The Long Range Plan Task Force unveiled its new five-year plan for 2021-25 at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in Denver. The plan, updated every five years, is designed to help the beef industry establish a common set of objectives and priorities by outlining the industry’s strategic direction and providing insight on how the industry can serve its stakeholders by growing beef demand. The Long Range Plan Task Force is made up of various stakeholders in the beef industry.
The task force convened several times over the past year and considered all aspects of the industry from production trends, economic factors, foreign markets, consumer trends and the competitive climate. The group evaluated the previous five-year plan and determined, based on industry trends and insights, where the industry should maintain and/or shift focus over the next five years.
“We want beef to be the protein of choice, and we want the entire U.S. beef industry to be trusted and respected for its commitment to quality, safety and sustainability,” task force leader and Idaho cow-calf rancher Kim Brackett said in a statement. “The task force invested many hours, discussing the current state of the industry and what we need to accomplish over the next five years. We feel we’ve established some important priorities and strategies, as well as benchmarks for success that will help keep our industry on track through 2025 and beyond.”
The 2021-25 Beef Industry Long Range Plan includes the following key priorities and core strategies:
Industry objectives:
1. Grow global demand for U.S. beef by promoting beef’s health and nutritional benefits, satisfying flavor and unparalleled safety
2. Improve industry-wide profitability by expanding processing capacity and developing improved value-capture models
3. Intensify efforts in researching, improving and communicating U.S. beef industry sustainability
4. Make traceability a reality in the U.S. beef industry
Core strategies:
1. Drive growth in beef exports
2. Grow consumer trust in beef production
3. Develop and implement better business models to improve price discovery and value distribution across all segments
4. Promote and capitalize on the multiple advantages of beef
5. Improve the business and political climate for beef
6. Safeguard and cultivate investment in beef industry research, marketing and innovation
“We’ll measure the plan’s success by tracking key metrics for each core strategy,” Brackett said. “For example, one of the measures for the core strategy to ‘drive growth in beef exports’ will be to grow the value of U.S. beef exports as a percent of total beef value to 21 percent by 2025. Additionally, there are a number of other goals to help measure success specific to the other core strategies.”
Using the plan
The plan is available for other beef industry groups to use as a guide when making decisions. For example, the beef checkoff, its committees and contracting organizations, use pieces of the long-range plan as their guidebook. All funding decisions and focus areas of checkoff projects and programs, by design, must follow the key areas outlined in the plan that align with checkoff budget categories: promotion, research, consumer information, industry information, producer communication and foreign marketing. To ensure this focus, each year, checkoff committees continue to renew their alignment by identifying key plan initiatives as their priorities based on current industry needs. Checkoff contractors take this direction and develop checkoff-funded programs that fall within the scope of the Beef Promotion and Research Act and Order and support the plan’s priorities.
Check out the full Beef Industry Long Range Plan for details.
