Beef Passport makes st
- Not only is Nebraska one of the largest producers of cattle in the nation, it’s also known around the world for its high quality beef. When visiting the state, enjoying beef in a local restaurant is a must. The Nebraska Beef Passport is a great way to promote eating beef and gives tourists and locals alike a tool to find some of the best steaks and burgers in the state.
The Beef Passport program began in 2020 during the height of COVID. Many restaurants were shut down or operating at low capacity to accommodate restrictions. The Nebraska Beef Council was looking for ways to help the food service industry when they came up with the passport program. Modeled after the tourism passport, the beef passport gives consumers a directory of restaurants and meat processing facilities around the state and provides incentives to order beef.
The passport program runs from May 1 to Sept. 30. There are 46 locations listed on the passport this year including restaurants and processing facilities. Each participating location has a unique code that can be entered into the passport. Each code that’s collected
CUSTER COUNTY
earns points toward prizes from the Nebraska Beef Council. There are various prizes available including cutting mats, cooks books and spice rubs. Each code attained also gets entered into a grand prize drawing for a beef and grilling bundle.
New this year is the addition of meat processing facilities to the passport. The Nebraska Meat Processors Association was looking for ways to promote the use of local processors and teamed up with the Beef Council. Every code earned from a processor is entered into a separate drawing for a beef bundle.
The passport program is funded by the Nebraska Beef Checkoff. For every animal that is sold in the state, one dollar is paid into the Checkoff fund. The money is then used to promote beef, conduct research and provide educational materials.
The consumer has two options to access the beef passport. They can request a printed copy from the Nebraska Beef Council or they can download the digital version. The first year that the passport was operational, only the physical copy was available. The Beef Council sent out over 17,000 passports across the nation. After realizing the popularity and scope of the program, they began looking for a digital option that would be more feasible to disperse. The digital passport launched the second year and has been a successful addition to the program.
Consumers have sent requests for the paper passport from more than 30 different states in the three years since the program started. “We got a passport request from someone in Germany,” Adam Wegner, Director of Marketing for the Nebraska Beef Council, said. “They said that they would be traveling to Nebraska later in the summer. They knew that the state was known for its beef so they wanted to have a great steak while they were here.”
Restaurants and meat processors can participate in the passport program through an application process. If chosen by the Beef Council, the retailer is listed as a passport stop for two years and then is rotated to allow another business to join. Custer County has several stops listed this year including Shotgun Annie’s Saloon and Grill in Callaway.
This is the first year that Shotgun