Monthly Shipping and Marketing Report | July 2017

The next Council meeting will take place on September 7-8 in Kennett Square, PA. If you would like to attend, please let us know so we can make sure you are accommodated.
Completed ballots are being tallied. Those nominees that will be sent to the Secretary of Agriculture for possible appointment will be mailed a background form to complete.

To see current charts, click here.

DIGITAL

The Blended Burger Project™ will wrap up at the end of July, and the winners will be announced shortly after. To help amplify this summer’s third annual contest, please 1) eat at participating BBP restaurants in your area 2) vote for your favorite blended burger(s), and 3) help us continue to encourage chefs to register and consumers to vote. See BBP toolkit for help with B2B recruiting and the B2C Toolkit for consumer promotions.

RETAIL/RD

The Council is co-hosting a webinar with a retail dietitian from Big Y for Retail Dietitians Business Alliance on July 13, at 12:30pm EST. We will be presenting on ‘New Social Media Trends Every Retail RDN Needs to Know‘ and will be including examples of how retail RDNs are promoting The Blend on social media. If you or our customer are members of RDBA, you can register for the webinar here.
The Council will be meeting with Albertsons’ headquarters in Boise, ID. Shippers can amplify the support of The Blend by encouraging staff in the produce, meat or deli departments to carry The Blend.
In New York, retailers that operate 15 or more locations nationwide will need to clearly display calorie counts for relevant items on menu boards and have a rundown on full nutritional information for each selection available onsite for all prepared and “restaurant-type” foods. This is a great opportunity to further promote The Blend to NY retailers because of the reduced calorie count The Blend provides. Shippers are encouraged to contact retailers to amplify and promote The Blend at Grocerants at NY retailers.

We are participating and sponsoring the Burgers, Brews and Bluegrass Block Party at the Slow Food Nations Conference in Denver, Colorado on Saturday, July 15th. Chef Evan Mallett, Black Trumpet Bistro, and Chef Paul Reilly, Beast + Bottle and Coperta, will be serving their blended sliders. If you’re in the area and able to attend, tickets are available for purchase here.

SCHOOLS

The Council will exhibit at the School Nutrition Association Annual National Conference July 9-12^th in Atlanta, Georgia. Take advantage of the increased awareness and conversation around mushrooms during the national conference and work with your school district customers and produce distributors to amplify the Mushrooms In Schools Marketing Messages . If you are interested in attending School Nutrition Association conferences in your state to increase school mushroom sales review the How To Attend a SNA State Show here.
The Council will once again partner with the National Dairy Council’s Fuel Up to Play 60 Annual Leadership Summit in in Minneapolis, MN, from July 24 – 27, 2017. The Council is developing a sales campaign with the National Dairy Council to encourage more school districts to purchasing Blend burgers. The complete partnership toolkit will be available to the mushroom industry in late summer before the upcoming school year.

RETAIL/RD

The Council will be attending the FPFC Expo in Southern California to promote fresh mushrooms and The Blend. The Council’s board members, staff and agencies are invited to attend the expo on July 18, 2017.

FOODSERVICE

On July 12-15, NACUFS will hold their national meeting in Nashville, which the Mushroom Council will use to officially announce the Blended Burger Project™ Campus Edition, which starts on Labor Day. The website has just launched so use the time before, but especially after, to let the colleges you work with or the distributors that call on colleges to know and participate. The Council will have materials and a toolkit available to you by mid July.

DIGITAL

We hosted a pop-up lunch at Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, in Cleveland. Of the 10 Ohio Blended Burger Project™ participants, three chefs from Cleveland restaurants (Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, Lopez and Thyme 2) presented their versions of blended burgers and talked about their inspiration behind their recipes. If you’re in Cleveland and would like to try a participating chef’s burger, the burgers will be on the menu until July 31.
Blended burgers are now reaching consumers via a national meal kit company! In June, Chef’d debuted 5 blended burger kits, starring the winning recipes of the 2016 Blended Burger Project™. Click here to order the burger kits, and share this news on your social networks using the Hashtag: #GetChefd and tags:
- Facebook: @getchefd
- Twitter: @get_chefd
- Instagram: @chefd

RETAIL/RD

Dietitian at ALDI posted a blog on ALDI’s website titled “Becoming a Blenditarian”, introducing their shoppers to the concept of The Blend. If your retailer has a blog, ask them about opportunities to feature The Blend on that platform.
After attending the Appetites and Innovations conference, Kings Food Markets became interested in The Blend. The Council sent recipes and information on The Blend to help encourage the introduction. If you ship to Kings Food Markets, you can amplify our messaging for them to carry The Blend.
The Mushroom Council and Beef Checkoff’s third Veal Mushroom Summer Grilling Promotion launched on June 5^th. Over 15,000 entries have been submitted so far. You can read the release here (which generated 371,147 impressions) and review the trade pick-up here. Kings, Food Lion, Weis, Tops and Redners, among other retailers, are carrying the mushroom veal promotion. Shippers are encouraged to amplify in their participating retailers by offering a mushroom promotion during the summer months. Also, check the Mushroom Channel social accounts and share on your own channels.

FOODSERVICE

Sonic became the largest fast food chain to announce a test of the Blended Burger. With all the favorable publicity surrounding the launch, there is virtually no chain that hasn’t heard the news and isn’t at least starting discussions about The Blend. This is the perfect time to leverage your chain contacts and tell them about The Blend using the Toolkit.
The James Beard Foundation’s Blended Burger Project™ is in full swing with nearly 400 restaurants, from 45 states and DC participating. The promotion runs through July 31st, but you can still encourage your favorite restaurant to sign up. Two new restaurants just signed up today. So use the materials provided on the website and review the webinar the Council held, if you missed it to find all the details.

Mushroominfo.com

Blenditarian.com

Tracker Highlights from 05/14/2017*

Spotlight – Notable and Newsworthy: Click here for the full report.

* IRI/FreshLook Data provided by Fusion Marketing