Year: 2011

Belcampo Meats is introducing a different model of bringing meat to the table. If we were talking about commodities and retail chain stores, we'd call it vertical integration: Within the course of the next year, the new company is aiming to bring pasture-raised meats from its farm to its own slaughterhouse in far northern California, then shipping them south to its own retail stores in the Bay Area. Only a few small enterprises in the United States are trying anything similar. …

An economist says Texas’ drought has caused ranchers to reduce cow numbers by an estimated 600,000 this year, making it the biggest decline in state history. …

With funding from the beef checkoff, the industry has been tracking beef tenderness for 20 years with the first benchmarking survey conducted in 1990. In more recent surveys, foodservice cuts were added and a consumer sensory panel was substituted for previously used trained sensory panels because the consumer’s perception of tenderness is the ultimate determinant of a cut’s success. …