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Wendel Underwood,
meat manager at Sunset Foods in Northbrook, says that Illinois Crown
Beef was his first experience with an actual producer rather than a
meat salesman. "In working with Illinois Crown Beef, I know the
origin of the meat -- that it's an Illinois-grown product and corn
fed. I've gotten to know some of the people who were actually in the
beginning stages of the feeding of the animal and production of the
meat. The average salesman out there doesn't know who is producing
the meat. All he knows is that the box is brown and it says ‘strips’
on it. He knows nothing about where the meat came from, how it was
fed and how it was handled on its way to the market."
Illinois Crown Beef
began with a survey of store customers conducted in 2001 by
University of Illinois researcher Burt Swanson. The survey
demonstrated a much greater concern from customers for quality when
selecting fresh meat products. After learning the taste,
texture and other characteristics that customers wanted in
high-quality beef, U of I research specialist Richard Knipe, along
with his wife and colleague, Dar Knipe, who is a U of I small
business marketing specialist, worked with several livestock
producers located all over the state of Illinois to develop a
specially branded beef product that would meet those specifications.
When they conducted
the survey in 2001, mad cow disease was not a real concern.
"Our goal for the
project was to bring beef producers and grocery store meat managers
together," says Dar Knipe. "We wanted to improve the communication
so that the producers would be raising a product that customers
wanted."
[to top of second column in
this article]
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She says that the recent mad cow incident has resulted in
customers wanting to know first that the beef they are about to buy
is safe -- and local producers can give buyers information such as
the age of the animal and what was fed. "It creates a closed market
where the producers are in close communication with the grocery
stores, so there is more control of the impacts that can create
risk."
A specialty product
like Illinois Crown Beef, which is not mass-produced, comes with a
promise for higher quality and with a slightly higher price tag -- a
price people are willing to pay for today for the peace of mind in
knowing where the beef came from.
"You have to
demonstrate to the customer that your product contains unique
characteristics that differentiate it from other similar products,"
says Richard Knipe. "In the case of beef, these characteristics may
include being able to identify where the product came from, higher
consistency, higher quality, grass- or grain-fed, or raised without
growth hormones or antibiotics -- with documentation to back up why
it's better or safer."
Illinois Crown Beef
is currently being sold in Chicago at two Hyde Park Co-Op Markets
and at Sunset Foods in Highland Park, Northbrook, Lake Forest and
Libertyville.
The research for this project is funded
by the state of Illinois through the Illinois Council on Food and
Agriculture Research.
[University of Illinois news
release]
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