Talk:Omaha Steaks

Spamming activities
Why do some editors keep removing information about Omaha Steaks' spamming activities? Companies that hire spammers and that have been caught deserve to be embarassed until they quit and have cleared their name in the appropriate spam research groups. Jesse Viviano 17:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

omaha steaks employees blanking this page
If Omaha Steaks objects to the contents of this page, they need to refute the information herein intelligently.

Wikipedia is an open source enyclopedia meant to have objective content and facts. It is not intended to either market or defend any entity.

As such, it is inappropriate and unethical to censor any facts herein.

A refuation with facts, however, would be an appropriate and ethical response.

At any rate, it doesn't matter how many times Omaha Steaks blanks this page.

Someone like me will simply keep returning to restore it.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Censorship-is-evil (talk • contribs) 22:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:OmahaSteaksLogo.gif
Image:OmahaSteaksLogo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

COI editing of this article
See Conflict of interest/Noticeboard for info. Videmus Omnia 03:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Spamming Allegations
I'm a neutral editor and I must say that some of the spamming allegations are inadequately sourced. The Spamhaus link is dead and the one right next to is an anonymous blog that fails WP:RS, especially as the allegations are serious. So I'm removing the Spamhaus discussion. There's nothing inappropriate about the discussion itself, it's just not properly sourced. If it can be properly sourced, it can be reinserted.

The Business Week article should remain, although frankly it doesn't say much. The bit about the requirements of US law is inappropriate in the context of this discussion and is probably an OR synthesis, so I'm removing it as well. --Butseriouslyfolks 03:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The Spamhaus record was removed just in the past day or so. Many of us have received torrents of their spam in the past but they haven't had many recent complaints, so it's not a major issue and I won't bother to scour the web for sources to justify putting it back in. It's just as well to let Ms. Weiss win one as a gesture of good faith on our part. Snakesouls 04:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, Wikipedia is not a contest or competition to be won. It's an encyclopedia.  Editors should be open minded, just like you were with regard to the spam issue.  I expect you did not mean "win" literally, but I think I would be remiss if I did not point that out.  --Butseriouslyfolks 04:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Here's a couple links... Dunno if they'll be of much help, however.    Even those, are somewhat weak. HTH, however! BTW, you're 100% correct, regarding this being an encyclopedia, not a contest! --SXT40 06:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The dates in your links are not very recent. It looks to me like they stopped spamming a few years ago, but just didn't bother to get their Spamhaus record cleared until this month. Which is probably not notable. Power piglet 18:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Heh, I never said I was trying to prove the case that they were spamming, one way or the other. Just trying to help... As an aside, after what period of time does an event become non-notable? I'm kinda new around here... --SXT40 18:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's any set period of time. It's just my opinion, and I'm certainly nobody important here on Wikipedia. One could certainly argue that it's still notable. :-) Power piglet 21:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If you order from Omaha Steaks, you'll lose your neutrality fast when you get inundated with telemarketing phone calls from them!

(reset indent) It's not our job to report on every bit of trivia minutiae. These details about past spamming are not pertinent in my opinion. We aren't here to crusade against spam. Jehochman Hablar 19:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hrm, not sure where that came from, but, OK! Thanks! --SXT40 20:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted text with spam claims that and references that do not meet wikipedia's definitions of reliable sources. Business Week meets that criteria, but the others I deleted do not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookiehead (talk • contribs) 00:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging
This article talk page was automatically added with WikiProject Food and drink banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here. If you have concerns, please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Mention in 'Splosion Man
Not sure if this is worth mentioning, but one of the achievements in Xbox 360 arcade game 'Splosion Man is titled "Omaha Steaks®, Delicious!" in an obvious reference to these guys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.246.40.54 (talk) 20:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * so add it into the article, no big deal. It's the pedia anyone can edit, and you even have a reference. Cookiehead (talk) 03:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

"America's Original Butcher"
Something needs to be put in the article refuting the marketing lie that they are America's original butcher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.38.185.65 (talk) 06:24, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Scam?
I ordered by phone & I was talking to someone in the Philippines; is this OK or was I being scammed? 2600:100F:B029:8D6A:0:4D:26DC:6701 (talk) 04:24, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Request for infobox updates
Hi Wikipedia editors, I'm a part of the communications team at Omaha Steaks and I'd like to see if I can help improve this page. I'd like to begin with the infobox, which features out-of-date figures for the number of Omaha Steak employees and for company revenue.

The correct employee number (1,500) can be found in this 2020 article announcing the passing the Alan Simon.

The listed company revenue figure is sourced from an Omaha World-Herald article that is more than a decade old. (The link also doesn't work.) Given that Omaha Steaks is a privately held company that doesn't report revenue, it seems like the best step here would be to remove this category from the infobox entirely.

Also, the company's logo in the infobox is an old version that is no longer in use. It looks like I can't upload a replacement logo yet, because I'm too new of an editor here. Would someone be able to use the "upload a new version" link to replace ? The company's new logo file is available on our website here.

I will not make any changes to the page myself due to my conflict of interest, and hope other editors are able to assist. Thank you for your help. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 18:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I have updated the employee number and removed the figure for revenue. It's not convenient for me to upload the new logo now. I may manage to come back later and do that, or someone else may do it. JBW (talk) 14:41, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ JBW (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Would you be able to change the date attached to the employee number, so that it's clear that's the current employee figure? Thank you for your help. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 13:53, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. I intended to do that when I changed the employee number, but evidently forgot. Thanks for letting me know, so that I have been able to put my mistake right. JBW (talk) 17:06, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Request to review updated draft
Hello again Wikipedia editors. Thank you so much for your help updating the infobox. I am back with another request, this time to update the content in the rest of the article. I should say that most of the current text is fine, but I think you'll agree that some of the facts and figures are out-of-date and that, in general, some of the sections are poorly structured (likely because information has been added incrementally over time without an eye towards the cohesiveness of the page as a whole).

As noted above, I'm part of the communications team at Omaha Steaks and thus have a clear COI. As such, I will not be editing the page directly and am instead hoping that other editors can review what I've put together: User:Omaha Steaks Ashley/sandbox

As you can see, I tried to streamline the content and keep everything as concise and to-the-point as possible while still retaining critical information (and readability throughout). I spent a lot of time updating references and making sure that every claim was backed up by the cited source or sources. I kept some of the existing language and citations from the current article, but also made considerable updates, additions, and removals throughout (again, with an eye toward the goals stated above).

I understand that there's a lot here to review! I thought it would be useful to look at everything at once, since I moved a lot of claims around. But if editors prefer, we can assess one section at a time. Below, you'll find just the revised History section:

In 1850, Lazar Shames founded a packing house and meat market in Riga, Latvia. In 1898, his son J.J. and his family fled religious persecution in Latvia and came to the United States as part of the third wave of Jewish immigration to the country. They passed through Ellis Island, chose Simon as their American name, and eventually arrived in Omaha, which was experiencing a population surge due in part to the development of the meat packing industry. J.J. and his son B.A. worked as butchers for many years, and then in 1917 the family started their own meat-cutting operation. The business was located in downtown Omaha in the current location of the First National Center. The previous occupant in that space had been a carpentry shop called "Table Supply Co." and the Simons changed the name to Table Supply Meat Co.

The butchery established a reputation for fine cuts of loin, boneless strips, ribs, and ribeyes. In 1924, the Simons moved the business to a new location in what is now Omaha's Old Market neighborhood and began selling their cuts of beef to local supermarkets and national chain grocery stores, hotel restaurants, and institutional customers.

In 1929, B.A. Simons' son Lester joined the business and helped expand its distribution. In the 1940s, Lester brokered a deal with the Union Pacific Railroad to begin serving Omaha Steaks in the dining cars of their transcontinental trains. Lester hand-selected the meat for the passenger trains that traveled between Omaha and Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. The mail-order business began in 1952, as orders packed in dry ice and cardboard cartons lined with wax paper were shipped via train. In the early 1960s, innovations in shipping like insulated-foam coolers, vacuum packaging, and direct parcel shipping helped Omaha Steaks transform itself into a direct marketer. Catalogs were mailed to customers for the first time in 1963, and gradually expanded to include not only steaks, but poultry, pork, seafood, side dishes, and desserts. In 1966 the company changed its name to Omaha Steaks and moved to a new plant.

Omaha Steaks opened its first retail store in Omaha in 1976. In 1985, the company expanded its retail operations beyond Nebraska, opening a store in Houston, and as of 2021 it operated 48 total retail stores in 20 states.

Omaha Steaks was an early adopter of digital marketing. The company placed its first online ad on CompuServ in 1991, and by 1995 it had a robust presence on America Online and a fully functional website. Through these platforms, the company was receiving around 20,000 responses a month. Omaha Steaks became part of the Microsoft Network in 1998 and launched a Japanese website in 1999. That same year the company opened new corporate and marketing offices next to its expanded telemarketing facility.

You'll see that I removed all of the subsection headers from the current version and generally tried to trim down the amount of detail, focusing only on the most relevant chronological events.

Again, I have a COI here and will not be doing any editing myself, so I'm hopeful that editors can review what I've put together and make whatever updates they feel will improve the article. Would you be able to look at any part of this request? Thank you for your help. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 18:48, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting comment.svg Note: I've gone ahead and taken a brief look at your draft (mainly just the lead and history section). I do have to say a few things first. One, you can technically keep the sections to keep it organized when in the source viewer by simply removing the = symbols and commenting out the text (by adding < ! --  --> around it). Second, it says "Lester hand-selected the meat for the passenger trains that traveled between Omaha and Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle." This seems a tad promotional mainly because of the word "hand-selected". I think just reducing it to selected should be fine. I'll take a look at the rest of what you wrote late, and then check with other editors before saying that this is good. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 17:12, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Blaze Wolf. Just confirming here that I moved the draft to my user page and removed the "hand-selected" phrase that you flagged, and fixed some formatting errors. Hoping you'll have time to review this fully, soon. Thanks again, Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty happy with the draft. I went ahead and copied the lead over. I like that it leaves out some of the trivia like the Celebrity Apprentice nonsense. I'll try to review the rest of it in the next couple days but my impression is we should proceed. GA-RT-22 (talk) 18:11, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your interest and initial edits to the introduction, @GA-RT-22GA-RT-22. As you probably saw, this request has been open for several months now so I'm happy to help however I can as you review the rest. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 13:43, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * What's up with the spurious line breaks embedded in the citation templates in your draft? They often, but not always, show up just before the url parameter. Can you remove these? GA-RT-22 (talk) 23:56, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @GA-RT-22, I prepared the draft in another document so the line breaks were probably copied over by accident. I think I got them all removed if you want to take a look now. Thank you! Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 16:53, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've been merging as I get time to review. I hope that will check my work, at least briefly, and speak up if I miss something. GA-RT-22 (talk) 20:44, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping! I'll check it out once I have some time. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 21:06, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @GA-RT-22 + @Blaze Wolf Let me know if I can be of any assistance during your review! Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @GA-RT-22 + @Blaze_Wolf Just wanted to touch base to see if either of you have been able to review. Hoping we might be able to implement the suggested edits to the page soon. Thanks for all your help! Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 14:15, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry I had completely forgotten. I'll go ahead and look at it now. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 14:17, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * No worries, let me know if you need anything while you review. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Uh.. what exactly am I looking for in the suggested edit again? I forgot lol. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 16:49, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * There were just some line breaks @GA-RT-22 had mentioned so I believe I fixed those. I'm still a newbie when it comes to Wikipedia, so bare with me! Other than that, I'd love to have you review the entire article located in my sandbox. User:Omaha Steaks Ashley/sandbox Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 16:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've merged in part of the draft at User:Omaha Steaks Ashley/sandbox and I guess the questions are 1) any complaints with my merge and 2) can we just go ahead and merge the rest of it? I only changed a couple of small things, in general I think the draft is in better shape than the current article. GA-RT-22 (talk) 00:53, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Go ahead! I did express some concerns for the stuff relating to it mentioning that Omaha Steaks was an adopter of digital marketing since it seemed just barely on the edge of non-promotional. But otherwise it's good. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 00:57, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Appreciate you both taking a look at the draft. Do you think we can take it live? @Blaze Wolf @GA-RT-22 Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 15:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * At this point I've imported most of it with some small changes like moving digital marketing from the History section to the Marketing section. What's left is parts of the Operations and Marketing sections. I'm not really comfortable with the tone of those sections in the draft and I wish we could get another editor to look at these. I normally just fix typos and ref errors, I'm not really a writer. There's also the Publications/cookbooks/videos. GA-RT-22 (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2022 (UTC)


 * @Omaha Steaks Ashley Hi, editor without a COI here cleaning up the "request edit" backlog, and this is the oldest outstanding request in the queue.  I think I implemented many of the acceptable changes that were not previously implemented. Closing out this request. Please submit additional requests in bite size pieces.  Cheers Duke Gilmore (talk) 20:14, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @Duke Gilmore, thank you very much for implementing the changes I had requested. I will absolutely do bite size pieces in the future to make it easier on everyone. Cheers! 160.32.120.90 (talk) 21:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Digital marketing
The previous discussion reminded me about a concern I had about digital marketing. There was a dark side to their being pioneers. In the very early years (1990s) Omaha Steaks took a lot of criticism for unwanted and unsolicited email and phone calls. Some of this was in the article but was removed around 2007 because of poor sourcing. I wonder if we should try to add some of this back in with proper sourcing. See discussion above. GA-RT-22 (talk) 01:44, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Request for Updates to Operations Section and Remove International Mention
Hi Wikipedia editors, I'm a part of the communications team at Omaha Steaks and I have a few updates to the page I'd like to suggest.

Nate Rempe, former President & Chief Operating Officer (COO), was promoted to President & Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Todd Simon, former CEO, remains chairman and Chief Steak Evangelist.

You can view several sources here: https://www.wowt.com/2023/11/07/omaha-steaks-making-major-changes/, https://www.ketv.com/article/omaha-steaks-announces-new-president-ceo/45770547, https://www.omahasteaks.com/press/press-releases/omaha-steaks-elevates-nate-rempe-to-chief-executive-officer-as-company-focuses-on-accelerated-growth#:~:text=Rempe%20joined%20Omaha%20Steaks%20in,Steaks%20and%20Chief%20Steak%20Evangelist.

We also do not ship internationally. View source here: https://www.omahasteaks.com/info/Shipping-Information

I will not make any changes to the page myself due to my conflict of interest, and hope other editors are able to assist. Thank you for your help. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 17:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Wikipedia editors, I'm following up on my request above. The information on the page isn't accurate and we'd like to get it updated. I will not make any changes to the page myself due to my conflict of interest, and hope other editors may be able to assist. Thank you for your help! Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 02:03, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done TheNuggeteer (talk) 06:28, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for making those changes! Appreciate the help so much. Omaha Steaks Ashley (talk) 14:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)