There are a multitude of pre-harvest management practices that can influence beef quality, but with wide variations in production systems and genetics, the beef industry still struggles with a carcass supply that has a wide degree of disparity.
The National Beef Quality Audits have provided a snapshot over the last two decades of the status of the nation’s beef supply. According to the research results, there are four primary areas where carcasses are missing market targets. These “non-conformers” result in millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Weight: Carcasses that are too heavy mean that cuts are too large for certain applications.
Composition: Yield Grade 4 and 5 carcasses that require too much trim and have excess seam fat.
Color: Dark cutters or carcasses with less than desirable muscle color.
Quality: Carcasses that fall into lower grades.
In 2005, the National Beef Quality Audit found that 5.4 percent of the carcasses evaluated were USDA Standard or lower in quality grade, over 14 percent were Yield Grade 4 or 5, almost 2 percent were considered dark cutters, and 5 percent were too heavy.
In fact, according to data presented at the checkoff-funded Non-Conforming Beef Research Summit in June 2007, all four of the National Beef Quality Audits listed excess external fat, inadequate tenderness, insufficient marbling and excess carcass and cut weights as among the top-10 quality challenges identified.
Carcass size can be a challenge as producers are typically rewarded on weight, so there is an incentive to get cattle too heavy.
“Right now the average is about 782 pounds, or 843 for just steer carcasses, and it is going up every year with no end in sight,” says Bucky Gwartney, executive director, product enhancement research for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “The primary problem with heavyweight carcasses is large ribeyes and getting the proper portion control. This is mentioned a lot by foodservice operators.”
Some cuts actually benefit from larger than average carcass size, according to Daryl Tatum, professor of animal science at Colorado State University. “During the Non-Conforming Beef Research Summit, it became evident from the discussion that size is really only a problem for the ribeye, strip loin and T-bone. The end-users that cut portion-sized steaks indicated that larger cattle actually produced tenderloins that were more desirable in size. The beef value cuts, such as the Flat Iron, are also more desirable in terms of size when they are sourced from heavier carcasses.”
How to maximize the value of the cuts that are negatively affected by larger than average carcass size has been the focus of research conducted by several CSU researchers. “We determined, through our work, that once you have a carcass with a larger than 15-inch-square ribeye, you need to look at different ways to fabricate cuts from the rib and loin, but not necessarily devalue the entire carcass,” says Keith Belk, also with CSU. “We have been working on developing new cutting styles for the rib and loin for oversize carcasses, with primarily a foodservice application.” The CSU researchers collaborated with chefs and culinary experts from the Art Institute of Colorado to develop new fabrication methods for several of the oversize cuts.
To support much of this work, Belk and his team undertook a comprehensive study that involved 300 beef carcasses and attempted to more accurately assess value determination and add value to non-conforming carcasses. “There are more than 20,000 ways to fabricate a carcass,” Belk says. The research, which also included testing of instrument systems to better predict carcass yield, has the potential to allow a beef processor to determine the best way to fabricate a carcass to maximize yield and value, based on specific characteristics.
“There can be up to $115 lost per head because carcasses are not fabricated to their best potential,” Belk says. “Even if we recovered half of that by using specific cutting parameters, it would be a huge benefit.”
One of the offshoots of that work has the potential to help export marketing opportunities for U.S. beef in Japan. “When only a fraction of all beef cattle are eligible for use in export products to a key market like Japan, we need to utilize as much of the beef as possible for products that will appeal to a customer base that is very precise and demanding,” said Philip Seng, president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, in a statement. “Age-verified cattle come at a premium price, and the key for U.S. beef processors is to recover the cost of these cattle by selling more cuts and a higher percentage of the carcass.”
Private industry efforts have also been addressing carcass size and its effect on customer satisfaction with beef. “It became obvious to us approximately five years ago that we weren’t going to change the cattle pricing system to discourage overweight carcasses,” says Mark Polzer, vice president of business development for Certified Angus Beef. “We needed to figure out how to make what we had work for our end-users.”
Between rising wholesale beef prices and larger carcass weights, Polzer says foodservice operators were in a dilemma. “We were getting feedback from chefs that they couldn’t afford to serve a 14-ounce ribeye and had to cut back to a 12-ounce portion, or increase their menu prices,” he says. “At the same time, in order to achieve the desired portion size, restaurants were having to cut steaks thinner and thinner because the diameter of the ribeye was getting bigger.”
Based on those concerns, CAB undertook an effort to offer new merchandising ideas for three high-end subprimals — the ribeye, top sirloin and strip loin. One of the recommendations included removing the spinalis muscle from the ribeye to reduce portion size and allow chefs to serve a thicker, more desirable steak.
The need to find better ways to utilize heavyweight carcasses will not go away anytime soon, as market signals continue to reward weight. That emphasis on growth not only affects overall carcass size but is also influencing yield and quality grades. In his presentation during the Non-Conforming Beef Research Summit, Tatum said, “In today’s beef marketing system, weight trumps grade performance, especially when the Choice/Select spread is under $10 per hundredweight. Even with a $20-per-hundredweight spread between Choice and Select, weight is still more important than quality grade in determining carcass value.”
According to Tatum, carcass weights have continued to increase for the last 20 years. That trend is also reflected in genetic predictors for growth. Selection emphasis for growth has come, however, at the expense of marbling. To compensate and meet the growing consumer demand for products that meet the upper two-thirds Choice and Prime grades, cattle feeders are feeding cattle to heavier weights and higher yield-grade endpoints.
Tatum says that pricing grids often favor Choice Yield Grade 4 carcasses over Select Yield Grade 2 when the Choice/Select spread is high.
“The current pricing signal does not effectively discourage production of non-conforming cattle and carcasses,” Tatum adds. “We are experiencing heavier carcasses, more Yield Grade 4s than in the past, and a decrease in the percentage of carcasses grading Choice. The current pricing system probably encourages production of more, rather than less, non-conforming beef.”
Since only specific cuts seem to be negatively impacted by overweight carcasses from a portion-size standpoint, Tatum says that the ultimate solution is not to completely discourage production of larger cattle but to use price signals to keep the mix in check. “In other words, we can’t have them all big, and we need to do a better job of utilizing rib and loin cuts from heavy carcasses.”
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