Hanes: Beef Industry Has Adapted Well To On-line Meetings

If there is a positive take away for the livestock industry during this pandemic, it is the rapid advancement of communications technology, allowing producers and industry leaders to more easily talk directly with consumers. Greg Hanes, CEO of the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, said all the contractors they work with and their checkoff programs have really done a great job of adapting and evolving.

“ There's been a huge shift as you know from dining out to eating at home and shopping at retail. Face to face contact has been limited, and so the checkoff has really been able to leverage that and utilizing these new technologies like Zoom or online meetings and social media to reach out to the target audiences, whether that's consumers or educators or chefs or whoever.”

Hanes noted the overall goal is to keep beef front and foremost in their mind. He added retail sales of meat proteins have increased during the pandemic and beef has led the way.

“This really shows the positive impact of the checkoff over years because it takes time to build that consumer demand and build that loyalty with the consumers. So these, these programs have been going for years and I think now we're really seeing dividends in this case where beef is becoming the protein of choice among the consumers.”

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