Page 35 - January 2022 Barbecue News Magazine

Comparing Beef with Plant-Based Alternative Proteins:
What Are the Facts?
Plant-based alternative proteins have been in the news over the past few years. Should the beef industry be concerned? Cattlemen's Beef Board Vice Chair Norman Voyles, Jr. discusses the real facts about how these alternatives stack up against beef.
DENVER
(PRWEB) De-
cember 16, 2021
In mid-Novem-
ber, the Cattle-
men’s Beef
Board (CBB) ex-
ecutive leader-
ship team
traveled from
their farming
and beef cattle
operations to
Kansas City for
an ag media
event called
“Trade Talk.”
Hosted by the
National Association of Farm Broadcasters (NAFB), this an- nual event offers ag industry broadcast personalities the opportunity to interview representatives from various or- ganizations and companies, all of whom serve this coun- try’s farmers and ranchers in some capacity. Norman Voyles, Jr., vice chair of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board this year, did several interviews, and was quite frankly surprised by how many broadcasters wanted to hear what a guy from Martinsville, Indiana had to say.
“They asked me all kinds of questions about the national Beef Checkoff, including many I’ve been asked before – how it works, what kinds of programs it funds, what impact are those programs having on beef demand and so on,” Voyles said. “However, one new question came up again and again: What’s the Checkoff doing to address the threat that plant-based alternative proteins pose to the beef in- dustry?”
Honestly, this question wasn’t surprising to the CBB team. Like everyone else, they’ve observed news anchors and market watchers bring up plant-based alternative proteins consistently over the past few years. Some even referred to these products and others as “revolutionary” and “game-
portant.
changing.” However, that’s not how some beef industry stakeholders view these pro- tein alterna- tives. They’ve been involved in discussions that took them back a few decades when consumer concerns about beef’s role in a healthy diet weren’t consid- ered all that im-
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The fact is, the Beef Checkoff could have done more back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, because Checkoff contractors are still working to share the real facts about beef’s nutritional pro- file. That’s why the Beef Checkoff needs to take protein al- ternatives more seriously today – and it is. In 2020, the Beef Checkoff commissioned a research study to under- stand plant-based alternative proteins and their potential