The Canadian Cattlemen's Association

February 26, 2010 - BIC expands reach to 1.6 million consumers through innovative partnerships

A recent consumer-targeted initiative by the Beef Information Centre (BIC) – Make it Beef (MIB) Hosting the Holidays – demonstrated the power of partnerships to extend program investment and help drive Canadian beef demand.

Through partner investments and leverage, this most recent MIB initiative reached 60 per cent more consumers than the BIC program would have been able to do on its own.

In November and December 2009, BIC partnered with Sobeys Ontario, Cargill, Unilever Canada and Transcontinental Publishing (Canadian Living magazine) to promote and distribute MIB’s consumer culinary booklet Hosting the Holidays. Over 1.6 million consumers were reached in total with 614,000 of that reach credited to partner leverage. The increase in reach translates into an estimated increase in beef sales of 243,000 pounds.

BIC’s MIB program regularly reaches one million Canadian consumers with its magazine-style cooking and nutrition information booklet which is distributed seasonally at both point-of-sale at the meat counter and through consumer magazine inserts.

According to John Gillespie, BIC’s chairman and a feedlot operator near Ayr, Ont., working with partners allows for greater Canadian beef brand recognition, and the opportunity for BIC to provide easy recipes that increase beef usage. “In this particular initiative, we were able to focus on and feature lean ground sirloin and beef medallions as new strategic beef choices to support optimizing value of Canadian beef products,” says Gillespie.

Unilever’s investment in MIB was used to build consumer reach at the store level and through insertion into Canadian Living Ontario magazines. Retail activities included a two-day recipe sampling program at 82 Ontario Sobeys featuring Sterling Silver Ground Sirloin plus Knorr Broths. Unilever provided a $1 off Knorr Broth coupon incentive on packs of Sterling Silver beef which leveraged beef sales. Unilever sales force also supported MIB distribution in-store through product display activities. Teaming up with Sobeys Ontario and Cargill as retailer and packer partners ensured the in-store promotion and coupon incentive supported the sales of Canadian beef specifically.

BIC also worked with Canadian Living magazine to develop an online contest. The contest was a way to build web traffic to beefinfo.org and increase subscribers for BIC’s consumer e-newsletter meal-planning tool, the MIB Club. Canadian Living promoted the contest through three issues of their own consumer e-newsletter, expanding reach of the contest and Canadian beef branding to 450,000 Canadian Living customers. To date, the contest has generated the sign-up of approximately 5,000 new MIB Club members.

MIB recipes lead to the use of fresh Canadian beef in meal preparation so the expansion of consumer reach for MIB is a good way to leverage sales of Canadian beef. Reader surveys confirm that 70 per cent of readers make or intend to make at least one recipe per issue. With that level of use, the total estimated sales of beef due to the Hosting the Holidays MIB program is approximately 633,000 pounds.


BIC’s efforts to maximize demand for Canadian beef and optimize the value of Canadian beef products is funded in part by cattle producers through the National Beef Check-Off, and through beef industry market development funds provided by the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada.

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