Kaylee Hillinger 

I can’t even hear it. I don’t even know what that noise was. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Maybe it doesn’t make a noise. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Oh, wait. Crickets. Oh, now I get it. You can press buttons and you don’t get to hear all this out loud. Oh! We can make our audience laugh. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

It’s laughing? What is that? See if there’s a drum roll somewhere on that thing. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

I don’t- this is a theme song. Clapping. Wah wah wah. Drumroll. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah. We’ll never remember this. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

No, we need stickers. Hey, I got that text from our last podcast. Where I was waiting for the feedback. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, well, partially because you talk more and partially because we use facts. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

No, no, no. The texts were… Yeah, the texts were you were supposed to talk less and- Yeah that one. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yes. What was the response? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Well, if you remember in our podcast, I told you I got this listener feedback that you should talk less and that I was waiting for this particular person to send me the text about their feedback that was received. And I got it this weekend. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

What did it say? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

“LOL at listener feedback.” 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s it? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. It was a weekend, he was probably busy. I was moving dirt around outside so. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Hmm. So should we try it again? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Okay. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Me talking less? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Oh boy. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Did you know when I was a little kid my nickname was Motor Mouth. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

This doesn’t surprise me. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

I know. It’s the worst part. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Who ave you that nickname initially? 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Probably my parents. I don’t know. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Okay. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yes. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Aw, Mama Lowe gave you that. That’s awesome. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, it’s great. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Oh, welcome to the Round Barn. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So let’s talk today about checkoff, so this has been in the news. Hot topic in the news. And you’re on Illinois Pork Producers Board. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

I am. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Which is checkoff funded? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Partially. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Partially checkhoff funded. So for all those that are not like immersed in the checkoff land. Why don’t- let’s talk. Tell us about what checkoffs are and where they’re at. And then maybe a little bit about what’s been going on for our friends in D.C. here the last couple of weeks. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Oh, okay. Yes. So they have been in the news because there’s been some anti legislation toward them. But if we take a step back and what is checkoff? And so I do sit on the Illinois Pork Producers Board. I’m an allied industry member, so I don’t have pigs. I do not pay checkoff because checkoff dollars and checkoff programs are commodity funded programs for the betterment of that commodity. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So they go toward promotion and education type of programs. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And their percentage is sales, right? So that’s the ticket. So every time I sell a pig or I sell a cow or I sell corn, soybeans or any other checkoff… dairies, go to checkoff. I pay a bit of a fee. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah so right now- 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

One might call it a tax. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

I think it’s 35 cents per $100 for that sale. So if you are a pork producer and you take that pig to the packer… You are, yes, kind of quote unquote “taxed” at that $0.35 per $100. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Of value. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Of value for that pig. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And if I sell a wean pig, I’m taxed the same way or I should be. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yep, seeds, stock… 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Anything. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Correct. Only once per animal. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yes. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So that’s a fun little administrative game to play. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So then the ticket is right. These things are federally mandated because they’re mandatory checkoffs. So they’re part of the law and USDA administers the program. But they don’t collect the money. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

No, they don’t touch the money. And they don’t have oversight or regulation on the programs or how the money is spent. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Producers do that. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Producers do that. Yep. Self-governed on how that money is spent. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

But they have to follow the rules. They have to be elected and there’s a whole bunch of policies. It’s government, so there’s a bunch of procedures and process and the like to go along with that. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. So how that works is once that money is collected at the packer or whatever level it is for that pig sale, it’s then funneled to National Pork Board. National Pork Board keeps a certain percentage of that money collected for their initiatives, and then they give a certain percentage of that back to the state where that money was from. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So that’s like a return to state dollars. So then Illinois pork or Wisconsin pork or whatever organization, commodity organization gets some of that money back to then spend on the same types of programs but may have different impacts within their state or priorities. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And what are those? What can they use that money for? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

There are a few buckets, so promotion, research and education. So education can be producer or consumer education. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

But not lobbying. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

But zero money can be spent on legislative purposes. That’s a whole different bucket of money. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah. So that’s a big item. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Okay. So if we’re thinking about this and this is for all commodities, right? So every commodity. Well, not all commodities. Some commodities have checkoffs: corn, soybeans, cattle and for cattle like NCBA administers that which is how pork used to be. So National Pork Producers Council used to administer the National Pork Board, and then they separated over some potential concerns about mixing money for lobbying and on. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So those are two separate organizations. But NCBA is one organization. They do both for the Cattle Board. They administer that- or the Beef Board. We got corn board and soybean board, etc. etc. So that model is kind of the same for every commodity. So what was this kerfuffle in D.C.? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Oh, some… 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

I like the word kerfuffle. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

You’ve used that a few times lately. Have we been kerfuffling around? 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah and malarkey. There are some words that are just some good words we have to use in society. We don’t use enough. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So there was a piece of legislation put forward that really seems to stem from animal activist groups about dismantling checkoffs. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, making them illegal basically. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Right. Which is interesting because it really is not a government program for that kind of legislation to be put forward. So there’s no taxpayer money involved. There’s no USDA money involved. But this was put forward to say “get rid of them”. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And there’s been some- because you’re a baby. There’s been some long running controversy by really on the cattle side of cattle producers saying they shouldn’t have to pay the checkoff. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Okay. Because it says it’s a mandatory voluntary thing. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah. So it’s a mandatory checkoff and they don’t like the I word of a tax and that money comes back to something they don’t have control over. And so there’s a group called R-CALF, which is kind of a competing organization to NCBA that is made up of- (NCBA?) National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. And so R-CALF is R dash C-A-L-F and don’t ask me what the acronym is. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

But- because you had that look in your eyes like “Oh, no, I’m going to ask him” and then I’m going to go, “oh, god, I don’t know.” But so R-CALF’s been around right? And basically saying “we’re independent cattle producers and we don’t like supporting the big boys and very much aimed at the packers” and you know, this long discussion. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So that helps agitate when our own side is saying, “oh, we shouldn’t have checkoff”. But this was aimed at probably as much as pork as it was it beef, right? I mean, and I don’t think there was any discussion around corn and soybean checkoff. It was really the meat checkoff. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

It was activist groups saying, let’s get rid of these because it will hurt the consumption of protein from animal products. Let’s get rid of it. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, great. So reality, right. That this could happen. What about what’s that mean for Illinois pork? So if checkoff dried up tomorrow, what does that look like? What does that mean to the average producer in Illinois or Iowa or Timbuktu? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. So let’s go back through what the program funds. So we talked about promotion, research and education. So what the entire goal of these checkoff programs are, are to make the market- to improve the market for the item. So I’m going to talk about pork because that’s just the program that I know. Right? So we fund research programs through Illinois Pork Producers that may have something to do with production or sustainability. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

What Illinois pork producers is particularly strong at is the consumer education piece. And so we use checkoff dollars within like a marketing committee to say, how can we increase the demand via consumer education about pork being nutritious? How can we work with dietitians and influencers and athletes to say pork is a really healthy protein? Here’s all the information you should know about the consumption of pork and how to eat it and use checkoff dollars to drive that demand. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So those people share that message to increase consumption. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s for the whole “deburger” thing came from. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yes, yes. The “deburger”, the “real pork” or “pork is the other white meat”. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Can we talk about “pork is the other white meat”? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

It’s not my favorite, but that was when I was a baby. So… 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Oh… using the kid- or using the baby argument again. I think it was. That could be one of the ten dumbest marketing lines ever. You’re like a marketeer, why was it a dumb? Am I wrong? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Because nobody really loves eating chicken. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, and I look at it. So you’re now trying- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Now you’re just scientifically inaccurate, too. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Well, yeah. And I look at it and say, you know, you talk to the chicken boys and they’re like, “Oh, no, we make a flavor vehicle.” We make a protein based flavor vehicle. We don’t want it to have any taste. We don’t want it to have any fat. We don’t want to have anything so we can put stuff on. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

We can make a chicken nugget out of it. We talked chicken nuggets a lot, right? Like we’re making the innards for a chicken nugget. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And here we’re trying to produce something that’s in the center of the plate. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Right. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And yet we’re trying to give people something that tastes like nothing. Dumb. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

That’s not the tagline anymore. I mean, it’s still out there. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

I know but I’m still mad about it. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Okay, I get it. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Because I’m old. I’m getting old and grumpy. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Okay well now you have to change and it’s “real pork”. That’s the new line. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Oh “real pork”. As opposed to “fake pork.” 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yes, exactly. Because we are battling against fake proteins. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

You told me I couldn’t use that- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

That was- 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

You said I couldn’t use the word fake meat. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

That was last week. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Oh, Jesus. The rules change. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Because it’s real people and real farmers and kind of putting that message behind it. But it’s the “got milk?” that was, I think like one of the dairy- 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, that was the milk mustache thing. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

The milk mustache. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That was a really good marketing campaign. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Different poultry ones. Yeah. Everyone’s got kind of their tagline that helps elevate their product using these checkoff dollars, so- 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

“Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.” 

Kaylee Hillinger 

It is. What was for dinner. Yes. So within like Illinois pork producers, we try to do most of our influence in Chicago, right? That’s the thing that makes sense. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Oh, consumers. That’s where the consumers are. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So drive the consumer demand, try to make cultural impacts because different cultures consume a lot of pork and using it as a vehicle for different types of flavors, really. So we do a lot of programs with grocery stores, smaller ones and chains up in Chicago. Chicago suburbs in central Illinois. Honestly, we don’t do a lot in southern Illinois because those people are already consuming pork. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So checkoff dollars are intended to be spent to drive an increase in consumption. So what we’ll do as a marketing committee with Illinois Pork is we’ll be presented with some options from relationships that one of our marketers within the staff has built and said, Here are some coupon options, here are some different things that we’re working towards. Here’s what it costs. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

I love a good coup’n. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Coup’ns. Coupons. You got me saying coup’n. Oh, my gosh. Because people will go and buy pork if they have a coupon that may not be buying it otherwise. So she’ll present some options. As a committee, we kind of weigh out what our budget is, what we think our return to state dollars based on checkoff funds are, and make some proposals to then take to the board to say, here’s what our money is coming in. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

If we have this many dollars, this is what we want to do and the opportunities. And here’s why we think it will drive an increase in consumption, which is good for our producers in the state of Illinois and good for overall national or even global consumption. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So if we’re targeting- So you said we don’t maybe target Clinton County because they and Clinton County, for those you don’t know, is just east of Saint Louis. Yeah, we wouldn’t- might not target Clinton County, Washington County or another county down there because they eat a lot of pork. So we have data that would tell us that Clinton County eats more pork than DuPage County. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Right. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So we target based upon… 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Maybe that’s per capita. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Per- Yeah, per capita consumption. Right. And then is there any other- you said different cultures. So I presume some of that is kind of ethnic marketing saying that we have large Latin American or large Mexican communities that would have much higher pork consumption historically or, you know, historically, we’ve had the Polish on the south side of Chicago or whatever. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Right. And they would eat a lot more pork. So do we do that level granular marketing or… just county level or what do we do in there? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

We are doing different ethnicity targets with grocery stores that the different ethnicities shop at and we’ll have an influencer go there, cook a meal using the products from that store that the people in that region and ethnicity are following, watching in order to go to that store, buy that product. So we’ll partner with a grocer and spread that message, or it might be an influencer or it might be an ad or it might be a gas station, closed circuit TV piece, and just every component of that is intended to drive the message to increase demand. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

You can eat pork in more than one way. It doesn’t have to just be a pork chop. You can make these different kinds of things. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s what we had for supper last night. It was very tasty. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yes. Yeah, but you know how to cook pork. And that’s part of the message, too, that we use a lot of checkoff dollars toward, is how to make it. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So you’re cooking it to 184? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Bleh. Is there mark button on this thing? No, no, no. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

What are we cooking pork to these days? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

145. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s all? I thought I was going to get trichinosis from that. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

No. And then you take it off and you let it rest and then it’s moist. People don’t like that word, but it is. It’s juicy. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

It has high water holding capacity. I did hear, so we’ll get on a sidebar. But it’s an interesting thing. So we did a barbecue last week for a football game. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Mm hmm. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Not last week. Not the Purdue debacle, the FAU, the Florida Atlantic almost debacle. So this- Illinois’ football team was supposed to be really good and- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

And here we are. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And we’re not so we’re there and so there’s discussion about the ribs were super tasty, it was all pork. The ribs are super tasty and we’re carrying on. Right. So having this discussion around what do you do and why was it good? So one of the things was when he was talking about pork, well the goal is right, it has X amount of water in it when you start. That’s 100 units of water. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

The goal is to have as many of that. And it’s just water, it’s just the moisture in it, right? And so that bit and that’s where the 145 thing came from is “how do I not boil the water off and how do I leave it and let it pull that moisture back in” and lots of goodness for- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. Those were good ribs. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

It’s like dudes sitting around talking about stuff they don’t really understand and trying to put science words to it. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah, a bunch of pig producers and veterinarians drinking beer, eating pork and… 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Pontificating. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

And talking about cooking. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Well there’s probably more to do with the beer than there was the actual knowledge. Yeah, the knowledge got deeper, the more Busch Lights that were involved. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Did it get deeper? Is that the right word? 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Well it got something. Yes, it got something. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So this whole legislation thing died, so that’s good. It had no traction. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

But it’s likely to come back. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

It always comes back. You’re right. So we need to be armed with why these are important to producers. Yes, they pay into these programs for benefit of them. So in addition to the Illinois state commodity groups, a chunk of that stays with the national commodity groups. So national pork producers leads national and global efforts in order to drive that demand and increase local or domestic and global consumption of pork. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah, so they work a lot with U.S. Meat Export Federation, right. To say how do we drive exports. They’re worth what? 30% of value today? 20%, something like that. You know that number? 

Kaylee Hillinger 

I don’t know. It used- I hope it’s around that. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yes. So it’s interesting, right. We think about how much we’re eating in Chicago, but really, pork demand is a global thing today. And so that export market thing continues to be the driver. And even on beef, that’s been a big change. That beef has gone from basically a domestic market to exporting almost as much as we are. Right. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Do you know what our biggest export markets are? This is fun fact. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Off the top of my head, my brain is racking. No. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Mexico. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Oh, I did know that. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That was in whatever we call the new the new NAFTA, whatever the new thing is. Yes. So yeah we sent in hams- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

You’ve worked me too hard today. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Ah well. There’s a first for everything. So but, that is an interesting bit, right? That we don’t think about that but we sell more pork to Mexico than anywhere else. We talk about China a lot, but tonnage and value I think is Mexico by quite a big run. And it’s a lot of hams, a lot of green ham. So we think about eating ham as a cured meat. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And culturally there they eat that as a fresh meat. And cook it as a roast. And so right. I think those are the things that are always interesting on the marketing side about how do we drive that and how do we sell the whole carcass and- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

And individually pork producers can’t do that and they have to. And that’s the value of these groups is they pay in, in order for these larger groups to responsibly spend that money for the betterment of them. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah. And everybody gets all cranky because “the packer’s making money” or blah blah blah. And “why isn’t the packer funding this” and yada yada yada. But the packer’s willing to fund branding on things that they can put their brand on and so they promote bacon. And we don’t have to go sell a lot of bacon. They can slap their brand on bacon and go sell that and they’re pretty successful. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

But selling hams to Mexico, we don’t put a brand on those. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Right. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

We just- there’s just ham. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yep. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And it’s US ham. And so those are where really checkoff probably on the marketing side really makes its hay, is pulling those kind of things, pulling little bits of carcass pieces that we can’t- Remember when we kill an animal, harvest the animal and butcher it, we need to sell the whole bloody creature. It was the old joke in the packing. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Right? Everything but the squeal, literally. That’s true. And so it’s selling all those other parts. And so, you know, the export even to China is stuff that if we don’t sell it to China, it becomes dog food. So we’re not selling pork loins here, folks. We’re selling lips and tongues and cheek meat and… 

Kaylee Hillinger 

And checkoff is selling pigs from the guy who’s got a thousand sows down the road and Tyson, the same. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s exactly right. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So it is for all producers, which is why all producers also pay into the program. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Yeah. And marketing all of the truly commodity bits that can’t be branded that we can’t add value to. We add value to a carcass, but we can’t add- It’s selling pig lips into China, snouts into China or anywhere in Asia. It’s consumed- It’s actually somewhat of a delicacy there. Right. It’s demanded. We’re not selling- it’s not garbage meat there. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s a valuable piece. Like we think bellies are really valuable. They, you know. Right. Snouts are valuable in some of their dishes. And a pig’s only got one snout. So more snouts, right? You need more snouts. And so those things have value, but they’re not branded value. And so if we don’t- and it’s a commodity, so if we don’t promote the commodity, we’re in trouble. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

So well, we probably droned on enough about checkoff. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

But I think it’s awareness for all of us that we have to pay attention to all these other things because it wasn’t animal rights groups that put these proposals forward. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Right. That’s true. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

It was- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

They got somebody else to do it. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

They got somebody else to do it 

Kaylee Hillinger 

And somebody else was listening. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And somebody else was listening and… 

Kaylee Hillinger 

It didn’t go by with zero votes. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

That’s exactly right. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

So every person that they draw in that just doesn’t have an understanding of these programs and what they do. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And they were successful for some of those votes, tying it on to other anti-government votes. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yeah, that’s the tricky thing when they just package everything together. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Well and they- 

Kaylee Hillinger 

When you’re voting on five things when you only care about one. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Well and they tied it- They sold the thing as an anti-government and again, it’s not really a government program. It’s a producer program. But they said, oh, the government shouldn’t be intruding. Right. So they got some people who lean to that side of the aisle to say, hey, we shouldn’t be doing this. So we got it. It was an odd coalition of the votes, right? 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

I mean, there weren’t very many of them, but it was the animal rights kind of lobby and the anti-government lobby that made strange bedfellows and pushed this thing forward a bit. So politics is always interesting. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

They’re always going to come after us, the animal rights groups. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Every day of the week. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Yes. And try to find new and innovative ways to do it. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

And here we go. Well, anything else? No. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

That’s all I know about checkoff. 

Dr. Jim Lowe 

Fantastic. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Thanks for the chat. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe and tell your friends about the Round Barn podcast available on any of the podcatchers of your choice. In addition to this podcast, we offer a wide range of learning opportunities, including a master of veterinary science degree. We’re accepting applications for the spring 2024 semester. To learn more about this program, please visit vetmed.illinois.edu/MVS. 

Kaylee Hillinger 

Thanks for listening.