18.1 million reached on nutritional benefits of pork, beef & lamb

Over the past 12 months, the three UK levy bodies, AHDB, QMS (Quality Meat Scotland) and HCC (Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales) have worked together to help counter misinformation in the media regarding the role of red meat in the diet. Through a range of marketing activities, the programme has provided reassurance and evidence-based information to consumers and health professionals, regarding the important nutritional benefits beef, lamb and pork provides.

The work has reached 18.1 million people by collaborating with popular influencers, health professionals and high-profile media outlets. The programme included:

• Spencer Matthews cooking pork, beef & lamb dishes for his 250,000 Instagram followers, whilst commenting on how each can play a role in a healthy balanced diet. The videos inspired 3.3 million online users, and were seen over 5.2 million times.
• Securing 14 articles, including a piece in the Mail Online in January giving readers ‘Seven reasons why NOT to cut meat from your diet’, which was viewed over 140,000 times and shared 800 times.
• Engaging media medics to inform their combined 1.7m Instagram followers that pork, beef and lamb contain essential vitamins & minerals that can help reduce tiredness and fatigue during national awareness day, Blue Monday. Their content was viewed over 510k times.
• Partnering with micro-influencer network BritMums, to promote simple, balanced family meals featuring beef, lamb & pork. The content reached over 2.1 million online users and 88-98%of engaged users said they were likely to try the recipes at home.
• Launching the Food Advisory Board, made up of a panel of leading experts in nutrition, agriculture and environmental science who spoke at a number of health professional events and provided commentary and advertorials for national media, supporting a healthy, balanced diet & countering misinformation.

The three levy bodies have subsequently launched joint campaigns to promote beef, pork  and lamb in light of the changing retail and foodservice market during the Covid-19 pandemic. For more information, visit the Make it Steak, Make it Lamb and Make it Pulled Pork pages for details of the activities.