Finding flavor, incentivizing more

Scientists weigh in on “the next frontier” for beef quality research

Story and photos by Miranda Reiman

Life is not always heads or tails, black and white or pass-fail.

When it comes to beef, certain traits, like tenderness, are easier to quantify than others.

“Beef flavor is very complex. It’s not one attribute, but many, many flavor notes,” said Bridget Wasser, executive director of meat science for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA). “There are a lot of things that can go right and there are a lot of things that can potentially go wrong.”

Each consumer views it differently.

“We have to make sure we find a way to give it to everyone, all the time, and so consistency of the product comes into play,” Wasser said, during her Cattlemen’s College presentation earlier this month.

She told 2017 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show attendees the beef community has made marked improvements in tenderness over the past few decades, “so the good news is that it allows us to focus on some of these other eating attributes.”

Phil Bass, meat scientist for the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB ^®) brand, was in the audience and agreed. Projects are starting to encompass some of these harder-to-measure traits.

“We’ve researched tenderness quite extensively and beef flavor is the next frontier, the next area that we really need to focus on,” he said later.

Lipids, carbohydrates and proteins that make up beef have the greatest influence on flavor. Lipids, or fats, are species-specific, differing in both amount and fatty acid composition. That’s why beef doesn’t taste like pork or poultry.

“We’ve always known that fat contains the specific flavor compounds; more of it will express more of those flavors,” Bass said. “The grain-finished, beef-fat flavor is highly desirable to the palate.”

Recent work validates the USDA quality grading system’s ability to predict eating satisfaction, along with the CAB brand’s 10 carcass specifications, Bass said.

“Marbling is something we hang our hat on as a beef industry,” Wasser said, because it gives the protein its “buttery, beef-fat” notes. “That’s a very positive flavor. It’s something consumers respond very positively to and that’s why it has a lot of credence in our quality grading system and the valuation of our beef carcasses.”

A Beef Checkoff project recently added more precision to sensory science, by developing a beef lexicon, or a dictionary of sorts for 38 attributes.

“How can you pick them out if you don’t know what an individual flavor note is?” Wasser asked.

Researchers train panels using this common terminology, and use participants as instruments in both discrimination and descriptive research.

Scientists get better results by either increasing the numbers in a sample size or limiting the variance, Bass said.

“When you have a trained sensory panel, you don’t need as many,” he said. “The better you can control the variation, panelist to panelist, the better you’ll be able to find the differences.”

Oftentimes, training for beef-fat flavor involves sampling a Prime strip steak versus a standard or very low Select option.

“It’s very important to have these folks calibrated,” Bass said.

Trained panels will detect flavors and note intensity, but larger consumer panels will determine its acceptability level.

“It’s not until you put it into the mouth of the consumer that you see, is this economically viable? Is this applicable to the end-user?” Bass said. “Time and time again, consumer research looking at beef marbling shows more marbling is better. It gives better flavor. It contributes to tenderness. It maintains juiciness.”

That’s why it’s getting the attention of the entire beef community.

“Consumers of your product have very high expectations,” Wasser told the cattlemen. “That gives us a common goal to work towards.”

Amarillo or bust: Part two

Though educating center-of-the-plate specialists was the No. 1 goal during the International MBA class, we made sure they were well-fed, too. When I wasn’t snapping plate photos for Black Ink’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, I was taking my own to share. (While it felt a little braggy to send them to my husband who was back home eating leftovers and solo parenting in my absence, I knew he’d appreciate the beefy job perks.)

But we knew we were in for an especially big treat when we walked in to Trail Boss Ranch Cooking on Nov. 15. Danielle Matter, the event’s planner, and I arrived early to make sure everything was ready to go while the class finished up touring the packing plant. The first thing we noticed was a centerpiece created just for us by the trail boss himself: Two Certified Angus Beef brand briskets on ice.

“You can’t make good brisket without the Certified Angus Beef brand,” he said.

img_20161115_112046 — After lunch, the trail boss told us, “You look at how moist that was, how flavorful it was — that’s because we use Certified Angus Beef!”

After the class finished their meal (for many, it was their first time to have brisket, a Texas staple), they loaded the bus again for the 100-mile drive to the Bradley 3 Ranch.

Though all of the participants had been excited to set foot on a working ranch (and the excitement only grew as the bus travelled down the final four miles of “caliche road,” the local term for gravel road), few were prepared for what they’d see.

“This place is as big as my country!” one participant exclaimed.

James Henderson, Bradley 3 Ranch, Memphis, Texas, shows his new chute to participants and explains how they work cattle.

After they got over the shock of being told to watch out for rattlesnakes by James Henderson, the class eagerly looked around the sale barn, a new high-tech chute, and a pen of bulls that will be offered in the operation’s February sale. They had many questions, and the majority said it was their favorite stop so far.

As the sun set, the class gathered around James, Mary Lou Bradley-Henderson and Minnie Lou Bradley for a photo op under the ranch gate. They asked about the cattle guard, those funny-looking birds (Sandhill cranes) and cattle rustlers before returning to the barn for a chuck wagon dinner.

Tomorrow they’d be 1,200 miles away in Wooster, Ohio. But, tonight, they had the ranch.

-Katrina

Katrina Huffstutler is a freelance writer based in Electra, Texas. She’s a frequent contributor to the Black Ink team and lover of functional cattle and quality beef.

P.S. Missed part one? Catch up here.

Loud and clear

Beef market demands quality

by Miranda Reiman

The beef market tells you what it wants. You just have to pay attention.

“We know there are signals out there in the marketplace for quality. As you move further away from the end product, we know those signals are…not quite as distinct,” said Mark McCully, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) at the 2016 Angus Convention in Indianapolis in November.

The brand’s vice president of supply made sense of many of those economic indicators.

“We need to make sure we’re watching the long-term trends and don’t get too carried away with some of the short-term ‘noise,’ because the decisions we’re making in our breeding programs are really about the next two, three, five years,” he said.

On a carcass-weight basis, there’s 37% more Prime beef today than just two years ago, compared to Select grade, which is down 21.7%.

“This year we actually see a higher percentage of dollar contribution is coming from branded product than Select,” McCully said, noting that branded beef accounts for 16.3% of total industry revenue (see Figure 1).

“Not all beef is created equal and not all beef brings the same price out in the marketplace,” he said.

Through the third quarter of 2016, carcass cutout values showed a $35-per-hundredweight advantage for Prime over Select.

That reward potential may help explain why 78% of cattle today sell on alternative marketing agreements like value-based grids, compared to just 52% a decade ago.

The bar on such arrangements keeps moving higher. When 76% of fed cattle are grading Choice, beating plant averages is more difficult than it was in 1997 when barely more than half reached that level. Most grids only pay a Choice premium on that share of a load that exceeds the plant average.

“We get this question a lot: ‘Have we gotten them to grade high enough? We’ve selected for quality long enough – maybe we ought to go select for something else,’” McCully said. “If you want to continue to reap the premiums, or if your customers do, you’ve got to be better than the average. That’s how these systems work.”

Producers sometimes tell him they must give up pounds to get quality, but he showed that the average Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand qualifying carcass is 7 lb. heavier than the overall industry average.

“I dispel the myth that high-quality cattle aren’t also high-producing, high-performing, heavy cattle because, again, the data suggests you don’t give up weight for quality,” McCully said.

Showing a grid marketing example with cattle ranging from no Primes and 14% CAB to 15% Prime and 55% CAB. He decreased carcass weight 65 lb. from the poor group to the excellent.

“I know you don’t have to do this, but how much weight could you give up and still keep your dollars the same?”

With those high-grading cattle, the quality premiums would make up for dropping 65 lb. in carcass weight.

The Choice-Select spread runs on a seasonal pattern. There are times when those “excellent” cattle would be more advantageous than others, but McCully noted the long-term signal is clear.

“We hear from time to time when the Choice-Select spread gets to zero, or goes negative. The reality is, that doesn’t happen too often,” he said. That is less than 2% of the time, compared to more than 35% of the time that spread is $10 or above (see Figure 2).

Even while producing much less Select in 2016, packers continue to pay up for Choice.

“The discounts for yield grade (Y)4s and Y5s have narrowed over the last several years, which in-and-of-itself has been a quality signal,” he said.

The more cow-calf producers know and communicate about their cattle, the better position they are in to capture additional value.

“Nobody wants to pay more for cattle just because,” McCully said. “We’re starting to see more value around the data: the carcass history, the reputation, where these cattle came from, what the genetics have been, how they’ve been managed.”

He predicts that will continue to be more important with cow inventory numbers on the upswing.

“Feeder cattle supplies have been pretty tight. All of them have been worth a lot of money,” he said. “What’s going on right now? We’ve got more supplies out there; guess who gets to be a little pickier? The feeder.”

Producers who are investing in high-quality genetics need to do a better job marketing them, McCully said.

“If you’re going to take a set of premium calves and you’re going to run them down to the sale barn and not tell anybody anything about them, guess what? They’re going to probably bring the average price,” he said. “You take a premium product, market it as a commodity, you’re probably going to get a commodity price.”

Amarillo or bust: Part one

Cattle buyers at the Amarillo Livestock Auction on Nov. 14 were in for a surprise when 25 international guests walked in and crowded along the back wall just after noon. The group was hard to miss — they talked excitedly, snapped sale ring selfies and took notes in leather padfolios.

Geof Bedner, CAB international director — Geof Bednar told attendees, “Restaurant customers progressively demand higher quality food and service than before” and explained the many advantages to the brand.

But as quickly as they entered, they were gone again, back on the bus and off to their next stop.

The group was in the Texas Panhandle for the first half of a unique Certified Angus Beef® (CAB) brand experience. The International Masters of Brand Advantages program brought together center-of-the-plate specialists (that’s fancy talk for the folks who sell meat to foodservice and restaurants) representing 12 countries, and they began their quest to learn the pasture-to-plate story right there in the salebarn.

“This program is more than just teaching them about selling the Certified Angus Beef brand,” says Geof Bednar, our director of international. “If you look at our international partners, in many of these countries they are not self-sufficient at producing their own food. They’re very curious about where this food comes from, and they want to build trust in American beef production. That’s why we share the entire story of our industry.”

The first morning kicked off with some cattle industry 101 in a classroom setting, where they covered everything from basic genetics and management to marketing and lifecycle timelines. Then the participants boarded the bus to the auction market and followed by the feedyard.

jessica-lopresto-cab-jerrid-vincent-randall-county-mgr_e — Feedyard Manager Jerrid Vincent answered questions that ranged from how different feedstuff affect flavor to how often they ship cattle.

Most had never been to a feedyard, and certainly not one as large as Friona Industries’ Randall County Feedyard, a 90,000-head yard on the outskirts of Amarillo. They heard from Jay Cortese, cattle procurement manager, and Jerrid Vincent, feedyard manager, as the bus drove around the operation.

jorge-marcos-from-heb-mexico-takes-a-selfie — While all of the participants took selfies at the feedyard, Jorge Marcos’ was no doubt the most acrobatic. Marcos represents HEB Mexico.

They saw the feed mill (a busy place since the yard goes through 3.9 million pounds of feed every day), and several pens up-close. Many stood in line for a photo op with Jay or Jerrid, while others balanced on the edge of the bunks to get selfies with cattle in the background.

Though it was a lot to take in, there was one concept that immediately resonated with the class: The importance of occupancy. While cattle in the pens equals money for feeders, the same goes for guests at the table for the restaurateurs they sell to.

Join us again Friday to hear about the class’ trip to the Bradley 3 Ranch near Memphis, Texas.

-Katrina

Katrina Huffstutler is a freelance writer based in Electra, Texas. She’s a frequent contributor to the Black Ink team and lover of functional cattle and quality beef.

In the shoes of customers, buyers

Seedstock panel addresses ways to capture value of good genetics

by Miranda Reiman

Angus bull buyers paid record-high prices in 2015. The calves from those sires are going to market now, and breeders should be helping their customers get the most out of the investment

That was the message from three panelists at the 2016 Angus Convention in Indianapolis, Ind., Nov. 4-7.

“When I left college in ’77, I swore that some day we would get paid for our genetics,” said Mike Kasten, a commercial cattleman from Millersville, Mo. “I didn’t know it would be the mid-’90s before that actually happened.

Twelve years into his 42-year career, the producer started retaining ownership of his calves through the finishing phase, but the rewards weren’t immediate. As value-based marketing developed, the incentive for breeding and managing cattle for high-quality endpoints became more apparent.

“We still see $500 to $600 difference from the most profitable calf to the least profitable,” said Kasten, who currently runs the Quality Beef by the Numbers program. His goal is to keep learning about the top performers and the bottom end, and replicate the former. “We can create a lot more value and a lot more dollars on the same resources. It won’t cost us a penny more to do that.”

About the time Kasten was looking for a grid, Angus breeder Tim Schiefelbein was developing one as cattle buyer for Monfort Inc. (later Swift, and now JBS).

“They wanted a way to pay more for the good cattle and less for the worse cattle,” he said.

Growing up on his family’s Minnesota Angus operation, Schiefelbein recalled asking his dad why they were collecting carcass data: “Because,” he said, “one day we’re going to get paid for it.”

That original formula was introduced in 1996, just two years after he and brother Don Schiefelbein helped the family establish a customer buy-back program.

“There was no way back to the family farm unless you sold more bulls,” he said. The answer was expanding sales westward. “Try selling bulls out in western South Dakota from Minnesota, and that’s a challenge at 22 years of age,” he said.

Schiefelbein said his older brother had the idea: “What we need to do is help these customers at the thing they hate most.”

Marketing.

That “you buy, we bid” customer service program is still going strong in Kimball, Minn., where the family helps place about 25,000 cattle on feed each year, owning 20% of them.

“We give the data back to the producers,” Schiefelbein said. “We can make improvements, make changes, do all that good stuff and get paid more.”

Bridgewater, Iowa, breeder Dave Nichols has a model that looks a bit different. It goes back to his bank board experience during the 1980s Farm Crisis.

“Families that never missed a loan payment had to file for bankruptcy because they were under water. It was one of the really grim things I did in my lifetime and it left some really deep scars,” he said.

Nichols sold bulls primarily to customers with small herds, and it became apparent he had to do something to help them stay in business.

“I didn’t mind competition with anyone selling bulls, but I couldn’t sell bulls if people didn’t have cows,” Nichols said. “We decided that to keep our customers in business, we had to add value to their feeder calves.”

In 1991, the family held their first genetic source auction where weaned, vaccinated, Nichols-sired calves sold in a special sale.

Although a competing auction market advertised in an effort to shake would-be buyers’ confidence, the Nichols crew visited customers to be sure calves met the protocols and Nichols himself called on the top 50 feedyards in the United States.

“Those cattle brought $10.80 (per hundredweight) more than the market price at the time,” he said.

Having outgrown the one-sale model, Nichols now helps customers by promoting their calves at local auction markets of their choice.

Still, Nichols doesn’t agree with “experts” who advise his customers.

“If you don’t feed out your own calves, then don’t pay any attention to marbling. Don’t pay any attention to carcass, because you’re selling your calves at weaning and you’re not getting paid anything for it,” he’s heard often enough.

“That’s not true,” he countered. “I say to our bull buyers, ‘Everybody feeds them out, and somebody ends up eating them. By golly, everything is worth weight times the money, and so we breed our cattle as if we were going to retain ownership on them and end up eating them.’

“If any of you think you can make this work, and you aren’t selling bulls that will gain and grade and produce Certified Angus Beef, you’re going to be in for a big disappointment,” Nichols said.

The three cattlemen agreed on many points. Gain, grade and health are the three most important traits for a cattle feeder, they said, and the only way to learn more about the next segment is to live it, at least once.

“If you’re a purebred person and you have never feed cattle, you need to feed cattle,” Kasten said.

It’s important to gain a new perspective and to get more information, Nichols said.

“We’re in a position now that the people buying our calves know more about our cattle than we do,” he said. “The thing to do is to breed these cattle right and have them as healthy as you can.”

Bending Curves, Breaking Stereotypes

by Miranda Reiman

Angus cattle need to do more than ever before. Carcass quality, functional females, feedlot performance—they all matter.

That theme was evident at the Innovation Workshops during the National Angus Convention, Nov. 4 to 7, in Indianapolis, Ind.

John Stika, president for the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand, talked of reaching the billion-pound sales milestone in the recent fiscal year.

“You won’t find a bigger fan of marbling than me, but the success of CAB is more than just marbling,” he said.

It starts with a live, healthy calf and all the ranch-level money-makers, Stika said.

He recalled a producer once telling him about a high-quality carcass: “It’s the most valuable thing we produce, but it’s the last thing we get paid for.”

That’s why it’s important to be sure cattle are “doing it all,” Stika said, while challenging the crowd to further

the breed’s current momentum.

“We will not sell two billion pounds of Certified Angus Beef doing the exact same thing we did for the last 38 years,” he said.

Employing all available technology is the logical path.

“The genomics will just become part of what we do. It won’t be special anymore,” Stephen Miller, director of genetic research for the American Angus Association, predicted.

In 2015, a quarter of all registered Angus cattle included DNA information.

That data helps make expected progeny differences (EPDs) more accurate.

Miller told the audiences how to use those measures to make progress while avoiding narrow selection.

“The more traits we throw at the thing, the less progress you’re going to make in any one of them,” he said, noting that’s why indexes were created.

The scientist suggested using economically weighted values, such as weaned calf value ($W) or beef value ($B), to rank animals.

“Then we can look at different traits and structure and things like that,” he said.

Trends show cattlemen are making progress, as the breed average for $B, carcass weights and marbling have trended up. At the same time, weaning weight has improved, while birthweight has decreased.

“Curve benders” have become more common, said Dan Shike, University of Illinois animal scientist.

“It used to be if you selected a calving-ease bull, you just had to accept that you were giving up other traits,” he said.

Curve benders are typically considered those with “relatively low birthweight as compared to weaning weight,” Kent Andersen, director of genetic technical services for Zoetis, explained.

He and Shike evaluated live animals and then revealed their genomic data, talking through how it might change breeding recommendations.

“By testing, we front-load them with information so we can do a better job with mating,” Andersen said. It especially bolsters confidence on young sires. “We can jumpstart accuracy.”

Adding the genomic data uncovered a “triple curve bender,” as Andersen called it, among the live animals on display.

As O A Big Sky 305 came into the ring, the pair described his moderate birthweight. He was in the top 10% for weaning weight EPDs, yet had the genetics to produce moderate daughters.

“We want rapid, efficient growth until a year of age, and then stop,” Shike said. “This breed has proven we can do that.”

The bull’s carcass traits made him a “triple,” with well-above-average carcass weight and marbling. He was in the top 20% for $B.

Attendees were able to use text-polling to interact with the presenters. When Andersen asked them to select their favorite bull on both visual appraisal and the numbers, 305 was the clear choice, with 88% picking him.

Finding bulls to fit specific breeding goals can be as simple as using the “Sire Summary Search” on the Association’s website (www.Angus.org), Andersen said. Producers can enter minimums and maximums for all reported traits and narrow the report of prospective sires.

“It’s a powerful tool,” he said.

Game changers met at Angus Convention

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare has passed.”

The National Angus Convention wrapped up over a week ago yet that quote from speaker Howard Putnam, former Southwest Airlines CEO, sticks in my head.

Perhaps that one-liner could sum up the reason more than 2,000 attendees came to the educational event. To learn, to prepare. To make sure we’re on the cutting edge.

But looking at the cattle prices as of late, perhaps it rings all too true.

Keynote speaker Howard Putnam, former Southwest Airlines CEO, shared a lot of wisdom that would be applied to any area of life….including your cattle business.

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare has passed.”

Two years ago we were telling you to take advantage of high prices to set your herd up for success in leaner times.

High prices diluted the premiums. When all cattle were worth more, the extra you got for quality grade was less of the total paycheck, but now?

That time of differentiation is here. Just last week the 5-area weighted USDA average reported premiums and discounts showed a $10 high for the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand premium. That’s like a tenth of your total payout when prices are hovering around $100/cwt. Average USDA-reported grid premiums for the brand have never been higher.

At the same time, all cattle have improved. In 1997, 54% of cattle graded Choice and Prime. Today, that tally is 76%. When the average continues to rise, you have to improve or you’ll be left behind.

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare has passed.”

If you haven’t paid any attention to end-product traits, it’s not too late, but you’ll be playing catch up.

Several underscored the importance of keeping an eye on the consumer, but Iowa Angus breeder Dave Nichols might have summed it up best when addressing his cohorts.

If you don’t think marbling matters, you’re wrong, Dave Nichols, of Nichols Farms, said.

He recalled what experts tell his customers, “If you don’t feed out your own calves, then don’t pay any attention to marbling. Don’t pay any attention to carcass, because you’re selling your calves at weaning and you’re not getting paid anything for them.’’

He counters, “That’s not true. I say to our bull buyers, ‘Everybody feeds them out, and somebody ends up eating them. By golly, everything is worth weight times the money, and so we breed our cattle as if we were going to retain ownership on them and end up eating them.’

“If any of you think that you can make this work and you aren’t selling bulls that will gain and grade and produce Certified Angus Beef®, you’re going to be in for a big disappointment.”

Someone will eat what you produce. Those consumers prefer to eat CAB. Quality matters.

That brings me to another one of Putnam’s zingers: “Some play the game, others change the way the game is played.”

Today’s cattle business isn’t what it was a few decades ago. Have you updated your game plan?

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

PS–In the coming weeks, we’ll share more highlights. In the meantime, check out Team Angus coverage at www.angus.media.

Beef yield grade opportunities detailed

System accounts for no more than 40% of red meat yield variation

by Steve Suther

When anyone thinks about beef grading, USDA quality grades such as Prime, Choice and Select likely come to mind. Quality grades have been in effect for nearly a century, but yield grades have been required in the United States for more than 50 years.

While research continues to prove how well quality grades work, the same cannot be said for yield grades. To be fair, quality grading has been updated regularly, while today’s yield grade system is exactly the same as what went into effect in 1965.

West Texas A&M University animal scientist Ty Lawrence explained the issues at this summer’s Feeding Quality Forum (FQF) in Grand Island, Neb., and Amarillo, Texas. He authored a research paper on the topic this fall entitled, “Beef Yield Grading: History, Issues and Opportunities,” available online at https://cabcattle.com/research.

Lawrence told the 200 FQF attendees that numerous studies have cast doubts on the reliability of the YG system, finding weak to only moderate correlations between yield grade and all of the carcass measurements it was intended to predict, so that those measurements could predict red meat yield.

“We’re trying to predict a predictor of a predictor,” he said, noting it all started with the 1960-published data on 17 independent variables on 162 “representative” cattle processed in the 1950s.

“When the government’s General Accounting Office looked at grading in the late 1970s, they learned that if you sold half of a large pen of cattle to Packer A and the other half to Packer B, you would get two different results,” he said. “Grading was a human, subjective determination.”

The nation that had long since put a man on the moon wanted better. In fact, Lawrence said NASA was asked for help, but the Agriculture Research Service soon turned to Kansas State University’s more focused expertise “in 1980, to estimate red meat yield using a camera.”

Published data proves the “very rudimentary camera” worked. Regardless, for the next decade, the industry “took a left turn toward nuclear magnetic resonance, near-infrared imaging,” the animal scientist said.

More promising technology allowed for a return to video image analysis in the 1990s, as grid marketing emerged amid inconsistent grading by humans. Empathy led them to resist imposing discounts while more readily granting premiums.

“Now you take a picture of a ribeye, convert that to red and white pixels, and you’re counting pixels,” Lawrence said. “This technology gained approval [in 2009] for measuring ribeye area, yield grade, marbling score and back fat thickness.” It cannot measure the kidney, pelvic and heart fat (part of the yield grade equation), so the system accounts for that with a constant or algorithm.

“Now you can take a pen of 500 cattle, sell half to Packer A and half to Packer B, and if they’re both using the camera, you’re going to get the same answer,” he said.

Still, trying “to predict a predictor of a predictor” without accounting for thin meats, brisket or trimmings, using data on 162 carcasses from the mostly Hereford cattle of 60 years ago that ranged from 350 to 900 pounds presents inescapable challenges. It accounts for just 40% of the variation in red meat yield for today’s average fed cattle, and 0% for Holsteins.

The non-linear stair steps for premiums and discounts represent another major flaw in the system, Lawrence said. When the camera calls one carcass a 3.99 and the next a 4.00 yield grade, the grid may suddenly impose a $15 per hundredweight discount.

This system based on a few cattle “of a biological type that no longer exists” predicts red meat yield of cuts from carcasses “increasingly more variable in genetic type and management.”

“We apply that estimate to carcasses that weigh beyond the inference of which [the system] was designed, and we have ignored the opportunity to develop new yield estimates afforded by camera grading,” Lawrence summarized. “Leadership within the beef community must decide if the status quo is acceptable, or if improvement is warranted.”

The Feeding Quality Forums were co-sponsored by Micronutrients, Feedlot magazine, Zoetis, Roto-mix and Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB). To view presentations and summary information, visit www.feedingqualityforum.com.

Meeting of the Minds

It’s been a busy month for the brand. In the last 30 days we’ve marked the end of one fiscal year and the start of another, surpassed a pretty big milestone (more on that later) and hosted that little thing (note the sarcasm) we call Annual Conference (AC).

More often than not, my travels take me to the places where the cattle roam, rather that the spots where the steaks are served. So I usually miss the annual meeting of the minds. But it’s there where distributors, retailers and CAB staffers gather together to talk about the year and the brand’s impact on their businesses.

Since that’s the case I checked in with the folks who indeed focus on the production side of the brand but made the trip to this year’s AC. Feedyard owners and 2015 CAB Feedlot Commitment to Excellence Award winners Shawn and Shane Tiffany said they spent more time with attendees answering questions than they did on stage for their intended session.

ac1 — Mark led a discussion with Shawn and Shane Tiffany, Tiffany Cattle Company, Herington, Kan. Feedyards are often one of the most misunderstood parts of the beef community.

“From the time we got off the stage, the rest of the weekend, we were constantly talking to somebody,” Shawn says. “Oftentimes about our business and how we produce cattle but also about what their business was like, whether they were hamburger grinders in San Diego or the largest steak cutter in Canada.”

“As a producer, it can be easy to get so caught up in your own segment of the industry that you don’t think about what happens from that point forward,” Shane says. “For us, you load the cattle on a semi, send them to the packer and you’re focused on the next load coming in.”

ac2 — Maybe not the most common species the Tiffanys or Nelsons encounter back home, but he fit this year’s theme, “Hollywood in the Desert,” to a tee.

It’s the perspective he gained, the impact of those who carry on the Tiffany crew’s hard work, he says, that’s stayed with him.

“It’s so important to get a bigger perspective of the industry but it’s also very encouraging to see that these people are great at their jobs. I mean a billion pounds (still more on that later), that’s just a mind-blowing number and that doesn’t happen without them being passionate,” Shane says.

ac3 — The decor was followed up with beef dishes fit for a fiesta! Chef Michael and others work so hard preparing for AC but also enjoy a little fun every now and then.

Abbie Nelson, Five Star Land & Livestock, Wilton, Ca., and this year’s 2016 CAB Ambassador Award winner said the food and friendships were just icing on the cake to what already lit a fire for her to come home and increase CAB acceptance in the herd.

“We just made a lot of friends,” Abbie says. “Gary and Sally [Myers], of Sizzler’s, we just talked non-stop back and forth about what we do and what they do. I think we established a friendship that will go on forever.”

To learn more about our award winners this year, check out these individual stories:

“Riverbend’s one-at-a-time quality focus earns national honors” – Riverbend Ranch
“Montana Angus ranch: data-driven quality from the start” – Springvale Ranch
“Science-based ranching in the Superstitions” – Quarter Circle U Ranch
“Big on quality” – Poky Feeders
“A different breed of stars” – Five Star Land & Livestock

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

Cattle feeding chat builds bridges

Kansas brothers address beef marketers

by Miranda Reiman

When it’s just not possible to bring 600 people from across the globe to the feedyard, the next best thing is to bring a little of that Herington, Kan., family operation to them.

Cattle feeders Shane and Shawn Tiffany took the stage during educational sessions at last month’s Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand annual conference in Tucson, Ariz. The brothers gave foodservice and retail professionals a glimpse of life in a feedyard, often one of the most misunderstood parts of the beef community.

“It gives us an opportunity in our supply chain to bring those calves together from different genetics, different environments, different weights, shapes and size, born at different times – and create uniformity,” said Mark McCully, CAB vice president for supply during their introduction. “It allows us, as a beef supply chain, to have a 52-week supply of marketable finished cattle for your business.”

The Tiffanys have an open-door business model. They’re happy to talk about any part of the feedyard, they said, so they started at the beginning.

“Shawn and I literally grew up there,” said Shane. Their dad managed the feedyard for 14 years, and as boys they started out washing waterers and cleaning “boot [grain-receiving] pits” in the mill. “There was no such thing as a snow day. When school was cancelled, you went to work.”

Then they both went to college and on to other careers before forming a partnership to buy what is now the 14,000-head Tiffany Cattle Company.

“We took the chance and we jumped in,” Shane said. “The last nine years have been a whirlwind and it’s been a fun ride, but really we’ve just been incredibly blessed as we’ve grown the business.”

They gave a backdrop for the 45-minute conversation by explaining the typical schedule and chores at the yard.

“We’re in our office chairs by six in the morning. We expect the feed trucks to be rolling and dropping feed in the bunks before 7 a.m.,” Shawn said. “Cowboys are out saddling their horses in the dark and getting ready to go inspect every single animal in the yard, every day, for any health issues that may arise.”

They talked about their customers and the quality animals they receive into the yard.

“We’re 99% customer-owned cattle, so we provide a service for our customers that own the cattle. So think of a bed and breakfast,” Shawn said. “We sell food and rent a room.”

The chefs, beef marketers and others had a chance to text in questions for the cattlemen to answer live. Inquiries ranged from the transition to grain from forage and defining “feed conversions” to the kind of legacy they wanted to leave and future challenges.

“Your focus is pretty narrow when you’re young and broke and you’re trying to get a business off the ground,” Shawn said. “The goal is to stay in business until tomorrow.”

Now, there are eight kids that make up the next generation. They said that forces them to look longer-term, and makes them more determined than ever to share their story.

“The ruminant animal has the wonderful ability to take low-quality proteins, such as grass or corn silage and produce some extremely high-quality protein products that we can consume,” Shawn said, noting that most people just want to learn more about that process.

“If somebody will give you the time to explain your story and why you do what you do and how you do it, every single time people go away with a better feeling and better understanding of our industry,” he said.

The men and their wives spent the three-day conference interacting with people from very different geographies and diverse backgrounds.

“The moment we got off the stage, the rest of the weekend, we were constantly talking to somebody,” Shawn said. They chatted about cattle and everything in between, from grinding hamburger in San Diego to cutting steaks in Toronto. “There were just some great conversations with people who are from a considerably different segment of our industry, but are every bit as passionate about it as we are.”

To see more from the CAB annual conference, watch this special edition of “The Angus Report”: http://cab.info/2qx.

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