The Beef Checkoff got a nice boost to their Vealstore website traffic after “Chef Laurent Tourondel (pictured) of BLT Steak in New York City joined Today Show Host Al Roker in demonstrating an elegant holiday veal recipe.”

The nice thing about websites is how easy it is to measure activity. According to the Beef Board, “On the day the segment aired with Chef Tourondel’s comments, daily hits to the www.vealstore.com Web site were nearly four times more than normal, with nearly 7,000 hits that day alone. Hits to the Web site remained higher than usual for the remainder of that week.”

The Beef Board also announced the hiring of Robert Schafer as a veal development consultant. “In his new role, Schafer will help put more veal on casual dining restaurant menus across the U.S., and provide guidance to the veal menu development team in the beef checkoff-funded veal program’s “Go-to-Market” strategy.”