Cattlemen Remain Committed to Quality

Certified Angus Beef closes the 2022 fiscal year on a high note.

by Lindsay Graber Runft

October 18, 2022

With ranchers continuing to produce high-quality beef at notable marks and consumer demand staying strong, Certified Angus Beef closed its books on the second-highest sales year of record.

The brand’s success is a reflection of an entire community pointed toward providing premium beef, starting with steady supply.

“Angus cattlemen and women remain committed to meeting the demand for the best-tasting and best-sourced beef,” says John Stika, president of Certified Angus Beef. “Our diverse, global and growing customer base recognizes the brand’s commitment to quality from the ranch to the plate.”

Certified Angus Beef sold 1.234 billion pounds in 54 countries during the 2022 fiscal year. Up 1.6% percent or 19 million pounds from fiscal 2021, the brand celebrates its seventh year reaching more than a billion pounds sold and set a new record sales month with 113.8 million pounds sold in March 2022.  

Demand Supported by Supply

The second-largest supply in the brand’s history, 5.78 million carcasses achieved the brand’s 10 beef quality specifications. The year also marked a record 16.38 million Angus-influenced cattle evaluated for the brand, a 1.7% increase from the previous year. 

Cattlemen’s commitment to increasing high-quality beef supply continues to be rewarded through grid premiums.  

As reported in March, premiums paid by packers to producers for brand-qualifying cattle totaled $182 million annually or $3.5 million per week.  

“While we celebrate the success of the 2022 fiscal year, we are looking ahead to 2023 with a sense of optimism—driven by strong demand for the brand and a sense of realism. We know the challenges facing producers, and ultimately the cattle supply, over the next few years,” Stika says. “Moving forward, we will remain focused on what is within our control – growing demand and supporting ranchers as they push forward in targeting the brand to supply customers the high-quality beef they desire.”

Beef Sales Stay Strong

Consumer spending patterns encouraged a more typical distribution of beef sales for foodservice, retail and international businesses this year.  

Restaurant dining elevated foodservice to the brand’s second-best year at 405 million pounds, mirroring the previous year’s double-digit gain.  

Following two consecutive years with more than 600 million pounds, grocery store meat departments across the U.S. sold 548.5 million pounds of the Certified Angus Beef ^® brand in fiscal 2022. 

While U.S. retail dipped slightly, beef sales by global partners grew.  

Partners outside of the U.S. increased sales to 178.5 million pounds for the year, with three of the top five markets—Canada, Mexico and Taiwan—growing by more than 24%. To complement international growth in these markets, the Middle East, Central America, Dominican Republic and Qatar each experienced their best year with the brand. 

Limits on labor in restaurants and grocery stores, coupled with shoppers seeking prepared and ready-to-cook items, led value-added products to a new annual record. The 40.7 million pounds sold marked a 6.3% increase, with gains in 15 of 23 product categories—especially fully cooked briskets, shaved steak and beef bacon.  

These same partners identified opportunities for ground beef, a versatile and less costly item for menus and retail shoppers. Ground beef sales reached a record 261.7 million pounds, 10.7% above 2021. 

Certified Angus Beef ^® Natural also grew by 7% year over year to 4.7 million pounds.   

“The success of the last 44 years hasn’t come by luck or chance for this brand,” says Stika. “It’s been achieved through ranchers’ determination to produce a high-quality product, combined with our partners’ hard work and intentionality to continue to plan, prepare and position themselves and our consumers to be successful.”  

Relevant and getting better

Ninth straight record sales year for CAB

by Laura Conaway

When the original Angus beef brand stands above 138 USDA-certified others and charts a ninth successive record year, people wonder how that can be.

The recipe includes a dash of nostalgia, a large helping of credibility and a whole lot of relevance. Throw in its niche at the very top of quality and that certain “it factor,” and you have an all-but-guaranteed formula for longevity.

The Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand rounded out its 37^th fiscal year (FY) at the end of September 2015, still leading the beef quality movement because of that one ingredient in particular: relevance.

“We’re here to be more intentional on those things that really strengthen the brand and increase its relevance to our mission and each and every one of our partners and their customers,” says CAB President John Stika. After an 11th consecutive year of sales growth to a record 896 million pounds, 14 million more than last year, he comments, “our goal is to get better.”

That’s what it took to set records in FY 2015. In the fourth straight year with fewer eligible cattle, the brand’s 31 licensed packing plants saw a 1.1-million-head (8%) decline in those Angus-type cattle identified. Yet, certified carcass numbers only dropped by 1%. Greater utilization of each carcass (261 lb. sold compared to 250 lb. last year) produced the net sales increase of 1.6%.

In the face of record high cattle and beef prices tied to tight supplies, cattlemen and women showed they had built in quality and sent their best. That allowed independent graders to certify nearly 67,000 carcasses per week, totaling 3.48 million for the year, thanks to the record high CAB acceptance rate of 27.5%. Ten years ago that number was 14%.

For any group or brand to progress, each of its component parts must work in unison. Mark McCully, CAB vice president of production, credits the circular workings of supply and demand.

“Angus breeders responded to the market signals and built better-grading cattle which allowed us to grow, thus creating more demand and even bigger signals.”

Ranchers’ selection decisions and proactive management worked in concert with the feeding sector’s reaction to a market that demanded more pounds on each animal, more days on feed. In turn, CAB adjusted its hot carcass weight (HCW) specification from a cap of 999 lb. to 1,050 lb., to garner more product for end users, all without compromising the brand’s premium nature.

“The trend for increasing carcass weight is not a new phenomenon,” McCully says, but genetic improvement allowed for greater efficiency. “We found it critical to make an adjustment in our specifications to maintain relevance both to the cattlemen who are growing these larger, more efficient animals, and our licensed partners that need supply of high quality product.”

Those partners – all 17,500 of them – cater to a consumer base that holds quality in higher regard as prices climb.

Inside overview

From a division standpoint, foodservice led the charge. Following last year’s trend for the most growth, it built on that to sell a record 334 million pounds, up 10.6% over last year. While retail experienced a slight decline of 3.4%, it still commanded the leading share of all pounds sold at 41%. International sales reached a plateau of 120 million pounds. Tariffs, currency exchange rates and port labor issues contributed to a sales decline in Eastern Asia while Mexico, the Middle East and Central and South America grew in spite of those challenges.

Breaking the carcass down, the Value-added Products Division had its second-best year as CAB fajita meat, tri-tip and pot roast contributed to 23.5 million pounds sold, 6.3% more than last year. End meats led overall growth with a 2.6% hike, while middle meat sales were down only 2%, a result of record prices. CAB Prime sales set a record at more than 12 million pounds.

Fulfilling purpose

Per its design, Stika says the brand achieves its mission every day the people who raise Angus cattle realize its value.

“Because of those who have been willing to engage this brand and support us in pursuit of our mission statement, Certified Angus Beef has been allowed to become a brand of impact,” he says, “and we are in a better position today to be able to deliver on our original purpose than ever before.”

Part of that involves positioning the brand in targeted areas of influence. For example, 13.5% of brand sales were outside of the U.S. in FY 15. To further leverage that presence in 52 other countries and focus on a leading market region, CAB opened a Tokyo office in August. Takayoshi Hirayama, CAB senior manager there, works to help the brand become more engaged and embedded in the Asian beef product market and consumer community.

Domestically, that impact is easy to note in those who walk through the brand’s Education & Culinary Center (ECC) doors. FY 15 saw 44 new Master’s of Brand Advantages (MBA) students graduate, and the ECC hosted 105 groups. Those were comprised of people in and outside of the beef industry, all with the goal of increasing their knowledge and understanding premium beef’s value.

Demand for hands-on education and the media tools to serve partner needs saw the year end amid construction of an expanded ECC kitchen and meat lab as well as new video and audio production rooms in the main office.

Growth can manifest itself in a number of different ways, Stika says, but relevance is the key.

“If we take the opportunity to expand our perspectives today, I assure you we will have more influence over the results we expect to achieve tomorrow.”

The Ground Beef Market and Price Signals

by Steve Suther

Beef’s getting better, to judge by the uptrend in quality grades and resurgent consumer demand. However, an increasing share of that demand has been for ground beef – and an average pound of that versatile staple now sells for more than $4.

Last year a Rabobank AgriFinance white paper entitled “Ground Beef Nation” (GBN) questioned the industry’s priorities now that Americans consume 11 billion hamburgers each year. It called for greater efficiency and retooling to fit a changed market for one-third to half of young cattle, and warned business as usual could lead to weakened market share for beef over time.

Everybody began to discuss the implications as the Choice beef cutout quote touched $2.50 per pound. They had seen the rise of giant burgers 10 years ago in step with low-carb dieting. They saw another move forward when ground beef was the go-to promotion in the 2008-09 recession, and last year as many steaks were priced two or three times higher than the grinds.

Could cattle ranchers, feeders and packers have it wrong? Will a slice of the market ignore quality again, and if that turn is coming, how should seedstock producers reorient genetic selection?

The Angus Foundation set out to learn more, commissioning its own white paper. The 35-year-old nonprofit arm of the American Angus Association funds education, youth and research for the breed and broader beef community.

“Whether we’re talking about ground beef or high-end cuts, it’s important to know their relative values and the market signals that originate with consumer demand for each,” said Foundation President Milford Jenkins. “That helps guide the breeding plans of registered and commercial Angus breeders toward more profit.”

The resulting paper, “Changes in the Ground Beef Market and What it Means for Cattle Producers,” was authored by Nevil Speer while a professor at Western Kentucky University; Tom Brink, the founder and president of Top Dollar Angus; and Mark McCully, vice president of production for the Certified Angus Beef^® brand. The full paper is available at http://www.angusfoundation.org/fdn/Research/FdnWhitePapers.html and at https://cabcattle.com/news/research.php.

“Ground beef is an awfully important part of the brand’s business, but it still doesn’t carry the value of the middle meats and most whole-muscle cuts,” said McCully. “Most cattlemen don’t realize how incredibly complex the entire ground beef market is – from varying lean points, to different raw material options, to premium opportunities.”

Speer summarized the reasons for the current white paper, highlights of which were presented at the Cattle Industry Convention in San Antonio, Texas, last month.

“We wanted to explore and outline some of the important dynamics around the ground beef category,” Speer said, noting the paper looks at “the economics and efficiencies associated with meeting the growing demand for ground beef within the current structure.”

People may think hamburger is hamburger, he said, “but the ground beef market is complex, representing a wide array of ingredients from a variety of sources coming together to make different types of products.”

That’s not a sign of inefficiency – just the opposite, Speer noted.

“The decision as to how to most appropriately combine materials for ground beef is based on a least-cost approach, given the market for various cuts at any given time,” he said. “That decision is complex and dynamic,” but working well today.

Despite rapid growth, ground beef does not overshadow sales of steaks and roasts, still driven by a combination of quality and price. While ground beef makes up 63% of foodservice volume, it’s just 37% of value; at retail those numbers are 49% and 39%, respectively.

Even with ground beef at $4, the average for all beef was at $6 per pound, offering little incentive to forego the greater figure for the lesser, Brink said.

What if forces outside of the market set up production of steers and heifers solely for grinding as GBN suggests?

“It would reduce industry revenues, elevate production costs and unnecessarily raise consumer beef prices,” Brink said, citing price relationships. “Fed cattle have been trading at a growing price premium versus cows over the past 15 years (See chart).”

The paper concludes there is no empirical evidence to support producing cattle specifically for the ground beef market.

“The trend toward a larger and more precise focus on marbling and quality grade has served cattlemen well,” McCully said. “We are producing a higher quality product in the end and driving consumer demand.”

Five star beef drives demand

While traveling, either out of spontaneity or lack of planning I often find myself at the mercy of my smartphone and online searching abilities to find a place to eat.

Luckily there are websites like Trip Advisor specifically made to help find quality restaurants, and I have relied on them more than a time or two. Trip Advisor is the world’s largest travel site, enabling travelers to get advice from others on places to stay, eat and find entertainment.

But what does Trip Advisor have to do with Certified Angus Beef^®?

Well it turns out that Trip Advisor scores for licensed CAB restaurants directly correlate with the amount of beef they demand. The higher the score, the more CAB the restaurant purchases. Guess something about a good steak keeps people coming back for more.

Even for restaurants that don’t specialize in beef, quality steak appears to have something to do with the scores. You might expect a seafood or Italian restaurant to cut corners when it comes to beef but the ones that don’t have higher reviews and demands.

As we would assume, the CAB steakhouses across the country have the same connection. As their ratings rise, so does their consumption of CAB. This holds especially true for middle meats. As the volume of CAB middle meats being ordered rises, so does the Trip Advisor score!

At the end of the day our goal is to create a quality eating experience for the beef consumer. As we provide just that, Trip Advisor scores rise and the demand for beef grows.

Not to get all Field-of-Dreams on you as in “If you build it they will come,” but the data shows that as consumers get a taste of highly marbled beef, they demand more.

Commitment to quality pays, from the pasture to the plate.

As for me, I give the ranchers who produce this quality beef a full five stars.

~Nicole

Smaller, better harvest

Here’s this week’s Meat Market Minute:

Live cattle traded down last week amidst lower futures and reduced harvest numbers, marking the second consecutive week that live values dropped in unison with curbed federally inspected harvest. Production, at 589,000 head, marked the first time harvest has been below 600,000 on a non-holiday week since 2009.

Packers continue to pull hours for production in order to push margins towards the black. In doing so, they were able to slightly increase asking prices for all grades. Demand for CAB middle meats remained strong–ribs were under the most pressure as retailers increase their spot purchases for Superbowl featuring.

CAB acceptance rate returned to the path of improvement coming into 2012, rebounding from 19.1% the last week of the year to 21.8% in mid-January. The positive move comes as the entire herd improved grade and brought USDA Choice levels above 60%. That share had fallen significantly since September, for 14 consecutive weeks. The mid-January showing of 63% Choice in the mix and 3.6% Prime comes despite steers dominating the fed harvest, accounting for more than 64% for three weeks running.

Until we meat again,

-David

SCIP to the premiums

by Jen Gillespie and Steve Suther

November 11, 2011

First results from ongoing research show an average carcass-value advantage of $134 per head for Angus-sired calves compared to those with bos indicus or Brahman influence.

The Southern Carcass Improvement Project (SCIP) was initiated in 2009 as a collaboration between Kansas State University, Virginia Tech and Gardiner Angus Ranch. Its goal was to measure the impact that a single generation of high-quality Angus genetics can have on feedlot and carcass performance when mated to Brahman-crossed cattle commonly found in the Southern U.S.

“It had to show the effect in one generation to have much impact and gain many believers,” said Mark Gardiner, the Ashland, Kan., Angus breeder who shared SCIP progress at his family’s bull sale in September.

The idea came up while talking with longtime friend Tom Brink, senior vice president of Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, about beef quality in the South, where many herds were selected for adaptability with little emphasis on carcass traits.

Brink had bought many calves and feeders from those states, and he knew a huge share of them hit a genetic roadblock to marbling. Gardiner had sold many bulls into those states and saw what a difference genetic improvement was making for his customers. Both men saw the USDA Choice percentage climb in Kansas packing plants while Texas plants lagged.

“This is a major problem, yet there is no broad-scale effort to improve quality grades in Southern-origin cattle,” Brink noted at the Gardiner sale. “In fact, the industry problem is rarely even discussed, although its annual cost is more than $200 million, not counting the lost beef demand due to lack of sufficient high-quality beef.”

Three years earlier he and Gardiner wondered, what if a demonstration project could be set up in with a major university to show the added value in breeding to an Angus alternative? They talked to Virginia Tech animal scientists Dave Notter and Bill Beal, geneticist and breeding systems experts, respectively. Gardiner would fund the research if a scientifically valid structure could be set up.

As Beal recalled, “Tom proposed that we identify a group of cows typical of Southern herds and breed them either to typical Southern bulls or high-growth, high-carcass Angus bulls. The question was how to do it.”

He liked the idea of “demonstration” as opposed to clinical study.

“We could all sit back and go to the Journal of Animal Science, where there are published studies that used bulls with different marbling levels, and they show that what you see is, in fact, what you get in carcass merit. Okay,” Beal said, “but those were controlled studies that some meat scientist did at a university.” Such results still seemed theoretical to real-world ranchers.

A demonstration project may not impress animal scientists, but it had to pass their scrutiny. The target had to be commercial ranchers who had adapted their herds to challenging Southern environments, but who doubted whether Angus genetics could make a difference in their progeny.

After ruling out multiple herds and locations for adding too many wild cards to the project design, Beal and Notter saw the Gardiner embryo transfer (ET) program as part of the solution: All that was needed were Southern donors.

Simplicity may have allowed some elbow room, but skeptics are universal. “We couldn’t have either ranchers or animal scientists look at the study and say, ‘well obviously it worked because they picked those donors or those bulls.’ We really went to great lengths to be representative and then utilized random mating of bulls to the Southern donors,” Beal explained.

Igentity® DNA profiling helped minimize concerns about selection of specific individuals, too, he added. “We characterized those cattle, cows, bulls and calves, so you could see which ones had marbling potential.”

Consulting with Notter, 22 representative cows were purchased and relocated to the Gardiner Ranch for the ET program; 12 of them produced calves from random mating to sires from eight bos indicus breeds or three Angus bulls. They were born in spring 2010, raised as contemporaries, weaned and fed together through harvest.

Carcass data on 57 of those Angus- or “Southern”-sired calves shows big differences, although leanness was similar as measured by yield grades. Two-thirds of the Angus-sired group graded Choice, but none of the non-Angus graded above Select.

On average, the Angus-sired group finished with higher marbling scores, larger ribeye areas, more backfat and heavier carcass weights compared to the Southern-sired group. The value of those differences added up to $134 gross and a net $92-per-head economic advantage after accounting for feed costs.

The Angus sire effects for the first-year calves included a 103-point marbling advantage—more than a full USDA quality grade—along with nearly another inch of ribeye area and 61 more pounds of carcass.

Larry Corah, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) vice president for supply, said demand for high-quality beef is running high, even as the supply tightens and quality premiums increase. CAB partners sold more than 807 million pounds in 2011, setting a fifth consecutive annual sales record, despite a stagnant to recession-affected economy.

“This project and its results speak volumes about the opportunity just waiting for ranchers in an area not known for high quality to cash in on the millions of dollars in annual premiums paid for quality beef,” Corah said.

And the project continues with 56 SCIP calves born in 2011 backgrounded at Gardiner Angus Ranch.

Packer says cooperate, modern technology

By Miranda Reiman

October 12, 2011

If national trends are the equivalent of a beef industry report card, then ranchers and feeders are making the grade.

But Glen Dolezal, of Cargill Meat Solutions, warns that they need to pay attention to stay at the top of the class.

“Beef quality has been up each of the last three years, but we do have some concerns,” he said during a presentation at the Feeding Quality Forum. The company’s assistant vice president of business development and field sales leader outlined both the bright spots and challenges at the meetings in Omaha, Neb., and Garden City, Kan., in late August.

“Beef demand is linked to the great taste of beef,” Dolezal said. “We like to think of it as a three-legged stool made of tenderness, juiciness and flavor. If any one of them is broken, the eating experience doesn’t work.”

Trying to ensure that consistency, three out of every four carcasses in Cargill’s plants are destined for branded programs, and the increased quality of the past few years has helped them fill those orders.

“We think a lot of that is related to changes in genetics,” he said. “We’re seeing a high percentage of black-hided cattle entering our facilities.”

Dolezal talked about a Colorado State University study that evaluated eating experience at several different marbling levels. He noted that as the researchers selected carcasses with trace amounts of marbling or Standards, only 49% were “A-stamped,” denoting “Angus-type” at the plant. Compared to 92% of all moderately abundant (Prime) that received the same classification.

Cattle feeders are also using more ethanol co-products to economically extend days on feed.

“We think all of this is positive to beef quality,” he said.

What’s not? The increased intensity of implants along with the use of strong beta-agonist feed additives.

“At Cargill, we won’t buy cattle that knowingly have been fed zilpaterol [beta-2 agonist],” Dolezal said.

“Our point of view is that if we get too aggressive (with regard to growth) throughout the animal’s lifetime it can have an impact on the consumer attributes of size, quality and tenderness,” he said. “So we need to find a balance. The message there is that we ask you to be careful.”

As cattlemen make genetic and management decisions, it’s important to have good data to compare year-to-year.

“If you were trying to make genetic change or changing an implant program or feeding ration and you drew a grader that required more marbling to call it Choice, you’d think your cattle aren’t very good,” he said. “But on a different day you could draw a grader that required less, and you’d think you had really good cattle.”

The USDA and packers worked together for many years calibrating and testing camera systems before implementing them to call marbling scores. Currently about 10 plants in the U.S. use the technology to determine quality grade.

“The cameras have been a big win, a big success story,” Dolezal said. “Our customers have been very pleased with the consistency they’re getting box to box, based on marbling levels and other traits.”

Cattle producers should be happy, too.

“Data for grid payments and pre-harvest decisions are more accurate, consistent and repeatable,” he said.

Dolezal said that each part of the beef industry needs to rally together to continue pleasing the consumer.

“We’re all in this together, and if we can ever get in the same spirit on the same page, working together, we’re going to put out a greater product and more of it to compete with other proteins or even the vegan diet,” he said. “We have to be on the same page to promote beef and grow demand for it for every segment to be profitable into the future.”

The Feeding Quality Forums were co-sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), Feedlot Magazine and Purina Land O’Lakes. More information and proceedings are available at www.cabcattle.com.

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New demand index points to profit potential

By Miranda Reiman

September 19, 2011

The leading Angus brand has increased the number of pounds sold every year since 2005, but does that really mean demand for the product is soaring?

Economists said there was not enough information to tell, so Kansas State University’s Ted Schroeder and Master’s student Lance Zimmerman analyzed additional data and found that the answer is, “Yes.”

The methodology and results are explained in their research paper, “Defining and Quantifying Certified Angus Beef^® Brand Consumer Demand.”

“The demand for CAB has outpaced Choice product since 2002,” the paper says. “Demand for CAB increased 56% over the eight years and Choice demand increased 20%.”

In both cases, the biggest increase was from 2009 to 2010 (see Figure 1).

“Much of the 2010 demand growth had to do with export market opportunity,” Schroeder says, but also a return of restaurant visitors in 2010.

“We were a victim on the foodservice side and beneficiary on the retail side,” says Mark Polzer, CAB vice president of business development. In 2009, CAB’s foodservice business was down almost 5.5% and retail was up 9%, but 2010 brought good news in both sectors: foodservice increased 10% and retail by 20%.

CAB sales increased by more than 100 million pounds compared to 2009, and the brand’s cutout value increased more than $5 per hundredweight in deflated U.S. dollars. The paper notes, “There was not another year in the model where both per-capita consumption and real cutout prices increased relative to the previous year.”

Demand for Choice beef and demand for CAB products are closely related, but certainly not identical.

“The commodity product seemed to be more dramatically affected by negative macroeconomic factors, such as trade barriers and overall economic health,” the research states. “It is also worth noting that demand for Choice product appears slower to rebound during times of recovery than CAB demand.”

The index showed that strong international sales years (2003 and 2010) were also the two highest years for wholesale brand demand. International increases remains strong, on track to break the 2003 record this year as it claims more than 10% of the brand’s total sales.

“Future dramatic growth will depend more and more on our international side,” Polzer says. “But there are so many variables outside of the cattle industry that affect international demand.”

Regardless of where it’s sold, these increasing numbers bode well for producers. It can be hard to make a direct connection between farm-level prices and retail beef price stickers, but earlier research from John Marsh, Montana State University economist, looked at that.

He studied total U.S. beef demand from 1976 to 1999 and noted a 66% decline. That translated to a 40% reduction in fed cattle prices, and feeder-calf prices dropped 48% during that period.

The recent K-State research says, “Improving demand at the consumer and wholesale level can have an equally dramatic, positive influence on farm-level prices and production, and these effects can be illustrated by the success of CAB and the Angus breed.”

That’s backed by numbers: CAB premiums in the $5 per hundredweight (cwt.) range, video sale Angus breed premiums of $6.55 and 63% Angus-influence in the 2010 U.S. steer and heifer harvest mix.

“Any beef product line that has growing demand is likely to benefit the entire industry,” Schroeder says. “There may be some substitution of Choice to CAB, but additional substitution is coming from other proteins and competing products around the world. By having CAB growth, you’re enhancing domestic producers’ opportunities to profit.”

Continued increases of 5% to 10%, he says, would be very strong growth that represents value for farmers and ranchers.

“To fulfill that need, premiums for that product will flow back down from the processor to the packers, back to the feedlot and ultimately to the cow-calf producer who is influencing those genetic selections,” Schroeder says.

Although not 100% of the premiums are passed through the system, a portion is still significant.

“If feeders see that they can get $4 or $5 per hundredweight (cwt.) premiums from CAB-qualifying carcasses, they’ll very quickly bid that back into their purchases for calves that they think will have a high likelihood of attaining that,” Schroeder says.

“Beef demand woes historically have surrounded quality issues with beef products,” Schroeder says, recalling the 1980s and ’90s. “We needed to start offering customers a more predictable eating experience or we were going to see continually declining demand.

“Higher quality and branded products do that or they don’t last,” he says. “If they don’t deliver consistently they’re out of the game.”

Cattlemen Remain Committed to Quality

Certified Angus Beef closes the 2022 fiscal year on a high note.

by Lindsay Graber Runft

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