Bring a wafer-thin slice of Vulcano to your mouth and savour the magnificent aroma of the dry-cured ham before allowing the full taste to develop on your tongue. That’s the translated version of the sales pitch for Vulcano Ham company in Austria.
This was our last stop before leaving Austria for Slovenia on the 2008 IFAJ Congress trip and it was an interesting one. In the photo you see Bettina Habel, the wife of one of the three main proprietors of Vulcano, mingling with the herd at the farm, including big Leo (who is the “mascot” of the operation and not for consumption!)
Vulcano specializes in air-cured hams that are sold for a premium only to high-end consumer markets. The regional trademarked product is manufactured from hoof to ham in the same location.
I was happy to be able to put a brochure from one of our sponsors, Novus International, in Bettina’s hands, as well as give one to their veterinarian who was our local guide and interpreter for the visit. They did seem interested in the animal health and feed products Novus offers for hog producers - and I pointed out that their website is also available in several languages, including German!
The National Pork Board has a new CEO. He’s Chris Novak from Indiana. He says it’s “like coming home for me.”
Novak has served as executive director of the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana’s corn organizations. He led the merger of two soybean organizations and helped build partnerships between Indiana’s soybean, corn and livestock commodity organizations. He also worked to secure passage of a new state corn checkoff.
“This is a challenging time for the U.S. pork industry because of the volatility in the markets, but also a time of great opportunity,” said Steve Weaver, a pork producer from Elk Grove, Calif., and president of the National Pork Board. “That is why I and my fellow National Pork Board members are so excited to have someone with Chris Novak’s experience and abilities to work with us in meeting those challenges and identifying those opportunities on behalf of all U.S. pork producers.”
Oscar Mayer says hot dog enthusiasts have more reason to love the summer grilling season. That’s because Broadway Actor Mario Lopez is introducing the new Oscar Mayer Premium Beef Franks. Lopez will be firing up the grill on June 10 in Times Square to give New Yorkers a sample of the new beefier, juicier hot dogs. Both the WIENERMOBILE and the New mini WIENERMOBILE will be around for the fun.
The new Oscar Mayer Premium Beef Franks are made with high quality cuts of beef and a flavorful blend of unique spices for a taste the whole family will love. They also have no artificial flavors, colors, fillers or by-products and are packaged in the same easy-to-use re-sealable package to lock-in freshness.
In honor of the brand’s 125th anniversary year, Oscar Mayer is beefing up the New York barbecue by spreading the love of lunch to America’s Second Harvest — The Nation’s Food Bank Network with a $100,000 donation. But the philanthropy does not stop when the New York lunch crowd slows down. The Oscar Mayer WIENERMOBILE vehicle is hitting the road this summer with opportunities to sample the new franks and collect even more donations to benefit local America’s Second Harvest members in the communities it visits coast-to-coast.
The winners of the 21st Great Pork BarbeQLossal have been officially announced - and the Grand Champions are Mike and Beth Wozniak of Brimfield, Illinois. They are the second two-time champions in a row for the event. They previously won in 2004.
I spent some time at the BBQlossal before heading home on Saturday and got to speak with the lady who has been coordinating the event for the entire 21 years of its existence, Anne Rehnstrom. The BBQ competition is a year older than the World Pork Expo itself, since the first year expo was planned there was a foot-and-mouth disease scare.
Ann says the event is a really good way to promote pork to barbeque enthusiasts everywhere. She talks about the event, how it is judged and other interesting facts in this interview:
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I also got the chance to visit with last year’s grand champions, Mike and Patty Kidwell of Missouri - the first two time winners - who were not actually competing themselves this year but helping daughter Jeanie and her husband Justin Duett.
Jeanie was hoping to follow in the footsteps of her folks and be this year’s grand champion, since she says she did “learn from the best.” But, they did place 4th in the rib category and 5th in whole hog this year. There’s always next year!
Listen to an interview with Patty and Jeanie here:
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What would World Pork Expo be without Pork? I guess just World Expo - right??
There is an abundance of pork at WPX, actually. Every hospitality tent offers pork for breakfast, lunch, dinner and/or appetizers. Kinda goes with the territory, doncha know?
Here we see our National Pork Producer president Bryan Black cutting up some pork outside the NPPC tent, and a luau-style roasted pig being carved up by the folks with Automated Production Systems (AP).
There will be lots more pork at the expo on Saturday with the Great BarbeQlossal when over 80 teams will be competing for the title of Grand Champion.
Two Cindys are twice as fun as one and never blah!
My buddy Cindy Cunningham with the National Pork Board/Pork Checkoff stopped by the Novus International tent to do a “Cindy Show” with me.
Among the many things we talked about were how the pork checkoff is helping producers find new ways to save money on their operations during these days of high input costs and the great success story of pork exports and how the pork checkoff has helped the US move from being a net pork importer to being the second largest exporter in the world.
Cindy also talked about “Pork on the Move” - a mobile tour with 23 stops planned for this year. “We open up a big trailer, grill pork for people, let them sample it and have producers on hand to talk to the public about pork,” Cindy said. The smaller of the two trailers was on the grounds of the expo this week, while the bigger one is in Chicago at the big Blues Festival this weekend.
Listen to the Cindy show here:
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Longevity for a family-owned and operated business is not all that common in today’s world of acquisitions, especially in the agribusiness and media worlds, but Watt Media is the exception to the rule.
Greg Watt is the fourth generation president and CEO of Watt Publishing, a business started by his great grandfather J.W. Watt in 1917 through an acquisition of a poultry publication called Poultry Tribune. As they celebrate 91 years in the business, Greg says they now cover the agribusiness industry with publications on a global scale, including Pig International and Feed International.
In my interview with him, Greg talks about how the publication business has changed over the past nine decades, moving into more new media like webcasting and podcasting, their gold level sponsorship and involvement at World Pork Expo, and how they are forming partnerships with some of their clients like Novus International to better serve the livestock industry.
Listen to Greg’s interview here:
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Dr. Glenn Grimes with the University of Missouri has been the definitive voice for the livestock industry as far as economics goes for five decades. He is here at World Pork Expo giving his views on the current state of the industry and what producers can expect and do to survive the next 18 months or so.
“The objective should be to minimize losses rather than maximize profits in the next 12-18 months,” he says. To do that, he recommends the futures markets. “For the first time in my experience, the futures market has offered a much better opportunity to minimize losses than ever before.”
He also says that it will be important for producers to maximize feed efficiency and he addressed the weather concerns that are the big topic of discussion here as fields are covered in standing water from a series of storms. “This weather is too similar to 1993 to make me feel comfortable as to what it may do to the corn crop this year. That’s the last real small corn crop that we had,” said Grimes. Ten billion bushels or less he says could stop or slow down the production of ethanol, however he emphasizes, “We will not run out of corn.”
Listen to the Grimes interview here:
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Some of our farm media friends have requested that we supply downloadable audio from World Pork Expo - so here are some files for your use. I just forget to do that now because it is so great to have the player that plays the audio immediately off the server.
OK, let’s start with the interview from NPPC president Bryan Black: Bryan Black Interview (10 min MP3)
Rather than the entire Chuck Conner speech - here is audio from the press gaggle with Conner: Conner press gaggle (13 min MP3)
Here is audio with former NPPC president Joy Philippi (pronounced PHIL-i-pee) of Nebraska, co-chair of the Farm Bill Policy Task Force, on what is in the farm bill for pork producers - and what isn’t: Joy Philippi (10 min MP3)
Here is an interview with Dan Meagher of Novus International - you can thank them for the audio!
(He pronounces his name and gives his title at the start of the interview) Dan Meagher (7 min MP3)
All photos in the Flickr set are available in hi-res versions. Just click on the photo and choose the size options. Just another service of Agwired, courtesy of Novus International. Please email me - cindy@zimmcomm.biz - if you need anything else.
This is the banner hanging on the side of the Novus International hospitality tent and inside we have a nice little set up to do interviews and posting and just meet and greet. It’s really pretty cool - I feel very special!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to spend much time hanging around there today because there were lots of media events and press conferences going on - and we didn’t have internet access in the tent. Hopefully, that will be different tomorrow. But, I will say that the folks handling the media here at WPX have been awesome. We have great internet access in the media center (well, there were a few outages) and Leah Schomburg with Trilix Marketing Group has been doing an excellent job coordinating and meeting all of our needs.
I did get to do another interview with one of the Novus Pork Team, Dr. Felipe Navarro, who is swine market manager. He talked about the importance of their research in providing information for producers about their product performance.
You can take a virtual tour of the Novus International research center on their website.
Listen to my interview with Felipe here:
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This good-looking bunch represents the Novus International Pork Team on duty at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines.
Novus is a relatively new pork industry partner, only about two years, but the company has been well known in the poultry industry for many years in the animal health and nutrition field. They actually have products and programs for beef, dairy, aquaculture, and companion animals as well. They boast over 2000 clients in more than 80 countries, so their international focus is a natural fit with the World Pork Expo.
According to Dan Meagher, Novus was founded in 1991 when Monsanto sold off its methionine business. That amino acid was the basis of their products Alimet and MHA for poultry. Now the company has expanded significantly and they are telling producers all about it here at WPX.
Learn more here in my interview with Dan:
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Lots of kids and hogs are here at World Pork Expo.
I paid a visit to the Junior National Show to get some photos and just love to see these little kids handling their show hogs in the ring. That show runs through Friday.
I shot a little video that I plan to get uploaded later today. Check out the photo album for more pictures.
Here’s that video, for those of you who may have ever wondered what its like to try and walk a hog.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner visited the 20th annual World Pork Expo on Thursday and spoke with producers about some of the challenges and opportunities facing the industry.
On the opportunity side is exports. “Thanks to this industry for your role in leading US exports to another remarkable level,” Conner said. The latest forecast calls for agricultural exports to hit $108.5 billion - $26 billion more than last year. “And pork is certainly doing a big portion of this. We expect the value of pork exports to be up 35 percent from 2007.”
Conner discussed the challenges of higher feed costs and actions USDA is taking to help alleviate the situation, such as opening up CRP land for haying and grazing, but he does admit that he is concerned about the effects of the weather on this year’s crop. And he talked about the Farm Bill.
After his formal presentation, we had a little “press gaggle” with Conner - which always makes for good photos.
Listen to Conner’s speech here:
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World Pork Expo is a natural fit for an international corporation like Novus. Pictured here by the multi-lingual welcome sign are Mark Klamfoth and Randy Anderson with Novus.
Randy says they have already had visitors at the tent today from China, Brazil and Mexico and they expect many more from other countries over the course of the expo.
With producers very concerned about their profit margins and getting the most from expensive feed, Randy says Novus has several products and programs to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Among their products are Acidomatrix, Activate, and Mintrex.
Learn more here in my interview with Randy
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First order of business at World Pork Expo this morning was a press conference featuring National Pork Producers Council president Bryan Black from Ohio.
Bryan discussed the 20th anniversary of the event, changes made this year to use badges instead of passes for attendees, the state of the US pork industry, exports and more.
Afterwards, Bryan visited with me in the Novus hospitality tent to do a condensed version interview of all the press conference topics. He says the expo gives pork producers and industry partners around the world one single meeting place to get the latest in technology and information. They have over 400 exhibitors this year and are expecting somewhere between 30-40,000 in attendance.
Here’s my interview with Bryan
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The smokers were already fired up at 7:00 this morning here at the World Pork Expo, getting ready to serve some excellent BBQ to expo goers throughout the day.
The show is underway and we have already got a Flickr photo album up and lots of audio to get posted. The media center is very busy with plenty of reporters filing reports.
I have to admit being a “newbie” - even though I worked for Brownfield Network a number of years, I never attended WPX - so this will be my first. (Note to Cindy Cunningham: be gentle with me!)
This year is the National Pork Producers Council event’s 20th anniversary of serving as the world’s largest trade show for the pork industry. 30,000 visitors are expected this year and the trade show will feature more than 1,000 booths displayed by some 450 different companies.
The event I am most looking forward to is the pork checkoff-sponsored Great BarbeQlossal on Saturday. World Pork Expo Junior National Show will be held through Friday and the National Swine Registry 2008 World Pork Expo Breed Show and Sale is Friday and Saturday.
All this and more at the Big Pig Show! Stay tuned.
AgWired coverage of World Pork Expo is sponsored by:
The week Cindy will be attending the World Pork Expo in Des Moines with our coverage sponsored by Novus International. I was in their office last week to meet with Jeremy Lutgen and Scott Fleetwood. I did an interview with Scott, who is their Executive Director of Marketing and Products. In it you’ll learn a lot more about the company.
Scott and Jeremy are pictured outside their office in St. Louis. Scott says they’ve got facilities in 25 locations globally and serve customers in 80 countries. They take pride in “performance through innovation.” Cindy will be working out of their booth at Pork Expo where Scott says they’ll be helping educate producers about how to improve production through the enhancement of animal nutrition.
When it comes to sponsoring our coverage he says that these types of partnerships are important to establish relationships and help transfer knowledge out to the market place. Cindy will be doing her best to do just that.
This week’s program concludes with music from the Podsafe Music Network. Since both Cindy and I will be on the road I picked a song titled, “Travelogue” by George Wood. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 173 (14 min MP3)
Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:
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The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes
Swine Summit attendees can look forward to playing a game of P-I-G and 3-point with members of the Iowa Energy D-League NBA team organization this year. Of course, the summit will be getting down to business too with a host of speakers that will focus on “Netting More Energy” in pork production.
Kemin Industries Inc. will host swine veterinarians, nutritionists and decision makers at its second annual swine summit in Des Moines, IA, June 4, 2008, at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The focus of the 2008 swine summit is “Netting More Energy”.
Speakers Clifford Adams, Ph.D., Ruurd Zijlstra, Ph.D., Joseph Hahn, Ph.D., and David Meeker, Ph.D., will discuss net energy formulation, how to evaluate new high energy feedstuff options, what options are available, and how to extract more energy with nutricines such as enzymes.
P-I-G and 3-point will follow the summit in Kemin’s Got Game?!” reception in the 4-H building on the fairgrounds.
Swine producers are invited to an Alltech iCast on nutrition. It’s “an online video discussion about trial data that was recently conducted by Cape Fear Consulting.” We’re seeing more and more use of video online.
You are invited to the swine nutrition iCast featuring Dr. Tommy Shipp and Dr. Walter Tibbetts from Cape Fear Consulting. Beginning May 28, 2008 at 1pm CDT, Dr. Shipp and Dr. Tibbetts will share the latest trial data and answer the question does a pig ever get over a good or a bad start.
After the iCast, stop at the Alltech booth, #217, during World Pork Expo June 6th at 10:00 a.m. to meet Dr. Shipp and Dr. Tibbetts and ask questions about the trial.
This online iCast is by invitation only. Register now!
Bring a wafer-thin slice of Vulcano to your mouth and savour the magnificent aroma of the dry-cured ham before allowing the full taste to develop on your tongue. That’s the translated version of the sales pitch for Vulcano Ham company in Austria. 
Vulcano specializes in air-cured hams that are sold for a premium only to high-end consumer markets. The regional trademarked product is manufactured from hoof to ham in the same location.
and 
The 
The winners of the 21st 
I also got the chance to visit with last year’s grand champions, Mike and Patty Kidwell of Missouri - the first two time winners - who were not actually competing themselves this year but helping daughter Jeanie and her husband Justin Duett. 
What would World Pork Expo be without Pork? I guess just World Expo - right??
Here we see our National Pork Producer president Bryan Black cutting up some pork outside the NPPC tent, and a luau-style roasted pig being carved up by the folks with 
Two Cindys are twice as fun as one and never blah!
Cindy also talked about “Pork on the Move” - a mobile tour with 23 stops planned for this year. “We open up a big trailer, grill pork for people, let them sample it and have producers on hand to talk to the public about pork,” Cindy said. The smaller of the two trailers was on the grounds of the expo this week, while the bigger one is in Chicago at the big Blues Festival this weekend.
Longevity for a family-owned and operated business is not all that common in today’s world of acquisitions, especially in the agribusiness and media worlds, but Watt Media is the exception to the rule.
Greg Watt is the fourth generation president and CEO of 
“The objective should be to minimize losses rather than maximize profits in the next 12-18 months,” he says. To do that, he recommends the futures markets. “For the first time in my experience, the futures market has offered a much better opportunity to minimize losses than ever before.”
Some of our farm media friends have requested that we supply downloadable audio from World Pork Expo - so here are some files for your use. I just forget to do that now because it is so great to have the player that plays the audio immediately off the server.
This is the banner hanging on the side of the Novus International hospitality tent and inside we have a nice little set up to do interviews and posting and just meet and greet. It’s really pretty cool - I feel very special! 
I did get to do another interview with one of the Novus Pork Team, Dr. Felipe Navarro, who is swine market manager. He talked about the importance of their research in providing information for producers about their product performance. 
This good-looking bunch represents the 
According to Dan Meagher, Novus was founded in 1991 when Monsanto sold off its methionine business. That amino acid was the basis of their products Alimet and MHA for poultry. Now the company has expanded significantly and they are telling producers all about it here at WPX.
Lots of kids and hogs are here at World Pork Expo.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner visited the 20th annual World Pork Expo on Thursday and spoke with producers about some of the challenges and opportunities facing the industry.
On the opportunity side is exports. “Thanks to this industry for your role in leading US exports to another remarkable level,” Conner said. The latest forecast calls for agricultural exports to hit $108.5 billion - $26 billion more than last year. “And pork is certainly doing a big portion of this. We expect the value of pork exports to be up 35 percent from 2007.”
World Pork Expo is a natural fit for an international corporation like Novus. Pictured here by the multi-lingual welcome sign are Mark Klamfoth and Randy Anderson with Novus. 
First order of business at World Pork Expo this morning was a press conference featuring National Pork Producers Council president Bryan Black from Ohio.
Bryan discussed the 20th anniversary of the event, changes made this year to use badges instead of passes for attendees, the state of the US pork industry, exports and more. 
The smokers were already fired up at 7:00 this morning here at the World Pork Expo, getting ready to serve some excellent BBQ to expo goers throughout the day.
The week Cindy will be attending the World Pork Expo in Des Moines with our coverage sponsored by 
Scott and Jeremy are pictured outside their office in St. Louis. Scott says they’ve got facilities in 25 locations globally and serve customers in 80 countries. They take pride in “performance through innovation.” Cindy will be working out of their booth at Pork Expo where Scott says they’ll be helping educate producers about how to improve production through the enhancement of animal nutrition.
Swine producers are invited to an 
You get to learn what's new with companies at NAFB's Trade Talk.
