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Part butcher, part researcher, part consumer relations: All in for beef

Bridget Wasser never carries her luggage on a plane. It’s not the amount that the meat scientist packs so much as the contents.

Taiwan photo 5She really hates sending her full set of knives into the land of checked baggage, hoping she’ll see them when she reaches her destination.

“I am very attached to my knives. I take good care of them and keep them sharpened,” says Bridget, executive director of meat science at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor of the beef checkoff. “They’re like an appendage and it’s really tough when you don’t have them.”

One of her favorite parts of the job, Bridget does more than 40 cutting demonstrations a year. She’ll present about innovative cuts to a group of regional meat cutters one day and will talk about USDA quality grades to international trade partners the next.

“Travel is where you see your work come to life. It’s a very rewarding part of my job,” she says.

Bridget coordinates ahead of time, learning about her audience and making certain she has all the right tools (including a table, cutting boards and, of course, the beef). But even the best laid plans sometimes go astray.

“I remember one time when my bags didn’t arrive….” Bridget says, but having to address the crowd in her jeans and sweatshirt was the least of her worries. “I was at a hotel, so I asked the kitchen for a knife, and of course I got the dullest knife possible.”

Days in the office take on a decidedly different tone. She might be on the phone with meat researchers, talking about their latest ideas for tenderness or beef flavor studies. Perhaps she’s checking in on the budgets and progress of such projects already in the works, or she’s figuring out ways to get the latest information out to cattlemen, so all that meat science “doesn’t just sit on a shelf.”

Bridget BDC photo 3We’re trying to improve the quality of beef and the overall quality of the eating experience to our customers,” Bridget says. As a graduate student at Texas A&M University, she worked on projects funded by the checkoff. Nine years since coming to the other side of the process, she still appreciates the chance to be a research enabler.

She knows it’s making a difference for cattlemen and beef eaters across the U.S. (Read: more happy customers=more demand… and more demand=more money in your pocket.)

And almost as a testament to work that’s left to do: Bridget fields questions daily. The variety includes those that come in from consumer-facing websites to meat processors asking about specifications.

When someone asks about beef quality or the variability of beef, Bridget starts to think about answers the industry has yet to uncover.

Lucky for all of you who prefer checking cows to checking in on Warner-Bratzler shear force, you can rest easy knowing Bridget is on it.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

Miss the first days of our series? Catch up here:

Also, did you know we’re not blogging alone? Follow this link to Holly Spangler’s My Generation to check out a whole list of other ag bloggers joining us in this month-long adventure: http://farmprogress.com/blogs-30-days-agriculturalists-influence-9112.