I am within a decade of being able to collect full Social Security benefits (assuming there are funds left to distribute), and while I am not planning to retire — ever — the calendar reminds me that the profession in the form I joined 35 years ago no longer exists. Furthermore, the way I was trained to practice that profession does not meet the definition of "best practices" in journalism today, with its frequent use of interactive infographics, podcasts and video. Meatingplace's future audience is growing up with a completely different understanding of media and journalism, and how they get their news and information, and I need to learn to see my job differently in order to fit into that understanding.

I've noted the parallels I see between journalism and the meat industry in the past, like here and here. Both are honorable and time-honored professions that have been forced to change by 21st century attitudes and technologies, and still are evolving.

That evolution has been top of mind for me for some weeks. The first quarter calendar is chock-full of industry meetings, and often the topic has been ways to communicate to consumers the value of the meat industry to nutrition, the environment and the economy, particularly as a counter to the marketing done by plant-based meat substitutes.

I also have read three different points of view on the best way to get the message across. One was a missive written by H. Russell Cross, Texas A&M Meat Science professor and head of the Department of Animal Science, former FSIS administrator, and founder of the International HACCP Alliance. When Cross speaks, the meat industry listens.

He wrote his letter at the behest of Chuck Jolley, and Jolley published it in a column for Feedstuffs. In it, Cross writes, "It is time for the beef industry, working with universities and various NGOs, to come together to develop and implement an aggressive plan to effectively deliver the message. Time to go on the offense!"

He lays out a framework for a "Nutrition Communication Plan" that "effectively deliver[s] accurate, science-based, nutritional information" through secondary schools, universities, health professionals, policymakers and the general public.

A second approach was articulated by Mack Graves, in his Meat your Markets blog for Meatingplace. He opined that attack ads by the meat industry in response to the claws-out alt-meat companies' campaigns are a mistake: "The plant-based faux meat folks haven’t been shy about touting their product with a plethora of name-calling [and] citing suspect climate deterioration due to the cattle/beef production system. And, we have responded with our own attacks of faux meat. Whatever happened to Michelle Obama’s 'When they go low, we go high?' ... In my view, it is never smart to attack your customer or potential customer."

The third strategy was laid out just this past Monday, by lobbyist Rick Berman in a guest blog for Meatingplace. In a response to Graves's blog, Berman contends that Graves's suggestions are "unaffordable to those under attack from the so-called plant-based meat industry."

Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom has gone after the faux meat makers with a series of ads in The New York Times and other newspapers, questioning their long list of manmade ingredients, whether their products can cause cancer, and comparing "fake meat" ingredients to those in dog food. "I understand people say they don't like negative ads. But these ads stick. Negative ads accomplish an important purpose, which is needed here. Our only obligation is to be factual," Berman wrote.

I am not casting a vote among these approaches, personally. I don't honestly know which approach would most effectively get the meat industry's message across, or whether perhaps it's an alchemic combination of all three, or none at all. I will point out that these industry leaders, like me, are decades into their careers; we all built our skills and points of view in a business environment that in many important ways no longer exists. And maybe, just maybe, our go-to strategies and skills are not the best tools for navigating these new industry iterations.

I am trying to learn from younger editors and journalists who effortlessly incorporate the newest technologies into their story-telling portfolio; it's native to them, they grew up with it. And, I would like to hear younger communicators voice their ideas for effectively advertising meat's benefits and emotional appeal to a consumer base that clearly loves the product, but is looking for social permission to keep it on their plates.

How 'bout it, millennials and Gen Z? Put yourself in the corner office of the chief marketing officer of a meat processor: How do you sell your friends, family and neighbors on your product? How do you counter the anti-meat marketing of Beyond, Impossible, Chipotle and others?

Meat's message may need new messengers

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