Symposium Updates Restaurant Operators

Nearly 150 restaurant and foodservice industry professionals gathered in Dallas recently to learn more about how the beef industry addresses its beef marketing needs.  The Beef Business Foodservice Symposium was designed to generate additional beef demand by increasing marketing opportunities.

The symposium was funded by America’s beef producers through their $1-per-head beef checkoff.  It was conducted on behalf of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and state beef councils by the NCBA.

Sessions in the symposium were created to help operators representing major chains throughout the U.S. build and protect their beef business.  Among the issues discussed with the foodservice industry professionals were nutrition, new product development, food safety, activism and consumer demand and supply of beef.

According to Sid Sumner, a Florida beef producer and chairman of the industry’s Joint Foodservice Committee, foodservice participants were very interested in some of the research presented at the symposium.

“They learned about really exciting opportunities for new menu items, new Beef Value Cuts and various applications of them, and how they can offer new opportunities to satisfy their customers while saving themselves money,” says Sumner.

Of particular interest to the operators attending the symposium, Sumner says, was checkoff-funded muscle profiling research that identified beef cuts that could increase the variety and value on restaurant menus.

“That so-called void between hamburgers and high-end steaks gives a tremendous opportunity,” says Sumner.   “And we’re showing them ways they can use the shoulder tender and the flat iron steak to fill that void.  They can menu steak sandwiches.  They can menu smaller cuts.  They can menu less expensive, lean cuts that give nearly the satisfaction of the high dollar steaks.”

Sumner says that professionals he visited with after the symposium felt the two-day experience was valuable.   “Without exception, these people went away with excitement, saying that they’re going to do new things in their operations,” Sumner says.  “They’re obviously looking to the industry for help and advice, and that’s what these kinds of programs provide.  And the more we do them in a partnering fashion — where they realize we’re interested in improving their business — the more we can help both their business and our industry.”