DES MOINES, IOWA — The National Pork Board recently announced Kent Harrison, a meat industry and food manufacturing professional with more than 30 years of experience, as the new assistant vice president of channel marketing.

Before joining NPB, Harrison worked at Trident Seafoods as senior vice president of US Value-Added. In the role, he led a major business unit responsible for $815 million in sales.

He also spent more than 15 years working at Tyson Foods, including as vice president of marketing and premium programs, where he helped transform Tyson Fresh Meats into a premium, value-added business. He also founded Pro Max Consulting, where he advised clients on growth, value creation and new market opportunities.

“Our market growth team is focused on understanding their businesses, identifying where pork can win and bringing the right expertise and resources together to turn those opportunities into incremental value and volume,” said José de Jesús, vice president of market growth at NPB. “Kent’s deep commercial experience strengthens our team and how we build partnerships that create growth across the supply chain on behalf of pork producers.”

As part of the checkoff organization, NPB looks to grow domestic demand for pork. A recent example is the Taste What Pork Can Do campaign, which provides channel partners with consumer-facing assets to show pork’s versatility and use of more than 110 unique flavors.

State pork associations will also work with local and regional retail and foodservice chains on digital and in-store promotions.

“Protein-rich pork has an opportunity to claim its place with younger consumers,” Harrison said. “Pork represents an ownable position of flavor and versatility that we can maximize through collaborating on category growth across the entire supply chain.”

Harrison’s channel marketing team will work with Kiersten Hafter, vice president of business intelligence and innovation, who analyzes trends and consumer behavior for the supply chain and looks at business objectives.

“Long-term demand starts with understanding today’s consumer,” Harrison continued. “We want to unlock the business potential of pork by providing channel partners with marketing and merchandising resources that build on the consumer power of the Taste What Pork Can Do campaign.”

Ryan McCarthy is the digital media editor for MEAT+POULTRY. He has been at Sosland Publishing Company since 2016, covering the industry and managing the digital media channels of the publication. He also writes and edits web stories, images, videos and podcasts about the meat industry. McCarthy has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Kansas.

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