Families Building Bridges with Farms Selling Beef

Family mealtimes, among many other aspects of daily life, look quite a bit different now than they did at the start of 2020. Due to the pandemic, most of us are continuing to spend extra time preparing meals at home. A national Beef Checkoff funded Beef Behavior and COVID Report (April-July 2020 data) found that 84% of meals are currently being prepared at home. 

Having a freezer well-stocked with staple items, such as beef, is more of a priority than it might have been a year ago. According to a follow-up report, from April-September, almost a third of families are stocking up on beef steaks (30%) and over half (55%) are stocking up on ground beef specifically.

The Beef Checkoff would like to remind families about a helpful tool to ensure beef remains a staple at-home meal ingredient. The Northeast Beef Directory is an online resource designed to help connect Northeast-based families with local beef markets and farmers selling beef directly.

In an effort to help families build bridges with more channels of distribution as they seek to keep beef on the table and stocked in the freezer, the Beef Checkoff, through the Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative, and a partnership with the Virginia Beef Council, maintains the Northeast Beef Directory. This resource includes a listing of more than 200 regionally based beef farms. The directory is separated out by state and each state page includes an interactive pinned map that makes searching for farms or markets easier for families.

The Northeast Beef Directory also includes robust educational resources that inform families about their options for choosing beef. Thanks to this additional information, families can discover that, regardless of where they purchase beef, their choices are wholesome, nutritious and delicious.  

The Northeast Beef Directory has certainly seen an uptick in traffic, due to the pandemic, with more than 8,000 new site visitors in 2020 than seen in the previous year, according to Google analytics for NEBPI.org. During the pinnacle of the elevated demand environment in March of 2020, the directory site traffic per week doubled! This speaks volumes to the value the directory brings to families within the Northeast, especially during times of supply chain disruption, when many are looking for an additional avenue to source beef. 

For more information about beef promotion in the Northeast region, visit NEBPI.org. 

Stay tuned to the Northeast Beef Promo Facebook and Instagram pages to catch up on how the Northeast region is actively seeking to promote beef. 

For more information, visit NEBPI.org or BeefBoard.org.

Media Contact: Christie Brown, [email protected] or visit the NEBPI website. 

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The Pennsylvania Beef Council is a producer-controlled and funded organization, which administers the Beef Checkoff Program in Pennsylvania. The Beef Checkoff Program assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. Checkoff revenues may be used for promotion, education and research programs to improve the marketing climate for beef.