Farmscape for September 2, 2016
Manitoba Pork reports activities held during August to observe Bacon Month in Manitoba were extremely well received by the public.
In 2014, on the heels of the expansion of the Maple Leaf bacon processing plant in Winnipeg, August was designated Bacon Month in Manitoba.
The 2016 "Bacon Makes it Better" campaign included a range of activities, including traditional and new media advertising and different events where bacon was featured such as Pork on a Bun golf tournaments and other charity events, Bacon Night with the Winnipeg Goldeyes, the BBQ and Blues Festival where bacon was featured and a Bacon Party at the Pony Corral to wrap things up.
Susan Riese, the Manager of Public Relations and Consumer Marketing Programs with Manitoba Pork, says Bacon Month offers an opportunity to highlight the role pork plays in Manitoba's economy.
Clip-Susan Riese-Manitoba Pork:
For us the whole Bacon Month campaign is kind of two fold.
It's something fun.
We're trying to reach out to the public in different ways all of the time and this is just one way of doing it and it's something that we know everyone enjoys but it's also an opportunity to promote the industry as a whole especially the jobs in the industry, 13 thousand jobs, 1.7 billion to the economy, just the importance of pork production to this province.
That's another huge message that we're trying to get out, especially with the expansion of the Maple Leaf plant again.
We're going to be ramping the bacon production up to 33 million kilograms a year.
That's an important message that we don't want to lose even though we're having fun with the campaign and we're doing all things bacon but it's also as much about the jobs and the support to the provincial economy as it is about celebrating the product.
Riese says it's been a super fantastic month, people really enjoyed it and the campaign has resulted in a lot of positive feedback.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork