In my previous blog, I stated categorically that the Beef Checkoff had outlived its usefulness and should be discontinued. I felt I had to first get the attention of the readers by hitting them with a metaphorical 2-by-4 and, judging by the comments, I was successful. My previous blog's purpose was twofold:

First, to attempt to “shame” the big beef boys (e.g., JBS, Tyson, Cargill and Marfrig) by implying that they reap beef sales without commensurate marketing spending. I also imply that they don’t have sophisticated branded beef programs which they need to develop to compete more effectively with branded chicken products.

Second, to imply to cattle producers that they have much more power than they recognize. They must join together to harness that power to market their beef in a compelling fashion rather than rely on little to no checkoff funded or beef processor supported marketing.

For my previous blog, I was chastised by both commenters and in emails I received. In my attempt to point out the inadequacy of the Beef Checkoff sponsored beef promotional activity, I was wrong to lump all checkoff supported programs under my “Get rid of the beef checkoff” banner and not reference other successful checkoff-funded activities.

However, my previous blog’s second purpose, and this blog’s subject, was to spur cattle producers into action by getting them to coalesce, exploit their collective power and unify a beef marketing effort, unlike the unsuccessful beef checkoff supported promotional programs.

As background, I used Tyson as a representative example of how little the big beef boys spend on beef promotion by attempting to ferret out the amount Tyson spent. I went through their publicly available annual report, and although they don’t break out marketing by segment, they do show total marketing expenses and operating income by segment, from which I deduced marketing expenses as follows:

Tyson’s Fiscal 2022 sales of $53.2 billion are broken out by chicken = $16.9B; beef = $19.8B; pork = $6.4B; prepared foods = $9.7B and other.

Their promotional expenditures for all their product sales were $283 million or .53% of sales.

Operating margin by segment was as follows: chicken = 5.6%; beef 12.6%, pork = 3.0%, prepared foods = 7.7%.

Beef led all segments in both sales and operating margin.

Making a giant deductive leap, I surmise that most of those marketing e.g., promotional expenditures, were spent against their chicken and prepared foods businesses since beef led the operating margin categories, more than double chicken, with what I deduce to be fewer marketing expenses by comparison.

Of interest, HubSpot reports that the amount of revenue US consumer packaged goods businesses allocate to marketing averaged 8.7% of overall company revenue in 2022 or 16 times more than Tyson Foods spent.

Again, I say to cattle producers, if the beef big boys won’t spend the money to market your cattle/beef, and the beef checkoff has abandoned most beef promotion activity, it’s time for you to “grab the bull by the horns” and come together to market beef. To do that you must do the following:

1. Organize yourselves around a single purpose of marketing more beef.

2. The internecine fighting between current cattle representatives and the USDA serves no beef marketing purpose and must stop.

3. Capitalize on the power you have. You own the cattle, the big beef boys need cattle to fuel their plants, not to mention their in-house feedlots as well as other independent feedlots. Use that as leverage to get the beef processors to do more beef marketing (e.g. branding, consumer promotion, etc.).

4. Additionally, develop your own sophisticated, compelling promotional campaigns that will drive increased beef consumer takeaway at retail and food service.

From my view of the NASS/ERS statistics of who is making the most money in the cattle to consumer continuum, it’s the beef processors and retailers/food service operators. Cattle producers, as the initial stage in beef production, get a much smaller percentage but will now have to drive a system that rewards those greater amounts of the profit pie to support their own marketing efforts.

If the beef processors aren’t going to promote beef, then cattle producers must. Why? To change the dynamic of the cattle-to-beef production system enhancing their livelihood, increasing their profits and perpetuating their future.

“Come Together, Right Now ...” – The Beatles

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