The Beef Information Centre’s (BIC’s) vision is for a sustainable, profitable beef industry where Canadian beef is recognized as the most outstanding by domestic and export customers. BIC’s mission is to maximize demand for Canadian beef and optimize the value of Canadian beef products. Our current market development program focuses on domestic, commercial beef and US markets.

Building a Canadian Beef Brand Identity BIC continues to encourage Canadian retailers and foodservice operators to take advantage of the Canadian beef brand logo and the tagline “Canadian Beef. Goodness in Every Bite” in their marketing initiatives.

As of late October, BIC has worked with over 100 industry partners and has signed 65 brand licence agreements (including 10 with US partners) with retail, foodservice and processing operations, including: XL Fine Foods; Costco Canada; Canada Safeway; McDonald’s; Boston Pizza; Panago Pizza; and Sobeys in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.

The positioning of the new brand includes quality attributes and points of differentiation, versus other proteins, to position Canadian beef as strongly as possible within identified market segments. These points of differentiation include quality attributes such as superior genetics, excellent animal health management, individual animal identification, a world-renowned food safety system, superior grading, excellent supply capability and improved profitability.

On the consumer side, this involves building an awareness of the Canadian beef brand by encouraging current consumers to enjoy Canadian beef more often. Increasing consumption among 20% of light beef users by two times per month can increase overall beef consumption by 16,500 tonnes annually, worth approximately $149 million. Within trade, this involves differentiating Canadian beef from imports, specifically US beef.

Domestic and Commercial Markets

Canadian Beef Brand Multi-Media Campaign Launched BIC launched its $1.4 million Canadian beef brand multi-media campaign from March through June 2009, focused in Ontario where beef consumption is under-developed compared to the rest of Canada. The campaign targeted the beef consumer who eats beef one to two times per week, with a specific focus on mothers 25-49 years of age who are the food decision makers in their family. The three-month campaign reached 93% of the target group 28 times, with 61.5 million impressions.

BIC conducted consumer research to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. Results suggest that the 2009 Canadian beef brand campaign significantly improved the attitudes of consumers who were aware of the campaign towards the healthfulness of beef. There was generally an increase of 6-11% across specific attitudinal measurements that were evaluated (Ipsos data).

Nielsen Homescan data provided information that probed sub-groups such as those consumers aware of the campaign (defined as having seen, read, or heard advertising promoting beef as part of a balanced diet) versus those not aware of the campaign. For consumers aware of the campaign, the beef volume per buyer increased from 6.0kg to 7.5kg for the three month campaign period (March-May), year over year (2008 vs 2009). This is based on the raw number of households responding “yes” to the beef campaign awareness, n=168.

While changes in consumer purchase behavior cannot be solely attributed to the campaign, shifts in kilogram volume are in the positive direction. These results provide directional information, or suggest that the campaign may have had a positive effect amongst those who saw it. It is important to note that this data does not reflect the national consumption and demand figures. Consumer Website Launched in Support of New Canadian Beef Brand

BIC re-launched its consumer Website at www.beefinfo.org, and more recently, launched a French language consumer Website, at www.boeufinfo.org. Both sites target light beef consumers, typically women between the ages of 25 and 49, who make the majority of menu-planning and purchasing decisions within the Canadian household. The content includes helpful recipe, buying, preparing and inspiring information for all things related to beef, and communicates the healthfulness, tastiness and convenience of Canadian beef products.

Protecting Producers’ Interests through Nutrition and Food Safety Policy and Issues Management

BIC protects beef producer interests by working with government in areas such as food safety, nutrition recommendations and labelling. An example is BIC’s ongoing collaboration with the American Meat Institute, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Pork Board and the Canadian Pork Council on a North American strategy to address the World Cancer Research Fund Policy report. Other examples include participation in regulatory matters such as the Federal Government’s Standing Committee on Food Safety, the development of organic product regulations, engagement with government on sodium dietary recommendations, and BIC’s participation in various health symposiums, such as the Dietitians of Canada Omega-3 for Health Symposium, and the International Meat Secretariat Committee meetings on nutrition and health.

In addition, several initiatives are under way, including a project to address current health issues through various communication vehicles, and collaborative initiatives to maintain credibility and strengthen relationships among the health professional community – a key health and nutrition influencer group. In fiscal 2008-2009, BIC reached over 11,000 registered dietitians and 35,000 physicians with nutrition information that included positive messages about beef’s contribution to a healthy diet.

By providing credible, balanced and practical responses to proposed regulatory policy, BIC continues to play an important role as a voice for the beef industry.

Increasing Canadian Beef Sales at Retail and Foodservice

BIC works extensively with the retail and foodservice sectors across Canada to maximize demand for Canadian beef and optimize the value of Canadian beef products for the benefit of Canadian cattle producers. These efforts result in increased beef sales by featuring new beef menu items, introducing branded beef programs at retail and foodservice outlets and increasing carcass use through new cuts.

On the retail side, BIC provides training to retail operators, distributors, processors, end users and education partners in an effort to maintain a high degree of Canadian beef product quality, safety and merchandising knowledge with key segments of the industry. BIC’s efforts help build meaningful value into Canadian beef retail programs, and improve education within the trade, which reciprocates into improved market reach and expedited transfer of fact-based quality information to the consumer.

BIC also works with foodservice industry partners to build awareness and comprehension around the brand positioning while leveraging Canadian beef brand attributes, and assisting supply chain alignment where required. As well, BIC educates the foodservice trade through focused seminars, trade shows and editorials; and works directly with national foodservice distributors and chain restaurants to build awareness of the CBA.

New Beef Products Create Opportunities for Canadian Beef A key aspect of increasing the size and maintaining a higher share of the domestic market has been the development of new products and reformulation of existing products to utilize Canadian beef. Since the inception of the Product Development and Reformulations Partners Program five years ago, until the end of the previous fiscal year (2008-2009), 102 projects involving fed and commercial beef with a total value of more than $6.54 million have been managed by BIC. Of that total, approximately $1.51 million was funded through BIC.

US Market

Mitigating the Impact of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) The United States continues to be the world’s largest beefconsuming nation and the world’s largest importer of beef. The United States is also Canada’s largest and best export market accounting for 77.5% of Canada’s beef exports. While BSE and Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) have impacted beef and cattle trade, the US market continues to offer the highest value market with the least amount of import barriers for Canadian beef.

BIC continues to work with US trade clients in order to mitigate the impact of COOL and build awareness of the Canadian Beef Advantage (CBA). BIC’s approach has been to align with Canada’s packers and US distributor partners to communicate Canada’s key points of differentiation and to provide educational resources and market development support that leverage the CBA.

BIC has developed programs, with a focus on premium positioning, at retail and foodservice. BIC also maximizes the opportunities to build equity in the Canadian brand identity in targeted ethnic markets, and facilitates linkages within the supply chain to maximize use of Canadian commercial beef within the US processing sector.

BIC has developed a comprehensive communications package around COOL and is delivering the message to small to midsized US retail operations with US packer participation via education seminars being held in strategic US markets. In addition, BIC has launched a COOL Website (www.meatcool. info) to communicate the details of COOL regulations, and placed trade advertisements about COOL mitigation on the Meatingplace Website and in the Meatingplace magazine.

Key US market accomplishments during 2008-2009:

• Distributed over 4,500 technical resources
• Participated in over 30 different trade shows and seminars
• Hosted 13 trade missions with US buyers and Canadian packers; the potential of these trade missions during fiscal 2008-2009 was over 12,240 tonnes of Canadian beef volume
• Reached over 89,000 US buyers and end users
• Foodservice distributor partnerships leveraged almost 1,100 tonnes of Canadian beef sales, an increase over last year’s cumulative total of 500 tonnes
• Overall volume associated with retail initiatives in 2008-2009 was close to 5625 tonnes of Canadian beef, an increase over last year of 4,500 tonnes
• Total volumes associated with ethnic programs for 2008-2009 was 1,770 tonnes of Canadian beef, an increase of 1,180 tonnes

In response to direction from CCA, BIC developed a proposal to address the negative impact of COOL on Canadian live cattle export volumes and value and to ensure long-term cattle export viability. The live cattle strategy will work to optimize demand for Canadian cattle at key US packing plants. The strategy: Identifies US packers with a geographical dependency on Canadian cattle that provide opportunities for long-term value;

• Leverages the competitive advantages of Canadian fed cattle based on the attributes that define the CBA;
• Conducts consumer research on various forms of COOLcompliant labelling; and
• Develops branded programs that position beef from Canadian fed cattle as premium based on quality and safety assurance attributes.

BIC is proceeding with implementation of the US Live Cattle Strategy Pilot Project in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

Moving Forward

BIC continues to pursue a shared vision with the CCA for a sustainable, profitable beef industry in order to maximize demand for Canadian beef, and to optimize the value of Canadian beef products for the benefit of Canadian cattle producers.