Public Relations, Communications & Learnings

Advertising

2025 marked the fourth full year for our ‘Good for ME, Good for MB’ advertising campaign – an initiative designed to strengthen Manitobans’ trust in the hog sector. This year’s campaign consisted of a mix of traditional and digital marketing tactics, including bringing the campaign to life through the addition of carousel ads and short videos. Animal care and environment messages continued to be prioritized followed by economy and food messaging. Our year-round efforts garnered 46.3M ad impressions, 83.6K ad clicks, and a 21% engagement rate, indicating that our content is resonating with the public. Website traffic resulting from our paid campaigns was 18% higher than in 2024.

As we move into 2026, and work towards refreshing our campaign for the coming fall, we remain committed to promoting pork as a high-quality and affordable nutritional powerhouse, being transparent when it comes to our animal care practices and environmental impact and touting the sector’s contributions to Manitoba’s economy.

Our year-round efforts garnered

  • 46.3M

    Ad impressions

  • 83.6K

    Ad clicks

  • 21%

    Engagement rate

Consumer Education

Increasing consumer awareness, showcasing pork as an affordable, high-quality, protein-rich option that supports healthy and active lifestyles while also celebrating its versatility and adaptability across global cuisines remained a goal for Manitoba Pork in 2025.

Early in the year, we created four new recipe cards incorporating the nutrition messaging developed in 2024 for use at various community engagement events.

Throughout the year, we continued our collaboration with Canada Pork by participating in their social media campaigns and rebranding their assets for use on our own platforms to help educate consumers about various pork cuts and cooking methods. In fall 2025, we conducted another series of meat cutting demonstration sessions at Red River College Polytech’s Patterson GlobalFoods Institute and Assiniboine College’s Food Processing Centre.

Through our 36-year collaboration with Great Tastes of Manitoba, we were able to promote pork’s key attributes and position it as a sustainable protein choice with a compelling story to tell. This past season’s shift away from broadcast television to online episodes – featuring quick, how-to videos, culinary challenges, hacks for leftovers, and more – showcased the personality and passion of four talented chefs. This shift to a digital format broadened our reach to younger audiences, drew more commodity groups to participate in the initiative, and exceeded targets for audience growth, watch time, and social engagement.

Community Engagement

Manitoba Pork is heavily invested in community engagement and outreach through sponsorships, events, donations, and our Pork on a Bun program. This year we supported over 80 charities, hospital foundations, community groups and not-for-profit organizations through financial and in-kind donations for their fundraising or community events. Increased emphasis was placed on supporting food security organizations with donations of pork, including Agape Table, Salvation Army, Harvest Manitoba, and Samaritan House.

  • 80+

    Charities & Community Organizations Supported

    We supported over 80 charities, hospital foundations, community groups and not-for-profit organizations through financial and in-kind donations

  • 1,200

    ‘Pork on a Bun’ Sandwiches Served

    We served 1,200 ‘Pork on a Bun’ sandwiches at 7 strategically selected events

  • 7

    Tonnes of Pork Donated

    7 tonnes of pork was donated to those in need

Harvest Manitoba

2025 marked the third year of our three-year commitment to Harvest Manitoba to provide freezers and ground pork to food banks across the province. The seven food banks that benefitted this year were in Gimli, Morden, Lac Du Bonnet, Ste Anne, and in Winnipeg’s Downtown, Gilbert Park, and North End communities. Since the program launched, more than 30,000 pounds of ground pork has filled the freezers of the 18 participating food banks. Given the significant increase in need, Manitoba Pork will be extending its commitment for another year.

Pork Sports

In 2025, Manitoba Pork continued its support of local sports organizations by partnering with the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL), Curl Manitoba and the Winnipeg Sea Bears to help strengthen public trust and promote pork’s nutritional value. Partnership benefits provided us with opportunities for communicating key messages and engaging with dedicated fans in Winnipeg and over a dozen rural communities including Steinbach, Winkler, Niverville, and Neepawa.

Highlights in 2025 included ads on the MJHL’s Digital Sign Network, various logo recognition opportunities, website and mobile app banner ads, and the Manitoba Peak Performer of the Month Award. In November, we sponsored Country Night at a Steinbach Pistons game. We were joined by a nearly sold-out crowd at the Southeast Events Centre, where we handed out recipes, a limited quantity of branded cowboy hats, and ran an on-ice ‘pig toss’ game during the intermission.

Our long-standing partnership with the curling community continued to thrive with Curl Manitoba seeing yet another increase in membership this past season. Among other benefits, our logo was prominently featured at the RME Women of the Rings and Viterra Men’s Provincial Championships both on-ice and online through YouTube, we had banner ads running in the association’s e-newsletter, on their website and social media platforms, and we hosted an activation booth at the men’s championships.

We continued our sponsorship of the Winnipeg Sea Bears for a second year. Manitoba Pork sponsored the July 17 game and executed activations at two other games throughout the regular season, each time running short of squishy pigs, special in-house made buttons, recipe books, spice packs and more. We received significant logo recognition throughout the season, along with animated bacon-themed advertising on the jumbotron, getting our brand in front of a league-wide attendance record of 108,215 fans. In August, Manitoba Pork sponsored the CEBL Championship which was held in Winnipeg. Benefits included a 30-second commercial on TSN and an activation booth, where we handed out exclusive branded basketball-shaped backpacks.

Agriculture Education

Manitoba Pork staff are invested in increasing agriculture literacy in Manitoba through the development of high-quality resources, sponsoring and attending events, and supporting agriculture education groups.

Pig Tales Activity Book

In summer 2025, we developed a new agriculture education activity book, Pig Tales, targeted to kids. The booklet is part storybook, part activity book, inviting kids to tour a hog barn with a farmer to learn how pigs are raised in Manitoba. It includes engaging activities, quirky riddles, interesting facts, and high-quality illustrations. We hand it out to kids at community engagement events and at the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre.

See full activity book

Make it Pork! Meal Kits

Our Make it Pork! Meal Kit continues to be a popular curriculum-linked resource for foods and nutrition classrooms in Manitoba. The resource provides classes with detailed recipe cards and all the ingredients required to make Mexicali Pork Soup, encouraging students to learn to cook with pork. This year we reached a record high of over 1,200 middle and high school students utilizing the kits. We expanded our capacity to reach rural schools, with over 24% of all kits being administered outside of Winnipeg. There were more requests for kits than we could accommodate this year, indicating the resource is well-liked and remains in high demand by teachers.

  • 1,200

    middle and high school students using the kits

  • 24%

    of kits distributed to rural schools

  • 76%

    of kits distributed to urban schools

Agriculture in the Classroom

As part of our three-year funding agreement, Manitoba Pork sponsored Agriculture in the Classroom – Manitoba at the Cultivator level. This sponsorship helps to build their capacity to meet the growing demand for agriculture education in Manitoba schools. In addition, we provided in-kind support for the development of a new hog sector career resource, provided feedback for various generic agriculture resources, and volunteered at events like Amazing Agriculture Adventure and Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month.

Academic Prizes

In keeping with our commitment to ag education, Manitoba Pork continued to provide $5,000 in scholarship funds to the University of Manitoba Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences for three academic prizes and one bursary and $1,000 to 4-H Manitoba for their “Leaders of Tomorrow” scholarship. We also supported the endeavours of students enrolled in the culinary arts program at Red River Polytech and the Manitoba Institute of Culinary Arts at Assiniboine College where students compete in a pork cook-off for bragging rights and prize money. New this year was the butcher competition at Assiniboine College, during which four food processing students competed to break down a side of pork into cuts fit for the meat counter.

Chop Talk

Manitoba Pork continued to push a new piece of content to producers each week in 2025, alternating between the e-newsletter and the Chop Talk podcast. The podcast, hosted this year by Joey Dearborn, Rhea Teranishi, and Tia Landry, continued to cover issues that matter to producers on-farm, and continued to steadily grow its audience. Episodes this year included covering the issue of tariffs in depth, a two-part preview of the 2025 federal election, and on-farm topics such as low-stress animal handling, zinc oxide in feed, and animal activism.

Labour, Training and Career Initiatives

Manitoba Pork is proud to invest in the growth of its members by supporting lifelong learning and leadership development.
Throughout 2025, CPR/First Aid and hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) training continued to be offered in partnership with Assiniboine College with Manitoba Pork covering the full tuition cost. After last year’s record uptake, participation was lower in 2025 with 35 employees completing the CPR/First Aid training and 155 completing the H₂S course. In the fall, with input from Manitoba Pork, the H₂S course was updated to include other hazardous gases and rebranded as the Hazardous Gas Awareness course.

In 2025, Manitoba Pork collaborated with 21st Century Ag Leadership to partially sponsor a two-day Team Lead course in late November. The course provided practical leadership training for those working in production agriculture, fostering emerging leaders across the sector. With 34 employees participating – well above expectations – Manitoba Pork became the first provincial pork organization to deliver this training.

To showcase the interactive career game developed in 2025, Manitoba Pork took part in the Future Now Career Fair, Manitoba’s largest career and education expo held annually in May. Expanding on the 2024 Careers in Pork – A Cut Above video, we created two new vignettes – featuring a swine veterinarian and a barn manager – to highlight in-demand careers within the sector. Released in November for Agriculture in the Classroom Canada’s Career Month, the vignettes were shared on Manitoba Pork’s YouTube, social channels, and with industry partners.

PORK PROUD Ambassador Program

Manitoba Pork continued with our PORK PROUD Ambassador Program in 2025. The program offers hands-on training to help farmers and industry experts build skills in effectively telling their stories. This year we hosted one ‘Communicate with Confidence’ training session and have a total of 19 individuals trained. Multiple ambassadors have put their training to use by supporting Manitoba Pork staff by working at public events, providing media interviews, and participating in our PORK PROUD feature of the consumer e-newsletter.