Beef Industry Has Many Opportunity To Improve Efficiency

The beef industry has long been made up of segments that only recently started to cooperate to meet consumer demand.  Meat scientist Gary Smith builds bridges between beef-industry segments.  He credits a 1990's report by economist Chuck Lambert for initially showing what’s at stake.

“[Chuck] identified about $12 billion worth of loss opportunities.  Things that we were not doing correctly, in the way we go through the beef supply chain, and produce the end product of beef and also the biproducts which is generated when we harvest the cattle.”

Smith and Kansas State University economist Dustin Pendell recently reviewed Lambert’s study and the series of National Beef Quality Audits it launched, to see how much progress has been made.

“We never really looked at seven of the 11 causes of those losses and so, we had an opportunity to put together the numbers for some things like reproductive performance, death, loss, feed efficiency, weaning weight and so on.  And it’s really interesting what we’ve done in those 38 years is we have really capitalized

The review found a savings of $426 million per year based on progress seen in the Beef Quality Audits, plus more out on the ranch and at retail.  But, again, the initial reports showed up to $12 billion in 1990 dollars left on the table, so there’s much more to be done.

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