16—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 21,1968
The New
Jack Sprat will eat no fat.
His wife will eat none either.
And so lean meat is all they eat,
And fat is sold to neither.
This version of the old nurs
ery rhyme is suggested for to
day’s children by Robert Lev
erette, USD A No modern
child is going to believe that
Jack Sprat’s wife would eat no
lean. In fact, the average Amer
ican consumers a\ersion to ex
cess fat on meat has excited a
significant influence on the U S
livestock and meat industry.
At livestock shows and on
faims and feedlots around the
country, the stress these days is
on a new look leanei, thick
er-muscled animals that yield a
higher percentage of retail cuts
Rapidly disappeaung are the
livestock buyeis who tradition
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Look In Meat Animals
ally select blocky, “fat” cattle;
now they look for high quality,
thickly muscled animals, with a
minimum of excess fat.
This change is primarily due
to consumer demand for a close
ly trimmed meat product. To
please their customers, retailers
have discovered they must trim
away moie and more fat before
placing meat cuts in the meat
counter
So letailers are demanding
carcasses with less excess fat
fiom the packers, and many
packer buyers in turn now se
lect livestock which have a large
percentage of lean meat.
This doesn't mean that con
sumers aie willing to accept a
lower quality of lean meat. US
DA Choice is still the grade
most widely sold at retail and
produced m the greatest volume.
Retailers have found that this
level of quality pleases most of
their customers.
Since the Federal Meat Grad
ing Service was initiated in 1927,
U S Department of Agriculture
grade standards for meat and
livestock have been instrument
al in tiansmitting consumer
preferences back through mar
keting channels to producers
Administered by USDA’s Con
sumer and Marketing Service,
the voluntaiy meat grading pro
gram has grown to the point
where last yeai Federal meat
graders quality gi aded almost 13
billion pounds of beef about
85 pei cent of the beef sold as
retail cuts
The meat giadmg program
has been successful for many
reasons Consumers learned they
could be sure of getting high
quality beef when they saw the
USD A Choice or Prime grade
maiks, so they were encouraged
to buy more meat Retailers dis
covered meat grades helped
them to consistently provide the
uniform quality of meat their
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customers wanted, without the
necessity of a personal inspec
tion, which helps hold down
marketing costs And producers
felt the impact because more
buyers began bidding for live
stock to supply the increased
consumer demand.
USD A grade standards for
livestock and meat provide the
only nationally available means
of reflecting consumer prefer
ences for meat back to the live
stock producer, and consumer
demand for leaner meat prompt
ed probably the most significant
innovation in grade standards
since Federal meat grading be
gan—yield grades for beef
adopted in 1965
Yield grades indicate the
amount (yield) of trimmed re
tail cuts expected from a beef
carcass Yield Grade 1 repie
sents the highest expected yield
of trimmed cuts, Yield Grade 5
the lowest yield
Dm mg the three yeais since
yield grades were introduced,
the livestock industry has be
come increasingly “cutability
(yield) conscious ” In a recent
four-week period, a total of 202
million pounds of beef were
yield graded, almost 20 percent
of the volume quality graded—
compared with 4 percent in 1966
C&MS Livestock Division offi
dais believe yield grading a
C&MS voluntary, fee-for-service
program like quality grading
will become increasingly popu
lar in the future. A USDA live
stock marketing specialist noted:
“Last year, an estimated 2 bil
lion pounds of fat were removed
from the fed beef portion of our
cattle production. It costs money
to put excess fat on cattle
and it costs money to ship it
around the country only to have
it trimmed off and sold for a
fraction of the total cost of pro
duc 1 1 o n and transportation.
Clearly, excessive fat is an eco
nomic waste the beef industry
can ill afford Yield grades
should be veiy effective in
bringing about changes which
will eliminate much of the waste
fat now present in the produc
tion and maiketing of beef.”
The livestock industry is obvi
ously awakening to the possibil
ities of identifying carcasses and
live (slaughter) animals for cut
ability, oi yield, differences In
the last year, industry maga
zines have carried numerous
articles, such as “Cutability
Not Just Theory Smart Feeders
Can Make It Pay.”
USDA Livestock Division per
sonnel point out that meat-type
steers, which are thickly mus
(Continued from Page 17)