Levy bodies in England, Scotland and Wales are joining forces to promote red meat as part of a healthy balanced diet. The project will comprise a range of activity spread across January to help counter misinformation in the media on the role of meat in the diet, which is expected due to an annual month-long vegan activists’ initiative.

Although the vegan movement commands a lot of media attention, the number of people who claim they are vegan stands at 3% according to YouGov which is a 1% rise on the year. This is also claimed behaviour and according to Kantar Usage the actual percentage of people (using food dairies) who are strict vegans stands at 0.6% which is unchanged year-on-year.

January’s activity will coordinate expert speakers to discuss the benefits of red meat at health events across the UK, and engage social media influencers in consumer-facing campaigns to promote healthy meat-based meals.

The bodies also continued partnerships with a range of expert spokespeople, whose commentary was distributed to national and trade media to ensure evidence-based messaging around red meat’s positive nutritional role stayed present in public discourse.

Resolutions

As Christmas memories fade, payday is yet to hit, and New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside, a selection of high profile media medics will share informative content with their followers, highlighting the role red meat can play in combating tiredness and fatigue.

The programme will also continue an already successful collaboration with Celebrity Masterchef finalist and family man Spencer Matthews who has shot three engaging videos highlighting the nutritional benefits, tastiness and ease of cooking with beef, pork and lamb.

Exaggeration

Members of the Food Advisory Board will be ready to provide commentary in response to cases of media exaggeration on the topic of red meat and health. The members will also write and contribute to proactively placed advertorials in national press, with two scheduled to be published within the month.

The activity is funded by the ring-fenced fund, a £2 million budget from AHDB levy collections, used to fund joint activity with QMS and HCC.