Dive Brief:
- The North American Meat Institute has debuted a new website, MyMeatUp.org, which aims to provide consumers with a comprehensive, more transparent look at what they need to know about meat to be more confident in their purchases.
- There is light and consumer-centric content, while other content aims to debunk myths about meat, including pages about nutrition gained from meat, antibiotics used in food animals, animal welfare, and sustainability.
- "The MeatUp site is the first-of-its-kind resource that will equip the new generation of young adults and families with the knowledge and skills to make meat and poultry part of a healthy, balanced diet," NAMI president and CEO Barry Carpenter said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
The launch of MyMeatUp.org comes not long after the release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, which unlike the dietary guidelines committee report, did not include a specific warning against meat consumption.
Members of the meat industry weren't pleased after the committee recommended that consumers cut back on red and processed meats consumption or when WHO linked eating meat to cancer. The industry placed a bet on consumers using the Guidelines as a standard for purchasing, as Politico reported these lobbying efforts:
- National Cattlemen's Beef Association ($112,000, with Dietary Guidelines as one concern) in the first nine months of last year;
- $780,000 from the National Pork Producers Council; and $220,000 from the North American Meat Institute.
NAMI also hopes to inspire trust from consumers by being more transparent in its meat messaging, as transparency becomes increasingly important for food and beverage companies to adapt to improve market share. Without transparency, consumers have started shunning major manufacturers in favor of smaller companies, many of which are seeing fast and steady growth and disrupting entire industries.