Is it a Five-Star Hotel? Or a Modern Pig Farm?

Sep 07, 2022

Next week, National Pork Board is taking Mythbusting to the next level. We're building on the success of last year's video series, "The Rural Dictionary" with Eric Stonestreet, by launching a new iteration of the campaign.

The new Mythbusting video creates a metaphor between the modern pig farm experience and a five-star resort hotel.

The goal: share accurate information about pig farming with at-risk, meat-reducing consumers.

Using a hidden camera, we recorded participants in a focus group who thought they were hearing ideas for a state-of-the-art hotel. In the end, they learn that all the amenities and features of the hotel happen every day on modern pig farms.

The integrated communications campaign will be shared by national, regional, local and trade media, as well as local promotions with state pork associations.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.