2012 Year in Review

Making a Difference 2012

A YEAR IN REVIEW Your association has continued to work for you in 2012. This review provides a summary of projects in consumer promotion, producer education and legislative efforts.

Thank you volunteers, National Pork Board (NPB) and National Pork Producers Council (NPPC).

Legislative and Regulatory Issues

In the state legislature, your association worked to ease the path for companies wanting to build swine operations in the state. The KPA was a member of a business coalition which provided input on immigration legislation. The KPA also worked to ensure the funding for the Feral Swine Eradication Program was renewed. On regulatory issues, the KPA has worked on behalf of producers with the Kansas Department of Revenue, the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and the Kansas Department of Commerce. On the Federal level, the KPA has worked with NPPC on many issues including food safety, antibiotics, climate Facebook connects KPA to thousands of pork lovers daily.

change, free trade agreements, trucking, nutrient management, air monitoring, livestock competition, and taxes.

National Pork Industry Forum

National and State representatives from Kansas attended the National Pork Industry Forum held in Denver, CO. Forum serves as the annual meetings of the National Pork Board and the National Pork Producers Council. The goal of the meeting was “America’s Pork Producers; Building A Better Tomorrow.”

KPA Involvement: Delegates and the KPA staff attended.

KPA on

Your association has used Facebook to increase it’s reach with consumers by hosting giveaways, providing special pork offers and by paid advertisements. Currently over 12,000 people “like” Kansas Pork on Facebook and average weekly reach is between 6-30,000 fans. These numbers are up over 1500% from last year. Friends of fans are over 2.7 million or over 99% of Kansans. Connect with Kansas Pork Association

Over 50 Kansas FACS Teachers joined KPA for the Iron Chef: Pork Style. Winner of the competition was this Southwest Pork Tenderloin.

by searching for Kansas Pork on Facebook.

KPA Involvement: KPA staff maintains content.

Kansas Feral Swine Control Program

Kansas continues to be the model program for feral swine control and eradication in the nation. Now in its sixth year, over 2,600 feral pigs have been removed from the state since the program’s inception. Many of these were in isolated herds that have been eradicated.

The program does not conduct control work on property without landowner permission and cooperation. To date, the program has over 550 cooperating private landowners consisting of well over 500,000 acres. Also cooperating in the program is 224,000 acres of public land that consists of Department of Defense (DOD), Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), United States Forest Service (USFS) and Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) managed lands, for a total of over 724,000 acres of cooperative land.

KPA Involvement: Worked with the Kansas Legislature, the Kansas Department of Agriculture and the USDA’s Wildlife Services division to fund and manage the program.

Kansas FACS Teachers Support

Each year, the Kansas Association for Career and Technical Teachers gather for their annual conference. This year, KPA hosted a dinner event during the conference for Family and Consumer Science Teachers featuring an Iron Chef: Pork Style event. The event included 3 local chefs battling it out to create the best pork dish and also gave out 50 $50 gift certificates to the teachers.

KPA Involvement: Purchased the 50 $50 gift cards and KPA staff presented at the luncheon.

Stress pigs line up for a long day of use at the Manhattan Central Plains Red Cross Blood Drive. Over 2,000 of these little piggies were given to donors from your organization.

2012 Wendell Moyer Student Enrichment Grant

Chase Miller, an undergraduate in Animal Sciences and Industry with a Biotechnology option at Kansas State University received a $1,000 enrichment grant. The grant was in remembrance of Wendell Moyer, a founding member of the Kansas Pork Association in 1956.

KPA Involvement: Funded the scholarship.

@KansasPork on

Twitter is a real-time information network site that gives you the latest information about what you find interesting. There are over 175 million registered users on Twitter and now KPA is a part of it too. Find us, and our 1,100 followers ,at @KansasPork for great recipes, giveaways and pork news.

KPA Involvement: KPA staff created the Twitter profile and maintains content.

Central Plains Red Cross Partnership

In 2012 over 2,000 blood donors and volunteers for the Central Plains Red Cross at 6 locations received a special thank you from your organization. 5,800 lives can be saved by the blood donated at these drives. Through this partnership, your orga-

nization received over 200,000 media impressions statewide with local and regional news and local radio stations.

KPA Involvement: Program organization, coordination and funding.

KNC and KDA Conference

Each year close to 300 dietitians, Family and Consumer Science teachers and WIC Professionals gather for the Kansas Nutrition Council (KNC) and Kansas Dietetic Association (KDA) conferences. This year your organization provided keynote speaker Chere Bork, Registered Dietitian, speaker and Wellness Coach for the conference.

Bork’s presentation included information on Kansas farms and farm families.

KPA Involvement: Coordinating speakers and financial support.

Kansas 4-H Sponsorship

Your organization provides recognition for individual effort and achievement at the county and state level for Kansas 4-H’ers.

KPA Involvement: Kansas 4-H Patron Sponsor program with an annual financial contribution.

KAMP Support

Kansas Association of Meat Processors and your organization worked together to pro-

KPA volunteers prepare juicy pork samples for passersby.

vide a $350 award for the Innovative Pork Sweepstakes Product. This year’s winner was Pepper Coated Breakfast Strips from Vince Stroot at Stroot Locker.

KPA Involvement: Financial support for award.

BaconFest KC

BaconFest KC was held Saturday, August 25. Your organization and the Missouri Pork Association were “Bacon Lovers” sponsors.

The sponsorship included multiple mentions on day of the event, signage around the event, aprons for all contestants in the recipe contest. BaconFest KC is currently in it’s 4th year and attracts over 2,000 bacon enthusiasts every year to enjoy local restaurants serving up samples of creative bacon fare, cold beer, unique bacon drinks and live music. The highlight of this great time is that the event is not only fun, but it is helping one of Kansas City’s non-profit organizations- The Rehabilitation Institute.

KPA Involvement: Coordinated and funded sponsorship.

Football Promotion

Pork Checkoff’s “We Care” trailer grilled pork samples outside of Bill Snyder Family Stadium during the KSU-KU game on October 6. Kansas Pork Association volunteers cut and prepared over 300 pounds of pork for tailgaters, provided recipes and cooking tips. Volunteers and sponsors included Kansas producers, the National Pork Board staff and Seaboard Foods.

KPA Involvement: Volunteer ticket purchases, event management and coordination.

Kansas FFA Sponsorship

Your organization provides support for the Swine Production-Entrepreneurship and Swine Production Proficiency Awards for excellence in the supervised agricultural experience (SAE) programs.

KPA Involvement: Award sponsor with a annual financial contribution.

The Annual Pork Chop Open never fails in attracting the best in local pork lovers and golfers.

Radio Ads Air

Radio offers your organization a large listening audience and the ability to target audiences at a competitive rate. Four radio ad campaigns aired on radio stations statewide this year. Other radio spots aired in conjunction with consumer events and pork month.

KPA Involvement: Coordinated spots for use, buys and cost share with NPB to purchase the buys.

Taste of Home Cooking Schools

Taste of Home Cooking Schools are fourhour learning opportunities for attendees.

Most events include a two-hour trade show and a two-hour demonstration with culinary specialists. One of the best ways your association has found to reach approximately 4,500 primary home meal cooks in Kansas is by being a part of the trade show segment. Also this year, NPB sponsored the show nationally and showcased two recipes on stage.

KPA Involvement: KPA staff attended schools in Salina, Hutchinson, and Park City.

KPA purchased booth space and served pork samples.

Pork Chop Open

Annual Pork Chop Open Tournament held on September 9 in Washington. Over 60 participants played in and competed for a chance to win the $10,000 hole-in-one on Hole 7. The tournament is a fund-raiser for your association.

KPA Involvement: Coordinated event.

KPA Restaurant Guide

KPA launched inpursuitofpork.com this year. The blog serves as a restaurant guide and also as a place to provide cooking tips. The blog is authored by two Kansas City Barbecue Society judges, Chris Petty and Mike Epler. The site has hosted over 10,000 visitors during its inception. Most traffic was driven by other social media outlets

KPA’s email newsletter is called the Kansas Quick Bite. It provides seasonal recipes and special offers from Kansas Pork.

such as Facebook and Twitter. Visit www. inpursuitofpork.com to see the blog.

KPA Involvement: KPA staff created the blog and maintains content.

KPA on YouTube

YouTube is the most popular online video community worldwide that allows millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. Specific channels on YouTube allow people to share multiple videos, make friends and subscribe to video feeds. The KPA and farmers around the state now have YouTube channels and are posting videos. To see more videos from Kansas hog farmers visit www.YouTube.com/KansasPork KPA Involvement: KPA staff created the YouTube page, assisted farmers to help create their own pages and maintains content on the KPA page.

E-News for Food Purchasers

Your association is creating a unique base of Kansas pork lovers using the Kansas Quick Bite E-Newsletter. Over 4000 food purchasers have subscribed to the e-news from contests ran by KPA online and at various events.

KPA Involvement: E-News creation, management and coordinating opportunities

for e-newsletter recipient growth.

Ag in the Classroom

Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom helps teachers learn about the state’s agricultural industry. Each year they host graduate courses for Kansas teachers during the second week of June.

The course brings together teachers from around the state and provides hands-on learning opportunities. KPA members, Craig and Amy Good own one of the farms that the group visited. While at Good Farms, Inc. teachers learned about the importance of teaching youth about agriculture, answered questions about how pigs are raised and how the environment is cared for on a the farm.

KPA Involvement: The Good Family is a member of your association, KPA staff presented pork teaching tools and offered free pork teaching tools to attendees.

Operation Main Street

OMS offers you the opportunity to have conversations about pork production, health and nutrition information, and current technologies in agriculture with food purchasers statewide.

KPA Involvement: Working with NPB to organize training, providing Kansas specific

Chef Alli, Marian Condray, Annie from Mamadweeb.com and Marietta Hruza at the Just for Her booth in Kansas City.

educational material and KPA staff participating in OMS.

Community Outreach

sponsorship, booth and All Day Pork Cafe.

KSU Support

The Community Outreach Programs is designed to assist individual pork producers in becoming more involved and visible in their local communities. This year your organization supported various events with the cost-share program.

KPA Involvement: Matched financial contributions to events with a $500 cap.

It is important for your association to work closely with Kansas State University and the Swine Team. Specific events supported by your association over the last year include: Swine Profitability Conference, Junior Swine Programs, Graduate Student Trip, Bob Hines Swine Classic, Swine Day, and the PQA Plus Advisor Training Program.

KPA Involvement: Financial support.

Just For Her Expo

Working with Local Magazines

From June 1-3 your organization was the Food Sponsor for the Just For Her Expo. The event is Kansas City’s premier women’s expo and hosts approximately 10,000 women at the Overland Park Convention Center. The Food Sponsorship included a premier booth among the jam packed convention center by food vendors with celebrity chefs and bloggers creating their favorite pork dish, mentions on local radio stations, and the Pork Be Inspired logo on all printed and online material. Sponsorship also included a 30 minute cooking demonstration, or Pork Inspiration Cafe, on the main stage by Chef Alli of Chef Alli’s Inc. KPA Involvement: Coordinated and funded

Your association has been working with Kansas magazines this year to further your checkoff dollars. Full page ads with new Pork Be Inspired images and full recipes were placed in 7 different magazines focused on women’s lifestyle and cooking including; SELF magazine, Women’s Day, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Good Health KC, HerLife, and KC Magazine.

KPA Involvement: Coordinated ads from NPB and financed the ads.

Blogger Relationships

Partnerships with local bloggers are growing each year. This year KPA staff has been meeting with a group of influential bloggers in the

Volunteers have used new model hog barns statewide to help consumers learn how hogs are raised.

Kansas City area known as #BlogKC monthly.

The relationships created and maintained at these meetings have lead to numerous partnerships and opportunities to work with bloggers throughout the Midwest.

KPA Involvement: KPA staff attend meetings and work to create mutually beneficial relationships.

KPA at the Kansas State Fair

KPA purchased three interactive barns this year to help youth and general consumers learn more about how farmers today use barns to care for hogs and one of the barns was featured in Kansas Farm Bureau’s Ag Central at the Kansas State Fair. Barns are approximately 6 foot long and are labeled to allow “visitors” to learn more about raising hogs. One of the barns will be placed at the Kansas Agriculture Hall of Fame and the other two barns will be at the KPA office for use around the state. Want to use a barn at your local fair, community meeting or youth education day? Contact Jodi at the KPA office.

KPA Involvement: Funded purchase of barns, maintain barns and organize barn usage.

Retail & Food Service Promotion

Your association has participated in multiple retail programs initiated by NPB. Some of those projects include, placing NPB advertisements in publications by the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association, special coupon offers both online and offline, and point of sale material to support retailers.

KPA Involvement: Coordination of special offers and advertisements.

Online Contests

KPA uses many types of online contests to excite consumers and create buzz around cooking pork. This year contests have been run on a variety of consumer focused blogs, KPA’s Facebook page and on inpursuitofpork.com.

The largest of these contests was the Ultimate Kansas Tailgate Party which provided the winner 4 tickets to the KSU vs KU game and a pork prize pack worth over $800. During the contest 7 influential bloggers with over 1.4 million total monthly page views adopted a Kansas hog

Pork is perfect for holiday cooking and this year KPA is working with Chef Alli to inspire home cooks over the holidays.

farmer family and featured the farm family and the family’s favorite pork recipe in a story on their blog; television ads promoting the contest reached over 222,000 viewers; and online coupons were offered.

KPA Involvement: Organizing and maintaining contests. Special thanks to Iowa Pork Producers for the grant to make the Ultimate Kansas Tailgate Party Contest a success.

statewide and also incorporate news from the national level. Pig Tales is mailed to over 500 Kansas Pork Producers. Additionally, Pig Tales is disbursed to about 150 allied industry supporters, and nearly 150 complimentary persons including extension and university personnel.

KPA Involvement: Publish the magazine.

Porktastic Holidays

In a promotion that began on November 7 and will run until December 27, Chef Alli will be hosting Porktastic Holiday Segments and Giveaways airing weekly on WIBW. The segments will encourage viewers be inspired this holiday and try pork for family gatherings.

KPA Involvement: Funded and organized the promotion.

Direct Line

Direct Line is a monthly newsletter that keeps our members informed on industry news, upcoming events and hot topics.

KPA Involvement: Produces the newsletter.

Pig Tales Magazine

Pig Tales is a four color, bimonthly magazine publication. It’s contents focus on the industry

Questions, comments or concerns?

Contact us at Kansas Pork Association 2601 Farm Bureau Road Manhattan, KS 66502 785.776.0442 www.kspork.org

Kansas Pork Association President-CEO Tim Stroda Director Of Industry Relations Jodi Oleen

2012 KPA Board of Directors Chairman: Alan Haverkamp – Bern Board Members: Kent Condray – Clifton Jim Crane-- Liberal Kevin Deniston, Scott City Daniel Gerety-- Seneca Jerry Morris-- Sedgwick Michael Springer – Sycamore Ron Suther – Blaine Jim Nelssen – Kansas State University

Kansas Pork Producers Council 2012 KPPC Board of Directors Chairman: Michael Springer- Sycamore Board Members Kent Condray – Clifton Alan Haverkamp – Bern Pete Sherlock- Washington

Working for you.