News Update
March 31, 2010

U.S. Beef Imaging Campaign in Korea Getting Results

The U.S. beef industry imaging campaign launched late last year is finding a receptive audience among consumers and retailers in South Korea, helping to improve perceptions of our products while leading to increased sales.

Developed with Beef Checkoff and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Market Access Program (MAP) funds, the multimedia advertising campaign with a “women-to-women” theme was launched in December 2009 by U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) when it was felt that consumers in Korea were ready to begin seeing positive messages about U.S. beef.

“For more than a year, the atmosphere in Korea was not conducive to high-profile promotions of U.S. beef,” said Jihae Yang, USMEF-Korea director. “When the media signaled us that they were ready to begin running U.S. ads again, we were prepared.”

The campaign is built around three American women — a rancher, a scientist and a food safety inspector. It was developed in response to what Korean consumer focus groups said they wanted to see from the U.S. industry: images of safety and wholesomeness, and messages from people like themselves — women who feed U.S. beef to their families.

The most striking result from the first three months of the campaign is the purchase rate of surveyed Korean consumers. In the first eight months of 2009, only 3% of consumers surveyed said they were buying U.S. beef. That percentage gradually improved to 9.3% in November as the global economy improved and the anti-U.S. beef discussion abated.

As soon as the imaging campaign was launched, utilizing television commercials, magazine and bus ads as well as viewings of the commercials on the JumboTron screens that dot Seoul, the outlook changed dramatically. Among Koreans surveyed, 19.8% said they purchased U.S. beef in December and 20.6% in January. Nearly 58% said they purchased U.S. beef at some point between December 2009 and February 2010, and one in five said they purchased U.S. beef after watching the commercial.

Import data from Korea indicates that its beef imports from all suppliers were up 13% in January-February compared to 2009, but that imports from the United States were up 50% to 13,027 metric tons (28.7 million pounds [lb.]), helping the U.S. market share climb from 25% to 33% over the two-month period. At the same time, imports from Australia increased just 3% to 19,715 metric tons (43.5 million lb.).

“While we still face challenges in rebuilding Korea to its potential as a top-three market for U.S. beef, the early results from this imaging campaign are extremely positive,” said Jim Peterson, USMEF executive committee chairman and a beef producer from Buffalo, Mont. “It demonstrates that there is a strong appetite for U.S. beef and the quality and consistency of our product is appreciated. The timing was right for a well-crafted campaign to reintroduce Korean consumers to U.S. beef and the people who make our industry so great.”

Yang notes that the Trust campaign, in addition to helping alleviate consumer anxieties, has also provided reinforcement to restaurant operators who have been reticent to serve U.S. beef. Under new Korean regulations, foodservice establishments must identify the country of origin of the beef they sell in their menus. Yang indicated that apprehension towards U.S. beef among operators due to foodservice country-of-origin labeling (COOL) regulations is waning, but adoption of U.S. beef by smaller establishments, which tend to be more conservative but collectively account for a large percentage of foodservice beef demand, will take time.

While retailers and restaurants are reporting increased U.S. beef sales, structural weaknesses remain in the beef import and distribution system. The huge frozen U.S. beef inventories of last fall and winter have been worked down to healthier working levels, but importers remain cautious in their purchasing, Yang said.

Momentum from the Trust campaign will be sustained through continued print advertising in targeted publications and increased integration of public relations with promotion and consumer events. According to Yang, “the marketing environment is such that we can transition from an emphasis on crisis management and the basic trust messaging to one more focused on lifestyle and the positive attributes of U.S. beef.”

— Release by USMEF.

Texas Forage Scientist Receives Animal Science Society Award

Monte Rouquette, Texas AgriLife Research forage scientist, recently received a Dedicated Service Award from the southern section of the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS).

Rouquette is based at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Overton. The award was presented at the society’s annual meeting in February at Orlando, Fla.

The society’s mission is to foster “the discovery, sharing and application of scientific knowledge concerning the responsible use of animals to enhance human life and well-being,” according to the organization’s web site www.asas.org/.

Rouquette was cited for his years of work with what animal scientists term the soil-plant-animal interface, according to Vanessa Corriher, the Texas AgriLife Extension forage specialist who nominated Rouquette for the award.

“Soil-plant-animal interface” means Rouquette’s research deals with not just one aspect of grazing systems, but how the performance of cattle, forages and soils interact and affect the performance of each other, Corriher explained.

“The primary impact of science from Rouquette’s projects has further defined biological boundaries for environmentally compatible, sustainable pasture-livestock systems,” Corriher wrote.

Rouquette started one of his projects on nutrient recycling long before high nitrogen and other fertilizer prices became a major issue for livestock producers, Corriher said.

Starting in 1985, Rouquette compared soil nutrient levels, forage production and animal performance on two fertility treatments.

One treatment used applied nitrogen on Bermuda grass pastures overseeded with annual ryegrass. The other treatment involved no applied nitrogen on Bermuda grass pasture overseeded with annual clover.

His work also has been of great value to commercial beef producers, Corriher said, particularly as fertilizer costs more than doubled in the last few years.

Other notable research by Rouquette includes his work with stocker cattle on small grains and ryegrass. He’s also worked with the economic benefits of Tifton 85 Bermuda grass, and studied the lifetime performance of calves sired by F-1 (first cross) Brahman and English breed cows.

— Release by Texas AgriLife Extension.

R&D LifeSciences Opens Doors To Service Feeding Industry

R&D LifeSciences LLC has officially started business in Menomonie, Wis., with a vast array of products specifically designed to benefit the livestock feeding industry. According to David Zehendner, President/CEO of R&D LifeSciences (R&DL), the company is strategically focused on producing innovative, quality products utilizing the company’s advanced biotech research to solve producer’s problems and offer them alternatives to increase their bottom line.

R&DL will offer a wide variety of feed-enhancement products.

Application of certain active enzymes and fermentation products (e.g. Trichoderma viride, Aspergillus oryzae, Bacillus subtilis) to ruminant feed has been shown to increase carbohydrate availability and fiber digestibility, which contribute to increased rate of weight gain and feed utilization efficiency.

R&D LifeSciences will offer their entire product line exclusively via feed product distributors, dealers and feed mills and are currently recruiting new dealers and distribution centers. “We want our entire product line sold through and serviced via feed dealers and feed mills,” concludes Zehendner. “With second-generation products already being developed, we feel this is the best distribution route for our product line to assure they are utilized correctly and are mixed/delivered as they were intended.”

R&D LifeSciences will offer product sales via their current strategic distribution partners International Nutrition Inc. (www.ini-agworld.com or 402-331-0123) and Nutra Blend LLC (www.nutrablend.net or 1-800-657-5657). R&D LifeSciences is also currently seeking qualified product distributors, dealers and feed mills to offer their complete line of feed and health products — Zymaceä, Lactomaceä, Protemaceä, Flomaceä, Phytomaceä and Bactomaceä to livestock producers.

For more information on R&D LifeSciences, visit www.RDLifeSciences.com or call 877-874-0125 or 715-231-2150.

— Adapted from a release by R&D LifeSciences LLC

— Compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.