A group of like-minded organizations and companies formed the Healthy Fats Coalition, an educational initiative and awareness campaign with a mission “to affirm that animal fats deserve a central place in the American diet and in the popular imagination.”

Coast Packing Company, a supplier of animal fat shortenings, took the lead in forming HFC, but the members include other retailers and manufacturers such as Fatworks, a Boulder, Colo.-based online retailer of premium traditional fats, including beef tallow, lard and duck fat, and Tendergrass Farms, a Virginia-based supplier of certified organic processed meat and poultry products. Bottego Americano, an Italian restaurant in San Diego, and Elizabeth Swenson, author of “The Artisan Lard Cookbook,” are also founding members, along with the Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education initiative, and Texas-based HeartBrand Beef/Akaushi Cattle.

HFC hopes to influence the ongoing conversation about animal fats in diets through news and editorial commentary, social media, opinion surveys and more. It will also ask members to put the HFC badge on their websites and social media channels.