2001) – America’s veal producers are building a Long-Range Plan that will contain new efforts to market veal, including a new Web site to sell veal online. Goals of the checkoff-funded plan are to unite the industry and increase consumer demand for veal.

The industry’s Long-Range Planning Advisory Committee met Nov. 7-8 in Middletown, Pa. to continue building the plan. Committee members consist of the president and president-elect of the American Veal Association (AVA), the chair and vice chair of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB)/National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Joint Veal Committee, and state veal association presidents from the major veal-producing states.

“Through our Long-Range Plan, the Advisory Committee is working to increase veal demand by changing the things we are able to,” said Dennis Snyder, Veal Committee chairman from Westfield, Pa. “We can’t change some of the economics of the veal industry like feed costs or calf prices, but when it comes to marketing veal products, we can make a big difference.”

AVA and the Veal Committee came together in August at the beef industry’s Summer Conference in Denver to begin work on the Long-Range Plan. The November meeting, which preceded the AVA Board meeting, is a continuation of that effort, and included special guests from the veal industry to provide input on such matters as consumption trends and the economy. The Long-Range Plan is scheduled for completion February 6 at the Cattle Industry Convention in Denver.

The three-year plan will contain new marketing strategies that include food service initiatives, such as working with casual-theme restaurants. It will include a long-awaited, first ever veal demand index to help quantify veal demand from year to year. It also creates the veal industry’s first newsletter, a quarterly publication called The View, which is being distributed this month. The newsletter is designed to keep veal producers informed about what their checkoff dollars are doing to promote veal demand.

Another checkoff-funded effort of the Joint Veal Committee is development of a new web site to promote veal. The vealstore.com web site will allow consumers to purchase veal products on the computer that they may not be able to find locally. The web site is under construction and will be launched December 10. Partners with the veal industry on this web site are Omaha Steaks, Lobels, and Chicago Stockyards.

Veal promotion programs are administered by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, a 110-member board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the collection of the $1-per-head checkoff, certify state beef councils, implement the federal order establishing the checkoff, and evaluate the effectiveness of checkoff programs.

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Producer-directed and consumer-focused, the National Cattlemen`s Beef Association is the trade association of America’s cattle farmers and ranchers, and the marketing organization for the largest segment of the nation’s food and fiber industry.