Singin’ for CAB

July 2011

The CAB Cook-Off Contest – youth sing, perform, and cook—all in the name of the Certified Angus Beef® brand.

Every summer I look forward to the National Jr. Angus Show as an opportunity to exhibit my cattle, meet new friends, and learn about the industry. This year my family traveled to Harrisburg, Penn. with our Angus heifers. In addition to the cattle show, the week is full of educational contests designed to empower youth by developing leadership and communication skills.

As a junior member, the CAB Cook-Off Contest is one of my favorites because of its emphasis on creativity. Gunsmoke, 101 Dalmatians, and Popeye have all been themes used by my team throughout the years to promote CAB. I credit this contest for cultivating my knowledge of CAB and developing an ability to share these facts with others.

The CAB Cook-Off Contest allows young Angus producers the opportunity to learn about and promote our end product in an educational, creative,and fun way.

Don’t be fooled by the title; this contest is more than grilling the perfect steak. Contestants participate in teams and must prepare a unique recipe using a CAB product, perform a skit promoting CAB, and then serve their dish to the judges. During the taste test, judges can ask questions about dish preparation and CAB facts.

It is difficult to communicate the CAB brand’s specifications and to explain the advantage of these qualifications. Addressing this issue of communication, the cook-off serves the dual purpose of empowering youth to promote CAB while educating audience members on the brand’s advantages and availability. Cook-off contestants rise to the challenge while weaving in humor and creativity.

Meghan Blythe was raised Angus. She grew up on an Angus cattle ranch and has been involved with her family’s cow/calf operation ever since. Meghan is currently a junior at Kansas State University majoring in agriculture economics. While going to school in Manhattan, she works part time as CAB’s data management assistant.

BIG, BAM boost beef demand

Checkoff-funded program finds alternatives to thin steaks from larger carcasses

by Wyatt Bechtel

July 2011

A dry, flavorless and thinly cut steak can be enough to sour anyone’s taste for beef.

“There is no doubt that cattle are getting bigger, and that will continue,” says Terry Houser, Kansas State University meat scientist. “I don’t think we are going to produce smaller rib-eyed cattle anytime soon or start selecting cattle for that trait.”

Still, demand for beef looks bright, thanks to new cutting methods developed to tackle the issue of increasing carcass size and its effect on the eating experience.

Some of these methods have been brought to market by the Beef Checkoff’s Retail Marketing Team and its Beef Alternative Merchandising (BAM) program.

BAM came about through “listening to what consumers want,” says Trevor Amen, channel marketing manager for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), contractor for the Beef Checkoff. “Through the years, the Retail Marketing Team’s cutting tests and focus groups put the product in front of consumers to really see how they interact and what their purchase interest would be.”

According to Kari Underly, author of “The Art of Beef Cutting,” who worked with the team, consumers appreciate cooking tips and detailed recipes. They also prefer smaller cuts with less trim. “The right-size portion for many of them seems to be a 4-ounce (oz.) portion,” she says.

That might seem discouraging, considering the impetus was how to deal with larger carcass size, but it actually opens more doors in beef marketing, Underly says.

In research, new cuts were taken from the ribeye, strip and top butt of typical 700- to 800-pound (lb.) carcasses as well as those pushing the limits at 1,000 to 1,100 lb.

“We wanted to make sure BAM would work well financially on both sizes,” Underly explains. It did, and served to create a wider range of choices for consumers. “It’s an add-on to what retailers were already featuring.”

A top cut

The research dovetailed with efforts of the Beef Checkoff-funded Beef Innovations Group (BIG). Prior to the concept of alternative cutting techniques, retailers had trouble marketing quality cuts from the top butt; now the trouble is simply keeping enough of it in the meat case.

“The top sirloin butt has certainly been a victory for us,” says Mark Gwin, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) research and development manager.

Also a member of BIG, Gwin says retail and consumer buy-in has been strongest for the alternative offerings from this wholesale cut, among all the middle meats.

Three retail cuts were developed through BIG: baseball steaks, culotte steaks and the filet of sirloin. “Any trimmed pieces can be used as medallions or fajita meat,” Gwin adds.

Top sirloins used to be cut exclusively into large steaks with no focus on the multiple muscle complexes within, creating tougher areas within the cut when cooked, he says. The new cuts are thicker and pinpoint where the muscle grain changes.

“We are giving people the means to cut these muscles into thicker steaks to give them a more succulent experience,” Gwin says.

Revise the ribeye

“With the ribeye, we’re removing that cap muscle, the spinalis dorsi,” says Mark Polzer, CAB vice president of business development. “That lets you deal with a much smaller diameter product and you can cut it easier.”

The reduction provides advantages on the plate. It will allow restaurants to market ribeyes at 8 to 10 oz. rather than 12 oz. and will bring the thickness back to a range of 1 to 1.5 inches, he says.

Previous industry trends were to maintain the entire ribeye with the cap muscle intact. But that made for an increasingly larger surface area, and half the thickness of the new cuts.

“We’ve cut ribeye steaks from the center eye muscle to increase the thickness of the steak. That provides a higher quality eating experience with more tenderness, juiciness and flavor,” Polzer says.

In cooking, a thin steak has less water retention capability than the thick cut, Houser says.

“A thicker steak will retain juiciness better and it won’t be over cooked as easily,” he notes. “Obviously the product quality is going to be better than on a thin-cut item.”

Splitting the strip

Strip steaks got an overhaul, too, but it was a simple solution.

“All we do is take the strip loin and literally cut it lengthwise in half,” Polzer says. “What you end up with would be two filet-size pieces that then are cut into filet of strip loins.”

Much like the reduced ribeye, the strip loin filet makes for smaller portion size while gaining thickness. Popular Certified Angus Beef^® brand options include medallions from the chateau for two and the split strip.

Polzer says many of the filet cuts are already being created before they reach retail, so they can be given a more attractive cylinder shape by tying or netting.

At first, consumers wondered how to cook the small-but-thick cuts, Underly says: “A lot of them tended to burn the outside, and the inside was not cooked properly either.” NCBA and the Beef Checkoff found an answer by helping retailers teach consumers a skillet-to-oven process.

“You brown the filets on the outside and then stick the pan into the oven where they can finish nice and slow for the right doneness,” she says. “We also created some grill methods such as for the petite roast.”

Consumer preference

Despite a few years in a tough economy, beef purchasing has remained steady.

“We know Americans love to eat beef and they are finding ways to continue to eat beef,” Amen says.

The new cuts do their part to help keep costs down. They can be marketed in smaller package sizes, so more consumers can buy beef.

Partly because the new cuts avoid some seam fat, several have been endorsed with the American Heart Association’s heart-check mark. “That’s basically communicating to consumers that eating beef can be healthy for you,” Amen says.

While the BIG and BAM approaches are helping boost beef consumption by marketing new cuts, “demand response will drive how we further innovate the program,” he adds. “We’ll keep working to meet the needs of consumers by providing options and high-quality beef products.”

More information on BAM is available at www.beefretail.org/beefalternativemerchandising.aspx; for BIG details, visit www.beefinnovationsgroup.com; and the CAB consumer website is at www.certifiedangusbeef.com.

Meeting Demand with Better Beef in 2021

by Kylee Kohls Sellnow | Nov 4, 2021

More than forty years after selling the first pound of branded beef on October 18, 1978, Certified Angus Beef continues to deliver for consumers and producers. The brand closed fiscal year 2021 with a few new records and another billion on the books.

Certified Angus Beef Offers Summer Internships

by CAB Cattle Crew | Oct 22, 2021

CAB is accepting applications for three communications internship positions for Summer 2022. Effective communication is the foundation for success in any career, and CAB interns get real-world experiences with audiences across the beef supply chain.

Change is a good thing

by Kylee Kohls Sellnow | Sep 30, 2021

From the moment his boots hit the dirt on the way to the barn, to switching off the lights and locking the door of the Hickory House Restaurant, Jonathan Perry is committed to the beef business. The 2021 CAB Chairman brings a unique perspective to the table. By day, he’s a cattleman. By night, he’s a meat cutter.

« Older Entries

Next Entries »

And the winners are…

February 10, 2011

… drumroll, please!

The winners of five new steak knife sets and one new charcoal grill are…

… I can’t tell you! Dang!

Sorry for the suspense, folks. But our lucky NCBA grill give-a-way winners have been notified by e-mail and we will know their identities soon. I figured they wouldn’t enjoy having their addresses plastered online, so if you subscribed to this blog between Feb. 1-6, THANK YOU, and watch your e-mail for a prize notification!

In the meantime, I wanted to re-cap a few of my favorite highlights from last week’s Cattlemen’s College at the National Cattle Industry Convention. My favorite session was bright and early Wednesday, called “Managing for Quality: A supply chain approach.” Continue reading “And the winners are…”

Keys may unlock cellular doors to marbling mysteries

By Miranda Reiman

October 9, 2009

Knowing more about marbling helps cattlemen produce the best beef. All four National Beef Quality Audits (NBQA) said consumers want more of it, yet many producers manage so as to inhibit rather than enhance marbling.

Scientists offered new insights at the Reciprocal Meats Conference this summer.

“Three major things affect the beef eating experience: flavor, juiciness and tenderness,” Brad Johnson, of Texas Tech University said. “In some direct or indirect way, marbling affects all three of those.”

Johnson, the university’s Gordon W. Davis Regent’s Chair in Meat and Muscle Biology, said marbling is a key to feedlot profits, too. Although the USDA Choice premium over Select fell off in the last year, he said beef industry sustainability hinges on its ability to produce more marbling with fewer inputs and lower carcass weights.

Matt Doumit, meat scientist at the University of Idaho, and Jean-Francois Hocquette, director of the National Institute of Agronomic Research at the Herbivore Research Institute in France, also shared research.

Doumit referenced the 2005 NBQA in noting too little marbling and too much back fat costs the beef industry more than $1.3 billion a year in lost profit.

Getting down to the test-tube level, Johnson and his team isolated bovine muscle cells and then used different steroids, fatty acids and other compounds to manipulate the individual cells. In the beginning these cells are all the same, he said, but then they differentiate into muscle or adipocytes – fat cells.

“The hallmark of an adipocyte is its ability to fill with lipids—triglycerides—as a storage mechanism,” Johnson explained. “We’ve seen that some of these compounds may be having profound effects, from a gene expression standpoint, at pushing cells to become adipocytes.”

That’s not an easy task, he added: “Working with muscle cells, I truly believe we have to go out of our way to make them become something else. A muscle cell wants to be a muscle cell.”

The use of growth implants directs a cell to become muscle and therefore decreases marbling, Johnson said. On the other hand, feeding melengestrol acetate (MGA) actually improved marbling, but also increased back fat.

Three compounds assist in marbling activation and alter the key genes when cells are being allocated as either muscle or fat.

“We were able to get multi-nucleated cells,” Johnson said, “which makes you believe they still have muscle characteristics, but also some mono-nucleated cells that could fill with lipids.”

Doumit’s team is looking at ways to increase both number and size of fat cells, to affect marbling independent of back fat.

“There’s some evidence that fat cells are not just fat cells and preadipocytes are not just preadipocytes,” Doumit said. “They respond to things in a different manner.”

Ibuprofen is just one example of a compound that has been shown to increase intramuscular fat formation.

“It’s probably not ibuprofen we’re looking for, but it points to the opportunity to preferentially affect fat depots,” he said. “It’s possible we can find other naturally-occurring compounds that will preferentially stimulate intramuscular fat over subcutaneous fat.”

Hocquette reminded the audience that genetic potential plays a major role in an animal’s ability to marble, but nutrition is a key to that potential.

“The increase in intramuscular fat is higher when animals are in the feedlot finishing system compared to grass finishing,” he said. “This can be explained by the higher level of glucose in the feedlot diet, and more secretion of insulin, which is known to promote adipogenesis.”

That’s good news for all who hope to increase the good fat while holding the waste fat at bay.

“If we understand the biological differences better, there will be opportunities to develop effective strategies to manipulate these different fat depots,” Doumit said. “That will improve the efficiency of livestock production as well as increase the quality of the product.”

One sick calf = less profitable pen

Health costs impact entire feedyard

By Miranda Reiman

January 2009

Low mortality isn’t the only way to measure the success of your health program.

Pfizer veterinarian Robin Falkner told attendees at last fall’s Feeding Quality Forums, held in North Platte, Neb., and Amarillo, Texas, to start thinking about disease management a little differently.

“We want to worry about things that can change and that can matter,” he said.

Consider the steer with a 10% chance of living. A cowboy treats him, sends him to a holding pen and spends extra time with him – only to increase his chance of survival to 14%.

“Your total focus is on saving that one,” Falkner noted. “How much of my time can I burn up on him that I could better invest somewhere else? In this situation, the bunks aren’t cleaned out. The water troughs aren’t getting cleaned. We don’t have that extra five minute in another pen to pull one early.”

A change of mindset would help the bottom line, Falkner said: “We need to move away from asking what can we do to save him to asking what he can kill.”

That’s because the real risk goes beyond wasting time. That one calf is shedding to the rest of the population – after all, he has pathogens that have already beaten the drugs and management at that yard, Falkner said. “That’s why it’s not about saving him. It’s about saving the other calves.”

Rather than managing health on an animal-by-animal basis, feeders need to think of keeping disease under control in groups of cattle and their yard as a whole.

“I’m not a veterinarian who thinks the world revolves around health, but if you intentionally manage pathogens, your world will change,” Falkner said. He referenced Texas Ranch-to-Rail data that shows a sick calf costs $100, and Iowa research illustrates a 10-point drop in Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) acceptance rate for calves treated twice.

“That’s not the whole story, though, because it affected the other calves in the pen,” he said. Sick cattle cause problems with everything from bunk reading to final marketing, but managing health will improve both the efficiency of groups of cattle and the feedyard as a whole.

“Does heath impact any decisions we make about filling pens at any point in time? I think it’s the biggest bottleneck to profitability we’ve got,” Falkner said. “We are scared to buy certain types and classes of cattle because we don’t know if we can handle the health. We’re scared to wreck and overload our labor.”

When those health disasters happen, feeders often put off buying until they have it under control. Some try to change vaccines, nutritionist, veterinarians or even order buyers.

“Switching a good program to one you don’t know is probably not a good deal,” he said.

Instead, Falkner provided some practical prevention recommendations, including not placing your hospital pen next door to receiving.

“You don’t know how many feedyards I’ve been to where the cattle are going to stand right next to a pen of chronics, overnight, before they’re processed in the morning,” he said. Following up with ironic humor, he asked, “Are you just trying to inoculate them early so we can go ahead and get over it? We make sure we give our brand new, naïve, stressed-out cattle good, early access to the worst bugs we’ve collected in the past six months, year or 10 years.”

He also suggests keeping cattle out of that treatment pen if at all possible.

“A low flow of cattle into the hospital works well, because that flushes the bugs out regularly and they don’t accumulate as much,” he said.

Cattle that have been in the yard for 10 to 35 days are the “most dangerous,” Falkner said. “The bugs have all gone through them and they’re shedding a whole lot.”

Sometimes sickness doesn’t show itself in one group of cattle until you mix them with another after they’ve had a couple of weeks to get settled in the yard.

“You create the perfect storm and you blow them completely up,” he said. “This disease is going on in one group and by itself it’s not any more than a runny nose, but you put it on top of another disease that’s going through the other group and it’s really bad.”

Taking a careful look at every aspect of bio-containment could help prevent “real wrecks,” Falkner said. “You’re going to get the bad bugs. You’re going to select for them when you use those drugs, but you don’t have to accumulate them and you don’t have to inoculate them.”

The meetings were cosponsored by Pfizer Animal Health, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), Feedlot magazine and Land O’ Lakes Purina Feed.

Tag: event coverage

Singin’ for CAB

You may also like

Dreamers and doers

Smiles, success

Bigwigs in barbecue

BIG, BAM boost beef demand

Checkoff-funded program finds alternatives to thin steaks from larger carcasses

by Wyatt Bechtel

You may also like

Meeting Demand with Better Beef in 2021

Certified Angus Beef Offers Summer Internships

Change is a good thing

And the winners are…

Keys may unlock cellular doors to marbling mysteries

By Miranda Reiman

You may also like

On Target: The growing requirements

On Target: Why ‘veggie meat’ won’t replace beef

In disguise

One sick calf = less profitable pen

Health costs impact entire feedyard

By Miranda Reiman

You may also like

Registration opens for Feeding Quality Forum webinar

Cultivated curiosity

$92 million reasons to aim high