Just six months in, the Texas Beef Checkoff posted a revenue of $3.4 million.

That money will be used to revamp marketing strategies to share beefy messages with consumer audiences, enhance producer communications and provide beef content to retail partners. In addition to promoting and marketing beef, checkoff dollars will be invested in research efforts.

Funds also are used to build upon current programs, which wasn’t possible before the state funded checkoff began. More details on those projects and other checkoff updates are available here.

Refund requests received through March 2015 totaled $147,216, just 4.27 percent of collections.

The referendum was approved by Texas cattlemen last July. Collections of the assessment began Oct. 1, 2014.