October marks the first anniversary of my joining the Canada Beef team, initially as incoming president under the tutelage of president Michael Young and later, upon his planned retirement, as president.
I’ve learned a lot about the beef industry in this first year, starting with an introduction to the industry from the team and followed by my immersion into Canadian cattle production at beef farms, ranches and feedlots. The authenticity of the many producers I’ve met along the way in terms of their stewardship and care of land and animals is a value Canada Beef strives to communicate to consumers, retail and food-service operators, and importers and exporters in markets around the world. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead the Canada Beef team and am pleased to provide regular updates to stakeholders through my new column for Canadian Cattlemen magazine.
The Canada Beef team has been busy building rapport with the newly elected market development and promotion committee following the Canadian Beef Check-Off Agency’s annual general meeting in August. The market development and promotion committee is the agency’s lone operational committee, and it provides operational oversight to Canada Beef. This committee is responsible for planning and establishing Canada Beef’s strategic, business and operational goals and objectives, and for the overall management and operation of the business.
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Canada Beef looks forward to working in collaboration with the committee on business planning for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year. This will be my first business plan working with the new chair, Jeff Cline, and committee members under Canada Beef’s revised mission, values and vision statement, developed by our 28 international and domestic staff in June.
Canada Beef creates value for producers in many areas. A recent example is the “Pick the Beef with the Leaf” campaign. This ongoing campaign continues to make inroads with consumers. Combined with enhanced social-digital marketing initiatives on all platforms, a recent campaign in the Toronto market involved billboards, an insert in the Globe and Mail and Canada magazine, and an influencer initiative.
Two billboard placements on major Toronto highways during the Canadian National Exhibition helped draw attention to the messages. The billboards had an estimated reach of 160,240 impressions of a six-second static digital billboard spot on the Gardiner Expressway from August 26 to September 1, and 100,000 impressions on the second placement.
We also ran a featured ad in the digital and print Canada magazine, a regional insert in both the Globe and Mail and National Post. Distribution included 50,000 printed hard copies with 32,000 printed copies inserted into the Globe and Mail weekday edition delivered across Ontario, plus 18,000 printed copies inserted into the National Post (Greater Toronto Area delivery only). Beef producers let staff know how happy they were to see this ad placement.
Beef Farmers of Ontario’s 2018 recipient of the regional Environmental Stewardship Award, Sandra Vos, was a featured guest on Maddie and Kiki LIVE in September, and they featured the link to her “We Love What We Do” short video in their program description. Maddie and Kiki are grill masters and influencers.
The latest evolution of the Canadian Beef Information Gateway is creating value for industry. The gateway system currently being used to scan packages at retail stores across Canada is now gaining the capability to scan barcodes on packer box labels.
The first to implement this latest feature is Harmony Beef in Balzac, Alta., which will be using the scanning feature to help end-users learn more about their products.
Customers can access the Harmony Beef edition of the gateway (Harmony Beef Gateway) with the browser of a smartphone by scanning the barcode of boxed beef sub-primals.
Once the application activates the smartphone’s camera, the user is granted access to photos, specifications, videos, nutritional information and recipes for the portioned beef cuts derived from the beef sub-primals available on the Harmony Beef Gateway.
Harmony Beef’s director of marketing, Cam Daniels, appreciates the contribution of Canada Beef to the development of the Harmony Beef Gateway. “The Wholesale Gateway is a valuable tool that will help our customers access useful information about the high-quality beef products that we prepare every day for the Canadian market.”
Harmony Beef’s human resources manager, Emmanuel Charway, emphasized the importance of the Harmony Beef Gateway site from an additional perspective. “This is a tool that supports the organization with detailed information for the training of the associates and assists them to gain more knowledge of the beef products sold in Canada.”
Packers who wish to use this new feature need to register their barcodes with Canada Beef. Additional features such as 3-D viewing of beef cuts are also close to launching.
For more information on the Wholesale Gateway or to register a barcode, please contact: Mauricio Arcila at [email protected].
In the coming months, new and expanded market access will be a priority for the Canada Beef team, again to create value. Participation in trade missions, such as the upcoming Team Canada mission to Indonesia and the Philippines, in December as part of the federal government’s Indo-Pacific Strategy allows the team to market and promote Canadian beef products and the Canadian beef advantage to new and existing buyers in markets with potential to expand the footprint of Canadian beef globally.
– Eric Bienvenue is a strategic leader with more than 25 years of senior leadership experience in Canada’s animal protein sectors. A native of Saint-Valérien, Que., Bienvenue is based out of Canada Beef’s Calgary headquarters and resides in Airdrie, Alta.
