SEMINAR PROVIDES BEEF MENU IDEAS FOR RESTAURANT OPERATORS

DENVER, CO (Aug. 2, 2000) – A chef education seminar conducted at a leading culinary school recently have provided new beef menu ideas to key menu decision-makers in the restaurant and related industries. 

The second annual "Beef. It`s What`s on the Menu" seminar was held at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America Greystone campus in St. Helena, Calif., last month.  Funded by beef producers through their national $1-per-head beef checkoff, it was attended by menu development chefs from leading restaurant companies across the U.S., as well as top research and development chefs from beef manufacturers, processors and purveyors. 

The seminar helped to build on the existing relationships the beef checkoff has helped develop with key national and regional restaurant operators and manufacturers.  It also provided chefs an opportunity to work "hands-on" with beef products, showcasing the use of underutilized muscles from the chuck and round as well as stimulating new thinking about value-added, convenient beef products.

Attendees were also informed on the latest food trends, economic outlooks for beef, convenient beef products and checkoff-funded resources available through the National Cattlemen`s Beef Association (NCBA).  Among the 16 attendees in the restaurant session were representatives of Applebee`s International, Hereford House, Perkins Family Restaurant and The Walt Disney Company. 

Seventeen representatives of manufacturers, processors and purveyors attending the second session were presented information asbout checkoff-funded muscle profiling research, using muscles from the chuck and round.  Among the companies represented were Angus Meats, Hormel Foods, Hillshire Farm & Kahns, Emmpak Foods and Sara Lee Branded Foods.

"Since about half of all consumer food dollars are now spent in the foodservice channel, the chef audience is extremely important to us," according to Lisa Hefner, a beef producer from Seminole, Okla., and vice chair of the industry`s joint Foodservice Committee.  "These sessions allow us opportunities to reach those individuals who decide what goes on the menus in America`s restaurants, and to increase beef`s presence on those menus."

Through the checkoff, NCBA`s foodservice department follows-up with participants to further explore partnership and beef promotion opportunities.  The department also works cooperatively with checkoff-funded new product development efforts to determine what unique concepts might work to increase beef demand through restaurants.

Last year`s checkoff-funded "Beef. It`s What`s on the Menu" seminars at Greystone yielded strong results.  For example, a chef attendee from Coco`s/Carrows Restaurant Group experimented with a value-added pot roast -- and ended up creating Mile High Pot Roast Melt Sandwich that is now on the menu at Carrows restaurant.

The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone provides continuing and advanced educational opportunities in the food, wine and hospitality fields.

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The NCBA foodservice program is funded by beef producers through the national beef checkoff, administered by the Cattlemen`s Beef Board. This 110-member board is appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the collection of the $1-per-head checkoff, to certify state beef councils, to implement the provisions of the Federal order establishing the checkoff and to evaluate the effectiveness of checkoff programs.

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.