Asheville, N.C. – Sept. 25, 2019 – Macgregors Meat & Seafood Ltd., Toronto, was recognized as the Specialty Meat Company Marketer of the Year by the Certified Angus Beef ® brand. The award was presented at the brand’s Annual Conference, held Sept. 23-25, in Asheville, N.C. Brand partners at the conference, including meat processors, distributors, chefs, retailers and cattle ranchers, explored merchandising and marketing solutions to satisfy growing consumer demand for great-tasting beef.
Macgregors has a long, rich history as a seventh-generation, Canadian family business. The meat and seafood business excelled at supplying top-quality beef and specialty cuts to restaurants while guiding customer success through one-on-one visits. The team offers menu solutions for multi-unit chains, hotels and independent restaurants with a unique focus on the Certified Angus Beef ® brand.
The Macgregors family is marking 70 years of leading the market, and since 1991, has been offering the branded beef because of its consistently superior quality. “We’re lifting up that 70-year history with our staff and customers. It’s relevant, it’s true and it’s fun to talk about,” says Duncan Macgregor, Jr., president and general manager.
Leading up to the celebration, the company opened the Wickson Room, a small, dry-aging cooler with a butcher shop that offers chefs a specialty approach to beef. Certified Angus Beef ® brand and its Prime cuts are dry aged in the cooler that honors the Wickson family, which first opened the business in 1834 in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.
This year, the team opened an innovation kitchen to host customers and identify best selections for their menus. It has been a hub for innovative events, such as a Butcher Battle, where three chef teams competed to cut steaks from a beef hip. The center also opened its doors for the brand to share Macgregors’ know-how with fellow distributors.
Other educational opportunities have included a dry-aged steak tasting, where chefs sampled the branded beef cuts with varying days of age and discussed the finer points of beef aging with the Macgregors meat team. Plus, social media keeps customers informed of day-to-day happenings in the cut shop, Wickson Room and innovation kitchen.
To stay current with opportunities to share with customers, the team also participated in hands-on beef cutting and culinary sessions at the Certified Angus Beef ® Culinary Center. Trainings have included visits to family-owned Angus farms, where participants experienced the brand’s focus on quality, from farm to table, and the pride of family farmers to produce the best beef possible.
About the Certified Angus Beef ® brand
World renowned for its exceptional quality and generous marbling, the Certified Angus Beef ® brand is the original brand of premium beef. It was created over 40 years ago, in 1978, and is still owned today by family ranchers who are determined to bring the best Angus beef to the table through a gate-to-plate network that also includes meat companies, retailers and chefs. Ten exacting standards ensure the beef’s superior taste and tenderness in every bite. For more information, visit CertifiedAngusBeef.com or follow the brand on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
