The National Pork Board will be unveiling details of a new branding initiative and consumer marketing campaign for pork before pork producers attending the National Pork Industry Forum in Phoenix, AZ, on Friday.

Board members will get their first glimpse of the pork checkoff-funded campaign during their two-day business meeting Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. To make sure that delegates to the annual industry meeting are the first audience to preview the campaign before it is introduced to the general public in April, the board’s Wednesday session will be closed. The board’s Thursday session will be open to the public.

“The unveiling to our delegates Friday afternoon is the culmination of a year-long examination of all of our marketing efforts to give us, as pork producers, the best chance to get our consumers to fall in love with pork all over again,” says Gene Nemechek, DVM, president of the National Pork Board from Springdale, AR. “The results of that examination that we are sharing with our delegates on Friday are designed to help us meet some very ambitious marketing goals in the five-year strategic plan we approved a year ago. By 2014, we expect to achieve a 10% increase in real per capita domestic consumer expenditures for pork, compared to 2009,” he says.

The Pork Board will also meet Wednesday with members of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) board of directors to discuss mutual topics of interest. Pork Industry Forum is the annual business meeting of both national pork organizations. This year, NPPC delegates will meet on Friday and Saturday mornings and Pork Act delegates will meet in the afternoon both days.

On Thursday morning, National Pork Board members will start the 2012 planning process by reviewing goals in three critical issues identified in the strategic plan including:

To learn more about pork checkoff-funded programs, call the Pork Checkoff Service Center at (800) 456-7675 or visit www.pork.org.