Angus DNA Test Results
Tiffany Craig
WKRG Channel 5
Nov 29, 2006 printer friendly format
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The age old question "Where's the Beef? Is taking on new life with a new word? "Where's the Angus?
News Five DNA tested Angus beef from eight different businesses and sent them to a private D-N-A testing lab in Metairie, Louisiana. It's called Eurofins Genescan. Steven Adamson is the lab manager.
"What we found was that of those eight samples only three of them were truly Aberdeen Angus beef." Outside the lab, Aberdeen Angus is commonly referred to as black Angus or just Angus beef. However, as you are about to learn, what qualifies as Angus beef isn't so simple. Let's start with where we tested.
We made a drive-thru stop to buy an Angus burger at a Hardee's restaurant in Mobile and an Angus sandwich at a Quizno's in Robertsdale.
News 5 bought what was advertised as Angus steak at Bilotti's Italian Caf? in Mobile and a steak at a Bruno's grocery store in Mobile. We also purchased an Angus filet at Moore Bros. Village Market in Magnolia Springs and an Angus steak burger at McGuire's Irish Pub in Pensacola. We forked over cash for an Angus steak at Four Winds Fine Food Market in Pensacola and made one more Angus stop at Backyard Burger in Mobile.
We packaged up all of our samples and shipped them to Eurofins Genescan in Louisiana.
The three samples that are 100% D-N-A tested Angus are Four Winds in Pensacola, Bruno's in Mobile and Moore Bros. in Magnolia Springs! Moore Bros. Owner Charlie Houser was thrilled we decided to test for Angus! "I think it's great. I really do. I'm really glad to know that you did that because as you've already found a lot of people advertise Angus product. They may sell Angus product but they don't sell 100% Angus product."
Five of our eight samples did not D-N-A test as 100% Angus. They are Hardee's, Quizno's, McGuire's Irish Pub, Backyard Burger and Bilotti's Italian Caf?. Our Bilotti's ribeye steak that was listed on the menu as Angus had no Angus in it at all according to our D-N-A test. Manager Wes Ehlert agreed to talk to News 5. "We had pulled all the advertisements off the tables." Ehlert showed us all the signs they pulled down and says it was just getting too expensive to sell. The only problem is that they didn't take the word Angus off the menu! "We try to be as honest up front and open with customers. It was an oversight on our part and we apologize. We weren't trying to deceive anyone." Bilotti's quickly printed new menus and promised to fix the problem.
The rest of the samples we tested contained a percentage Angus but also had other types of beef mixed in. It's a little like the wild west with Angus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn't have a formal standard for determining angus beef. Instead, they enforce a beef industry definition that goes by either genetics or physical angus-influenced characteristics. In other words, if it looks like Angus!
Chris Kerth is a Meat Scientist at Auburn University. "I think as with anything whenever a claim is made as to a quality or what's put on the label, it should stand up to a given amount of scrutiny. If it can't do that, then the system needs some tweaking to make sure it can. If you're claiming that it's 100 %, are you sure that you can back that up? So that certainly raises a yellow flag that maybe we ought to look at that a little bit closer to make sure that there actually doing what they say."
So we did question Hardee's. Their Thickburger is advertised as 100% Angus but D-N-A tests show it's 70% Angus and 30% non-Angus. A spokesperson for the chain said in a statement that "our thickburgers are made with 100% Angus beef." but when asked about advertising to consumers who don't know the USDA rules, the response was... "We are not interested in commenting specifically on USDA standards, other than to say we follow them."
Quizno's Angus steak sandwich D-N-A tested at 50% Angus and 50% non-Angus. The corporate Quizno's statement was that.. "no where in our restaurants or on our menus or sales posters do we state 100 percent angus beef" but when News 5 bought the sandwich, it was advertised as 100%. We went back again to check and they had taken down the sign! The Quizno's statement goes on to say that "our products under USDA guidelines most definitely meet all the criteria required to be labeled Angus beef."
Backyard Burger also advertises as 100% Angus but D-N-A tested as 75% Angus and 25 % non-Angus. Their Chief Operating Officer Joe Weiss said in a statement about our D-N-A results that... "it is not uncommon for test results to vary because once a patty is cooked, the dna may be broken down." We checked with our D-N-A lab and they confirm that cooking does not change the meat identifying D-N-A.
A later statement said that "the patties are made with 100 percent black angus raw materials." Then, we were referred to their supplier called Cargill Foodservice Meat Solutions. Their explanation is that.. "the angus influence alone would not deliver great beef... and that... "it's the combination of specifications that make a brand click"
McGuire's steak burger D-N-A tested as 90% Angus and 10% non-Angus. McGuire's did not claim to sell 100% just Certified Angus Beef. We were sent to their supplier who referred us to the Certified Angus Beef Company. A spokesperson for the brand says... "the certified angus beef brand does not claim to be 100 percent angus beef" and that "the angus breed is a good place to start when selecting quality beef, but it's the beef quality standards that ensure a delicious product."
Meat expert Chris Kerth was not surprised by what we found. "One of the problems is a certain amount of inconsistency and that's just the nature of the beast so to speak."
So the next time you ask the question, "Where's the Beef?" If you're looking for Angus, it's not that cut and dry!
Technically, by USDA standards, all of the places that D-N-A tested with some percentage of Angus can call their product Angus beef. Now, as a consumer you know that when it says 100%, it's not always how you and I translate that.
Here's our proof.??See the DNA Reports (pdf 157KB)
