CHICAGO — The American Egg Board is getting things ‘cracking’ and planning toward making that omelet of increasing global and domestic egg sales.
The AEB recently announced a restructure plan that is designed to advance egg demand growth and provide U.S. egg farmers with resources and research that will benefit their investment returns.
Part of these plans include a strategic staff realignment within the group that will focus efforts on building more egg consumption in retail, exports and foodservice with marketing and partnerships; increasing producer engagement and on-farm support with research into such areas as animal health, nutrition and sustainability; and utilizing board staff as an extension of its farmer teams, the AEB said in its announcement.
“The message was clear from our Board in October — don’t wait. Take big swings. Lead this industry forward, fast,” Emily Metz, AEB president and CEO, said. “Well, message received. We’re not waiting — we’re positioning this organization to start making the bold moves we need to make to grow U.S. egg demand in a major way and support our farmers for the future.”
There are three strategic areas where the board is updating its structure: Demand, Farmer Support, and Enterprise.
The group’s Demand team will be utilizing business development, marketing, insights, and innovation to increase egg consumption in export, retail and foodservice areas.
The Farmer Support team will focus on egg producer engagement, industry initiatives and public affairs that will grow trust and move key priorities forward.
And the Enterprise team will be giving research, operational and communications leadership, AEB noted.
The new alignment of AEB staff will include: Mike Koenigs being named chief of strategy and operations; and Nate Hedtke promoted to senior vice president of demand creation and will lead demand functions.
Elizabeth Hurst is AEB’s new vice president of executive and strategic communications. Hurst was previously with Dairy MAX, where she was the lead for corporate communications in an eight-state region, as well as national crisis communications initiatives.
AEB is an egg industry checkoff marketing organization, funded through a duty on its members on egg cases shipped. Its board is comprised of 18 members and 18 alternates from all U.S. regions that are nominated by the egg industry and are appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
“Before its October Board meeting, AEB developed the business case for pursuing an assessment increase,” the group said in its announcement. “The Board unanimously approved both the business case and the decision to execute a referendum with USDA, which will call for a producer vote on a staged, eight-year assessment increase.”
“AEB will be working with USDA to execute the referendum at the Board’s direction,” the board added.
As market conditions improve, the organization is clearly setting its sights on increasing table egg and egg product sales both domestically and globally.
“There is such momentum behind eggs right now and AEB is a rocket ship that’s taking off with the brightest stars in our sights,” Metz said. “I’m grateful for the trust that our Board and the industry has placed in its Checkoff organization and we’re not going to let them down. It’s blast off time!”
