“What are you doing?!?” Dad asked. Well, it was more like an exclamation.

“Pulling weeds!” I retorted, defiantly.

But I wasn’t. The dandelions were stuck in the dry, cracked dirt, so I had resorted to twisting them off at the tops.

I knew you were supposed to patiently pull or use the spade to get the roots, but I was hot and more than over the childhood chore. I was pretty proud of my solution too because it LOOKED like I was doing what I had been told.

Dad was not impressed though and instead, had a lesson for me. “Jacque,” he said, “a job worth doing is a job worth doing well.”

Of course, as a kid, I didn’t really think weeding was a job worth doing, but now I see the wisdom of doing the hard things and doing them right. The lesson applies to weeds, to life, and lately, I’ve been thinking about how it applies to our industry communication efforts.

Consider how, in food and agriculture, we prefer to talk to our fans, and about favorable and fun topics, like recipes and enjoyment.

The occasional supply chain pressure on sustainability or undercover video may cause a temporary shift toward reputation building efforts, but it’s no more than pulling the tops off weeds. Before long, we are back to prioritizing promoting the ingredients for a successful holiday BBQ.

When organic- and natural-branded products first started gaining momentum, the industry conducted market research to understand why. We learned several important things, including: 1) ANY label on their meat made consumers feel better about purchasing it; 2) they didn’t want to pay more for organic; but 3) they wanted to be able to afford meat that was raised with high standards.

I was concerned consumers who couldn’t afford organic may feel like they were being forced to settle for an inferior product, but I also knew we had a great story to tell about how ALL meat is raised.

What did we do? We leaned into the value of meat. It was easier to promote enjoyment for the money rather than figure out how to develop and govern a labeling program that reassured consumers about how their meat was raised.

Fast-forward to today, and I’m doing research for a presentation on how to use artificial intelligence for advocacy. In preparation, I asked ChatGPT to tell me the most common question people have about how meat is raised. The answer? The welfare and treatment of animals. (Consider that ChatGPT hosted about 1.6 billion visitors in January and 92% of Fortune 500 companies say they’re using it).

So, what is the meat industry doing to answer the most common consumer question about how meat is raised…? I’ll wait.

I know, I know. You’re ticking through the campaigns you can recall right now. Trust me, I am very familiar with several and I’m not discounting them. In fact, I worked on more than a few, and would tell you it is some of my proudest work. But, how many are still benefiting from focused resources today, especially considering the economic headwinds we have faced and are still facing?

In the meantime, there are products in the marketplace that address our consumer’s most significant concerns about meat (ahem, alternative proteins?). And despite the wonderful story we have to tell, our most frequent response to these competitors is to discredit their claims and call them overpriced rather than promote what we’re doing to take care of our animals and the environment.

I get it. It’s hard to stay committed when these are not the kinds of efforts that result in immediate sales lifts. It takes a long and concerted effort to make a difference on tough topics like animal welfare and sustainability when the best measure of success is the license to continue operating, not an immediate impact on the P&L.

But don’t you think it’s a job worth doing?

A job worth doing

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