Better beef

Beef is for eating…

With import pressure set to intensify a fresh focus on UK beef quality is needed, argues Perthshire-based journalist, broadcaster and Club member Claire Powell

“British beef was becoming more about ticked boxes and paperwork than eating quality.”

WHEN a piece of beef lands on a plate, the most important beefy consideration to the person wielding the cutlery is – the meat’s performance between teeth and on taste buds – the beef’s tenderness, taste and succulence.

Eating is the ultimate beef test. Where the beef came from, the animal’s colour, size, weight, bulginess of bottom, name of Daddy, how many rosettes it won and how many labels were stuck on the raw product, all pale into insignificance. All that matters in the final “field to fork” stage is how the beef eats.

Yet, the EUROP carcass grading system has little correlation to eating quality. And let’s face it – British beef’s “Elephant in the Room” is inconsistent eating quality.

It is little wonder that the eating quality of a 21st Century British steak can be a bit of a gamble – with our higgledy piggldey variety of breeds and production systems – a higgledy piggldey variety of beef is inevitable.

Beef is not cheap, but bad beef is VERY expensive. Equally, good beef is excellent value. It is special – with anticipation being part of the enjoyment. So when it disappoints, it is remembered, and can take a long time to be forgiven! And disappointed beef eaters have a wide choice of alternatives.

Work on food and farming television programmes featuring pasture to plate ‘stories’ brought me into contact with meat processors, retailers and restaurateurs throughout the UK, plus some overseas. Almost all expressed concern that British beef was becoming more about ticked boxes and paperwork than eating quality.

Over the past two decades plus, the hangover from BSE has restricted Britain’s access to some lucrative overseas beef markets. Thankfully, significant overseas doors are re-opening, including Japan, which lifted its 1996-imposed ban in 2019.

Japanese trigger

Ironically, prior to BSE, the Japanese had been keen to import Aberdeen Angus beef from Scotland. While there was little hope then of there being enough Aberdeen Angus cattle in Scotland to meet Japanese demand, BSE shattered all hopes of supplying this lucrative market.

Japan found an alternative Aberdeen Angus beef supplier – New Zealand has never had a case of BSE and Aberdeen Angus is the numerically dominant breed.

To obtain a consistent supply of exactly the right type of grain-finished, heavily marbled beef that their customers wanted, in 1991 Japanese food company Itoham, working with

(All photos: Claire Powell)

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ANZCO, a subsidiary of the New Zealand Meat Board, opened the 20,000-head capacity, Five Star Beef feedlot, on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. That feedlot is now wholly owned by ANZCO.

With an annual throughput of over 40,000 cattle, the Five Star venture focuses on what the target consumer wants, and is prepared to pay a premium for. Every management step back from the consumer’s teeth, taste buds and tum – to conception of the calf – is designed around consistently and profitably producing just that.

New Zealand Professor of Animal Science, Stephen Morris, who also lectured at Aberystwyth University, helped establish the feedlot. He acknowledges Five Star’s constant demand for a specific type of beef animal “has encouraged New Zealand farmers to breed the type of cattle Five Star wants. Plus, Five Star’s must have approach to sourcing cattle has helped lift prices for all NZ beef cattle.”

Aberdeen Angus was the original specified breed, but the feedlot now grain finishes Herefords too.

Australia’s awareness rising

Australia’s beef industry is also becoming more aware of eating quality. Developed by Meat Standards Australia, and launched in 1999, to improve the supply of consistently high eating quality beef, its consumer-focussed beef grading system has no breed specifications.

To qualify, cattle must have been produced under stipulated management and animal welfare conditions (Australian equivalent to Farm Assurance), and be within specifications for weight, dentition and fat depth. Failure to hit all the ‘specs’ results in a hefty drop in price per kg.

Aberdeen Angus steers on the Orkney island of Papa Westray.

With eating quality the focus, qualifying carcasses are assessed for eye muscle area, ossification (cartilage to bone in vertebrae), marbling, meat and fat colour, rib fat depth and meat pH level.

The beef is then graded and labelled 3, 4 or 5 (best) Star, depending on its anticipated eating quality, with each cut labelled accordingly. This eating quality grade travels with the meat to the retail counter and restaurant menu.

How many British consumers consider if a particular piece of beef came from a carcass which graded E3L, R4H or some other permutation from the EUROP grid?

The premium earned by the better graded beef encourages Australian cattle farmers to aim for 5 Stars, consequently helping lift the overall quality of the nation’s beef.

Beef grading study

The last word goes to Donald MacPherson, who runs meat business Well Hung and Tender from his Berwickshire farm. He used his 2002 Nuffield Scholarship to study eating quality and beef grading in America and Australia.

His main conclusion was stark: “Industry leaders and government departments in the US and Australia have grasped the concept: Improve Eating Quality – Improve Consumption – Improve Returns.”

Luing at 1,700 feet near Troutbeck in the Cumbrian Fells.

TRADE DEAL RELEVANCE

Despite whatever trade deals Team Boris achieve, Britain needs to tap into lucrative overseas beef markets while at least retaining market share in Britain, particularly as it seems that trade deals with the likes of North America and Australasia will see their eating quality graded and labelled beef arriving in British meat processors, retailers and restaurants. So, which label will appeal most to British consumers – a Red Tractor, 5 Stars for eating quality, or something new….?

NZ FIVE STAR SYSTEM

Grain finishing in a country where livestock farming is almost entirely pastoral forced changes on the farmers involved. Every week, around 750 finished cattle head from Five Star to the abattoir. Maintenance of consistent outflow of correctly finished cattle demands constant inflow of the right type of cattle. This has generated a variety of producer contracts, offering budgeting confidence and protection against market fluctuations. One option sees Five Star supplying growing cattle to farmers who are paid per kg of weight gain up to a specified weight, with additional weekly payment during winter. Another approach involves farmers buying their own suckled calves/store cattle, for growing on, contracting them to Five Star for a preagreed price per kg.