The multitude of issues influencing economic viability of the food and agricultural industries further complicates the long-standing challenge of making sound decisions regarding industry-wide investments. Industry leaders need effective ways to prioritize candidate investment opportunities. This paper outlines a new approach recently applied to the case of U.S. beef demand investment assessment. This new approach may offer value in other settings as a conceptually appealing and relatively easy to implement method for obtaining critical insights from industry experts in a forward-looking manner that reflects on multiple dimensions of candidate investments.