National Beef Quality Audit.

[Scotty]

Top ten quality challenges.
1. Insufficient marbling and low quality grades.
2. Lack of uniformaty in cattle.
3. Inadequate tenderness of beef.
4. Yield grades too high.
5. Low cutability.
6. Carcass weights too heavy.
7. Injection site lesions.
8. Inadequate flavor.
9. Inadequate muscle.
10. Excess fat cover.

Interesting to say the least.

 

[Frankie]

Top ten quality challenges.
1. Insufficient marbling and low quality grades.
2. Lack of uniformaty in cattle.
3. Inadequate tenderness of beef.
4. Yield grades too high.
5. Low cutability.
6. Carcass weights too heavy.
7. Injection site lesions.
8. Inadequate flavor.
9. Inadequate muscle.
10. Excess fat cover.

Interesting to say the least.

Yes, very interesting. Is it online somewhere?

 

[Scotty]

http://www.bifconference.com/bif2006/pdfs/Morgan.pdf

 

[MikeC]

Those responses were based on questionaires given to people in 4 sectors in the beef industry.

Are we preaching to the choir?

 

[J+ Cattle]

OK, so they have a top 10 list of things that need to be improved, they are probably the same 10 items that have been on the list for the last 10-15 years.

What suggestions are being made to producers to correct these items? For example, #6 "Carcass weights to heavy", are the packers giving recommendations to producers to let them know what breeds, crosses, etc. that will be to large (or to small) to fit the box?

My feeling is that most of the top 10 could be grouped into the #2 "Lack of uniformity" category. I see this as the greatest challenge to the beef industry and where we fall far behind the pork and poultry industries, they have a very consistent product.

The poultry producer raises the type of chickens that Tyson tells them to raise, they don't raise a different breed of chicken just because they like the way they look or their grandfather raised them.

It is very evident by the posts on this board that everyone has a different idea of the best type of cattle and to a certain extent it is this independent thinking that hurts us as an industry. Being from Texas I understand about regional environmental differences but we should try to minimize these differences in our cattle. I am probably as guilty as anyone else in this respect.

What are your thoughts on a published premium/discount pricing structure so that producers can see the $$ impact on their businesses because of the breeding decisions they make? Or should the packers make the breeding decisions for the producers and let us do what we are good at, raising cattle.

How do we solve these problems?

J+

 

[Hippie Rancher]

cattle aren't chickens or pigs, they get uniformity because they are being raised in intensive confinement and fed on "uniform feeds" and using single breeds.

Cattle don't do so well in that environment and frankly I would rather see my SE Arisona bred, raised, selected, and adapted for the range cattle continue to exist. I don't think we have to be growers for some giant packer either. Finding local markets for local products at the same time as continuing to improve for the eating customer will work.

Remember the dangers of monocultures.

 

[bward]

fall far behind the pork and poultry industries, they have a very consistent product.

Yes, that is true... consistantly awful. Pork is tough dry and flavourless. Oh how i miss the childhood memory of stepping into the house and smelling a wonderful roast pork. The aroma was heavenly, the meat sweet and soft, the gravy rich and there was enough to make oodles of it even after removing the fat. You can't even make gravy from todays 'pork' I really miss the pork of yester year as its now extinct.

Chicken is in the same boat. If you ever raised your own and roasted some you would not recognise the flavour as even resembling todays modern uniform genetically engineered consistant chicken.

Is beef headed that way? No doubt in my mind that in the future the only beef producers will be buying their seedstock from packers and raising them under strict contract conditions and these animals will be the only ones that will be purchased back by the packers. Once they get complete control, we'll be employees. Well not me... I'll be done by then I hope.

Anyway, the point of my post was to say that I don't think the consumer is demanding uniformity, tough dry pork and flavourless chicken anymore than they prefer a hard flavourless uniform tomato over a garden ripened one. What is good for the packer is generally a bad thing for the consumer.

 

[J+ Cattle]

Chicken is in the same boat. If you ever raised your own and roasted some you would not recognise the flavour as even resembling todays modern uniform genetically engineered consistant chicken.

How do you know that the quality of the beef that you are raising is any better than the uniform genetically engineered chicken, especially after your cattle are implanted with growth hormones and fed antibiotics.

J+

 

[J+ Cattle]

Finding local markets for local products at the same time as continuing to improve for the eating customer will work.

Remember the dangers of monocultures.

I don't think finding niche markets is the answer for the cattle industry, it may work for some smaller localized areas, but if the major buyers cannot find the uniform product they want in sufficient quantities here they will be able to get it from Argentina and Brazil. If you think the global economy does not apply to the beef industry then you are sadly mistaken.

J+

 

[bward]

How do you know that the quality of the beef that you are raising is any better than the uniform genetically engineered chicken, especially after your cattle are implanted with growth hormones and fed antibiotics.

Well for one thing, I don't use fed antibiotics or hormones in my feeders although I don't notice that much difference between the two while eating it.

I know the quality is better because of sensory evaluations, the aroma, the flavour, the soft chewability, the gravy-ability, all combining into a euphoric yum-ability.
The National audit has chosen things which benefit packers, but things I have selected are really what consumers want. Delicious meat.

 

[J+ Cattle]

[/quote]
I know the quality is better because of sensory evaluations, the aroma, the flavour, the soft chewability, the gravy-ability, all combining into a euphoric yum-ability.
The National audit has chosen things which benefit packers, but things I have selected are really what consumers want. Delicious meat.[/quote]

I can certainly appreciate the yum-ability factor of a tender, juicy steak and as a consumer it is very important to me, but unless you direct market all of your beef then the feedlots and packer are also your customer. Do you take their wants, needs, desires into consideration for any of your breeding decisions?

J+