Editor's Desk: A Real "Hands On" Experience

by Bob Strong, Editor

The check-off funded Oklahoma Beef Quality Summit was held in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on February 5-7. (See article on page 30.) The time I spent attending was well worth it -- it was a good learning experience.

The course started with a session on judging live cattle and predicting how they would grade and yield.

Next, the group was divided into teams and had to pick a steer from a photograph of steers, which had been slaughtered and was hanging in the cooler.

The team then had to break down the carcass into individual subprimals, trimmings, bone and fat.

It had been a long time since I had hands on experience with a beef carcass. I truly had forgotten how much fat there is on an animal.

This particular steer had a live weight of 1120, dressed at 66.3 percent, had an adjusted back fat of 0.6, a rib-eye area of 13.0; carcass weight of 713, yield grade 3.2, slight degree of marbling with a final quality grade of select.

The live value of the steer was $860.00; grid value $876.89; fabricated value of $883.80; live/fat - profit/loss value of $44.86 and a grid/fab - profit/loss value of $6.81.

The price allowed for the live value was $80.00 cwt. The packer calculated grid value at $78.30 and the packer calculated a breakeven at $74.54. Live/fat - profit/loss was ($7.34); so by calculations the packer lost money on this carcass.

Why? Because I trimmed off too much fat, especially when the industry standard is 1/4" final fat cover. The average fat trimmed from the carcasses was 18.25 percent. For this carcass it was 24.76 percent.

The average percent of bone was 18.15 percent for the group and 18.18 percent for this steer - this was okay.

The average percent of red meat yield was 63.66 percent for the group, but only 57.06 percent for this steer. He had 6.6 percent less red meat yield or 44.8 pounds less of saleable product.

Although we tend to think the packer is trimming off fat at the cost of the producer, at a recovery price of $0.16 on the fat and a live price of $80.00 cwt. - how much to trim is a control factor in showing a profit.

In my case, it wasn't a matter of seeing how much fat could be trimmed, but trimming what I thought should be trimmed. The amount of fat on a carcass is a product of several factors, basically it is genetics and feeding end-point. Having to trim .6" of fat down to .25" can be very expensive for both the producer and packer.

In both cases progress is taking place. The sheer amount of excess fat is a waste that needs to be controlled. It is a waste of raw material, feed stuff, time, labor, shipping costs and the finished product.

A healthy fat animal has excess fat on it - but where and how much is the question.

This month's cover is a collage of photographs taken at the Oklahoma Beef Quality Summit.