08/09/06 Pork Gets Lean

Pork research gains media exposure. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Just over one month ago - it was announced that pork tenderloin was as lean as the leanest type of chicken. The USDA analysis found trimmed, cooked pork tenderloin contained only 2.98 grams of fat per three-ounce serving. That compares to 3.03 grams of fat in a three-ounce serving of cooked, skinless, chicken breast. The Pork Checkoff Assistant Vice-President Ceci Snyder says this research has garnered a tremendous response from the consumer media. SNYDER: The response has really been overwhelming. We knew we had a good story to tell but based on the reception, it's just been fantastic. I guess I can start by saying on the media consumer side we've had so much interest from Associated Press wrote a national story, we've been on CNN Headline News, we've been on Fox National News, USA Today national paper had an article. So right now a lot of what we measure are impressions or the number of people that read a paper or watch a TV show. We're at 31 million consumers reached and that is just the very beginning because a lot of the monitoring services that we use at the Checkoff, of course it takes a while to get that data in, so the consumer response has been fantastic. Snyder says retailers have also reacted positively to the news...tape SNYDER: Lots of retailers order our materials. We have materials that go in the meat case and we've had to reprint that twice we've had so much interest in the news. It's just a way for retailers to&it's another reason for retailers to talk about pork, to promote pork in their meat case because it is so surprising that pork is as lean as chicken. The Pork Checkoff is now monitoring pork sales in its six target markets. Snyder is anticipating positive results. Contact the Pork Checkoff Service Center for more information. Go to Pork-dot org or call 800-456-PORK. And if you have any comments or questions be sure and email me at greg@aginfo.net. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.