Mushroom Council and the Beef Checkoff Partner for 2nd Veal Summer Grilling Promotion

    SAN JOSE, CA, June 08, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Beef Checkoff and the Mushroom Council team up for a second Veal Mushroom Summer Grilling Promotion. A new Veal and Portobello Mushroom Blend Burger recipe will be introduced through labels placed on specially marked packages of veal. The promotion will be supported with a consumer sweepstakes featuring a $500 grand prize and two $50 Williams-Sonoma gift cards.

Support from a digital and social media campaign will drive consumer awareness and contest entry at VealMadeEasy.com. The promotion runs from June 3 through September 7, 2016. Twenty retail chains will participate in the promotion.

The Veal and Portobello Mushroom Blend Burger cleverly substitutes Portobello mushroom caps for traditional hamburger buns. The recipe, developed by the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), incorporates the Mushroom Council's popular Blend technique by mixing finely diced mushrooms into the ground veal patties. The cooked veal patties are then topped with Swiss cheese and placed between the Portobello mushroom buns. The mushroom buns and Blended mushrooms add extra servings of vegetables, vitamins and nutrients.

"Our partnership with the Beef Checkoff on the veal summer grilling promotion is a great way to promote veal and The Blend," explains Bart Minor, president of the Mushroom Council. "It's an exciting opportunity for meat and produce departments to cross-promote in two perimeter departments. The promotion was so successful last year that Beef Checkoff, the Mushroom Council and retailers were eager for another promotion this year. Last year's promotion generated over 162,000 consumer entries. We are anticipating even more entries this year."

This year's promotion will have an active consumer component through the Mushroom Council's consumer blog posts, eblasts to the Mushroom Lover's List, and postings to loyal Pinterest board followers, Instagram videos, Facebook, and online YouTube cooking demonstrations.

For more information on The Blend, retailers can visit www.MushroomsAtRetail.com; for more information and terms of participation for the promotion, retailers can visit www.VealMadeEasy.com.

About The Mushroom Council:
The Mushroom Council is composed of fresh market producers or importers who average more than 500,000 pounds of mushrooms produced or imported annually. The mushroom program is authorized by the Mushroom Promotion, Research and Consumer Information Act of 1990 and is administered by the Mushroom Council under the supervision of the Agricultural Marketing Service. Research and promotion programs help to expand, maintain and develop markets for individual agricultural commodities in the United States and abroad. These industry self-help programs are requested and funded by the industry groups that they serve.

About The Beef Checkoff:
The Beef Checkoff Program (www.MyBeefCheckoff.com) was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The Checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. In states with qualified beef councils, states retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national Checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.

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