Keeping Score

by Dr. Brad Morgan, Oklahoma State University

The U.S. Beef Industry has certainly exhibited some wonderful success stories during the past few years. Demand for beef is very strong and according to most noted economists this is a reflection of a positive U.S. economy. Certainly, demand is not a new concept. However, it is perhaps the most abused and misunderstood concept in the beef business. Demand is often mistakenly translated into simply per capita consumption, or price, or whether I make a profit. In fact, demand is a complex interaction between what is offered in the marketplace and the price consumers are willing to pay. Most introductory economic textbooks define demand as, "The quantity of a good that people are willing and able to purchase at any market price given the prices and choices of alternative products available to them."Quality inputs such as food safety, product consistency, health/nutrition as well as development of consumer friendly/value-added products have been earmarked as "demand-drivers" for the beef industry.

• 86.3% of steers/heifers are appropriately branded or not hot iron branded. All participants of the NBQA agreed that all side brands needed to be eliminated from current management systems. It should be mentioned that the entire U.S. beef industry chain must continue to develop and implement a voluntary, industry-driven, standardized electronic individual animal identification system that is tied to a seamless system of transmitting information up and down the production, processing and distribution chain.
• 96.2% of steers/heifers are free of excess mud. Cattle should not display excessive amounts of mud located on their legs, belly and sides. This creates a potential contamination situation during the harvesting process.
• 77.3% of steers/heifers are polled or dehorned. A potential research goal outlined by the NBQA participants was to investigate the levels of stress caused by dehorning at various life-stages versus the improvement in bruise prevention that results from dehorning.
• 88.4% of steer/heifer carcasses are free of major and critical bruises. The incidence of carcass bruising has decreased as a result of industry wide educational programs as well as packer identification of select supplier cooperators.
• 93.5% of steer/heifer carcasses graded U.S. Select or better. One highlight of the most recent NBQA findings was that premium Choice carcasses (i.e., Average and High Choice carcasses) were 17.3% of the population, which was an increase from the 11.1% observed in 1995 NBQA.
• 88.3% of steer/heifer carcasses had Yield Grades of 3 or better. In fact 1/4-inch trim beef is now considered the industry standard. A target Yield Grade of 2.5 would better serve the entirety of the beef industry. This goal would produce 25% YG 1s, 50% YG 2s and 25% YG 3s. This target would meet production goals of both cow/calf producers as well as beef processors.
• 97.5% of top sirloin butts are free of injection-site lesions (up from a low of 78.7%). Injection-site lesions have caused enormous economic loss to the U.S. beef industry. Through the efforts of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the 47 state beef quality assurance programs, an industry-wide savings of approximately $76,000,000 will be generated based on the projected 30.3 million steers and heifers harvested in 2000.
• 85% of fed cattle are harvested in plants that are using multiple-hurdle decontamination systems. These systems include hurdles (i.e., microbial interventions) such as hot water and acid carcass washes, steam vacuums and pasteurization cabinets along with continuing employee food safety education programs.

People ask why do we continue to conduct these NBQA surveys. My reply is very simple, "Keeping score makes it possible to give an accurate, concise run down of the game's events. And a scorecard preserves every piece of that story in intriguingly mathematical detail." As previously mentioned, the U.S. beef industry has hit some home runs, just look at the scorecard.