Better American Beef

Establishing branded beef programs – Bovitrak steps in

The beef industry today is huge in every sense of the word. Feedlots, processors and big corporate customers that are themselves vast operations increasingly dominate the industry. Compare the confidence you feel when you know where your food comes from, to a situation where you just don't know.

Gone are the days when the smiling local butcher in his white apron bought his steers from Mr. McGregor's farm down the road. And gone is the connection between your menu and locally produced food. As the food industry has grown bigger and global in scope, consumers have been edged farther and farther away from the source. It might look great, but how will it taste? Will it be tender or not?

Enter branded beef products to take away the guesswork. Branded beef allows you to buy with the confidence that you will get a consistent product every time. One of the pioneers in branding was "New Zealand Spring Lamb" – a very successful product supported by well-designed packaging and marketing, and the promise of flavor and quality. That this lamb was frozen and available year-round didn't matter. The idea of tender lamb, fed on the grassy slopes of a New Zealand farm was the story that sold the product.

Beef has always been perceived as "high end" meat, desirable and ultimately preferable to any of the competition. While chicken and pork have eroded beef market share, branded beef is restoring consumer confidence in a traditionally much-loved product. Bovitrak offers American producers and consumers an ideal route to branding excellent beef. However, it goes beyond clever marketing. Bovitrak makes it possible to actually trace any cut of beef from a Bovitrak-tagged animal right back to the source.

When consumers eat beef they want it to be exceptional. Bovitrak is making that a reality. Bovitrak allows those at the foundation of the beef industry – cow-calf producers and breeders operating on a small-scale – to stay competitive. Bovitrak gives them the opportunity for alliances with a branded beef line and a credible way to demonstrate adherence to protocols set out by large corporate buyers.

Adhering to such protocols allows for a higher quality product, one that can be repeated and refined on an ongoing basis. Protocols might include time of weaning, how livestock are handled in general, how and when young animals are treated or vaccinated against diseases; and of course, what they are fed. Cattle are grown to a specific age and weight, and transported to processing plants that also meet brand standards for handling of beef. One such standard might specify, for example, that beef be hung longer to increase tenderness. As a consumer, you purchase a branded product with specific characteristics (such as percentage of fat, taste and tenderness) that is targeted to what you want.

Bovitrak works for every part of the beef industry – from ranchers to consumers. And by making it possible for smaller operators to take part in branded programs, Bovitrak will help keep America's family farms and ranches profitable and competitive, preserving a way of life we all identify with.