When the beef industry expressed interest in a tangible way to give back to local communities, Canada Beef stepped up to the challenge.
February 2024 marked the second year of their annual “Burger it Forward” initiative, where participating restaurants across Canada offer feature burgers. For every burger purchased, Canada Beef donates the equivalent of one meal to Food Banks Canada, up to a maximum of 20,000 meals.
Well over 100 restaurants are participating, with 15 in Saskatchewan, 52 in Alberta, 19 in British Columbia, 25 in Manitoba, 32 in Ontario, seven in Prince Edward Island and one for the rest of Atlantic Canada over a variety of different locations.
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In an emailed statement, Joyce Parslow with Canada Beef says the idea for Burger it Forward started two years ago when a producer spoke at a Canada Beef meeting at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference about wanting to give back.
“Post-pandemic, small businesses like community restaurants were really struggling to keep afloat,” Parslow writes. “Plus, ground beef was under the threat of negative messaging with front-of-pack labelling — so putting these three things together, Burger It Forward was a tactic we committed to in our business plan for the first time.”
She says local restaurants enjoy the initiative — both because it gives back to the community and focuses on burgers.
“(A hamburger) is a casual ‘feel-good’ family food and it can be switched up to allow for creativity if they want — or they can keep it simple and offer any burger that they want to spotlight from their existing menu,” she writes. “There is no fee for participation, so the restaurants don’t feel it is taxing to participate.”
She says they chose February for the event specifically because February is usually a slow month. Through this initiative, Parslow says they can help foodbanks who are currently struggling with servicing client needs and provide nourishing food.
Parslow says this initiative helps build rapport with customers as well.
“The event also helps build and strengthen relationships across the board: food banks across the country, community restaurants and local business associations, and culinary tourism associations,” Parslow says in her email. “And within the beef industry, provincial associations get to work on a regional effort that aligns with a national effort. We were even able to work in collaboration with the dairy farmer associations in (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) to gain more food bank contributions and promotion support for the Burger It Forward program.”
Canada Beef has doubled its restaurant participation this year, and the restaurants involved have been more engaged, promoting the program themselves. Parslow says she received several requests from additional restaurants wanting to join after the February 1 start. This is also the first year Prince Edward Island has been involved.
She says the food banks were more involved this year, doing media interviews and going out to participating restaurants and thanking them.
Provincial beef associations have also been promoting the program and have been donating to food banks in their regions, as well.
“We were able to make this a real coast-to-coast effort with (Prince Edward Island) coming on board. The food banks provided more active support to help promote this year and from the conversations we had, you could sense the urgency of their need for funds and for ground beef.”
Parslow says they will have a better sense of consumer uptake in March.
