This virtual evening event focused on at-home beef butchery and cookery. Food bloggers from throughout New York, with the assistance of NYBC in purchasing a strip loin sub-primal, received the first-ever online butchery lesson from master butcher Kari Underly. Underly is the owner of Range Meat Academy and author of Art of Beef Cutting, a James Beard nominated book. Using two video cameras, Kari led the cutting of the sub-primal showing influencers how to create strip steaks, strip roasts, and petite strip filets.  In addition, she discussed how to utilize all meat and fat scraps to ensure using practically the whole sub-primal. 

“The versatility of the strip loin makes for great discussion and lessons in both cutting and cookery,” added Jean O’Toole, Executive Director of New York Beef Council. “With the new knowledge from today’s event attendees understand how this one cut can be further broken down to and utilized for multiple great eating experiences.” Post evaluations of the event revealed that 100% of attendees would recommend this opportunity to their colleagues and all rated the experience a 5 out of 5 star rating! 

Social influencers were asked to document their learnings and create a recipe utilizing the meat they cut during the event. Initial social analytics show the reach to be over 12,000 followers, over 15,000 impressions and nearly 1,000 engagements with the bloggers’ posts. The video of the learnings from the event can be found on the New York Beef Council’s YouTube page so you can cut your own beef too! 

Cutting meat in person is a challenge, but cutting meat virtually takes a lot of patience! I think I would've double checked/leaned on Kari a bit more if I were in person. But, in a way this then just gave me more confidence because I had to move forward (and I knew I could go off mute and ask a question if I felt like I really needed to). 

The NYBC’s goal is to serve as the premier source of beef information to the influencers in our region. Events such as this allow the Beef Checkoff to engage directly, even in a virtual format, with influencers and bloggers to highlight beef’s versatility, quality and taste. Attendees reflected upon the event by saying, “I never thought about doing those smaller ‘filet mignon’ type steaks. Such a great idea because so often traditional size steak is too big for a lot of guests.” Also, “My favorite part and biggest takeaway was the emphasis on using every part of the beef, even the scraps.” 

At about six months of age, babies will begin to eat solid food in addition to breastmilk or formula. It is important to start solid foods around this time as it helps your baby meet nutritional requirements, and teaches he or she how to eat a range of textures and flavors. Some key nutrients for babies’ development are protein, iron, zinc, Vitamin D, DHA, and fat. Beef, whether in a solid or pureed form, can be a source of some of these nutrients.

To capitalize on these new recommendations New York Beef Council engaged five social media nutrition bloggers this spring to promote baby’s first foods. NYBC called on registered dietitian social influencers that had young infants or toddlers, and challenged them to create a family meal using recipes from Beef It’s What’s for Dinner.com or a beef recipe from their own recipe books. They had to create a regular family meal as well as a ground and pureed version of the meal. To enhance the experience the dietitians were given Baby Ninja blenders to create the ground and pureed options. Their social channels then had a giveaway of the blenders to engage their followers. Social influencer meals ranged from beef fajitas created by @thesassydietitian to sloppy joes created by @chefabbiegellman to meatballs created by @dairyfarmerrd. 

The promotion was fun and successful in showing moms that want to share a family meal and create their own baby food just how to do it, ensuring their favorite family meals are part of the newest member of the family’s diet.  Total reach for the promotion was over 46,500 consumers with nearly 5,500 engagements for the campaign! There are five lucky families that now own their own baby food blenders to ensure beef protein is part of their infant’s healthy diet.

For more information about introducing solid foods to infants and infant preparation and feeding tips, visit https://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/nutrition/beef-in-the-early-years.