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James Henderson is general manager of B3R Country Meats Inc., Childress, Texas, a privately owned packing facility and branded beef program. He received his bachelor’s degree in animal science from Texas A&M University and served as coach of the meats-judging team for Texas Tech University in the late 1970s. His more than 23 years of experience in the meat industry include serving as president of the Southwest Meat Association and a member of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association regulatory and legislative affairs committee. Henderson played a large role in B3R Country Meats’ supplying product for the Texas State Society’s Black Tie and Boots inaugural dinner for President George W. Bush.
Information is the lifeblood of almost any business or association. Without information that is meaningful, we have little opportunity to express features and benefits of things we want to buy or sell. As our technology has allowed us to advance, we have developed many new techniques to measure and evaluate almost anything.
In the cattle business, the first things we began to measure were those traits that related to performance. Very quickly, most progressive seedstock producers learned to measure performance traits and to use the best of those measurements to promote their particular genetics. However, the flow of information from the consumer was left out of the equation in just measuring performance traits. Large breeds began to take precedence over all other breed traits, and the consumer’s preference for good-tasting, tender beef was ignored.
Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) was the first branded beef program to recognize that consumer-preferred traits could be measured and marketed to the consumers. When CAB created a demand for measuring consumer traits and getting that information to flow back to the producer level by increasing the prices paid for cattle with Angus genetics, things began to change.
Almost overnight, the demand for Angus bulls began to increase. The American Angus Association became the largest registered breed of cattle in the United States, and most other breeds tried to emulate the success of the CAB program. However, now things were more complicated because both performance traits and consumer traits had to be measured.
Demand equals value
When we measure traits, the next question is usually “What does it mean?” When we began to measure performance traits, we spent most of the time looking at the economic implications of the production process. If we had higher weaning weights and produced more pounds of beef per acre, we improved our return on investment. If cattle were more efficient at converting feed to pounds of red meat, we improved our return on investment.
When we began to measure consumer-oriented traits, we learned that the demand for taste and tenderness could be translated to value of production. If we could produce the same number of pounds per acre and increase the demand for those pounds, we could increase our return on investment.
CAB set the first criterion for measurements to predict consumer value. Increased marbling requirements sent the industry in search of genetics that would consistently produce product that was in demand. Many programs that have followed CAB in the attempt to understand consumers measure the traits that are important in consumer value and transfer that information to those who are making the production decisions that have caused many changes to occur.

Put it to good use
After learning more about the traits that are measured to improve performance and consumer appeal, we are usually left with the question “How do you use it?” It is one thing to learn about traits of economic importance and another to use those traits to improve economic return. Our ability to evaluate more than one trait or one type of trait and determine how to use those different traits in combination has proven to be frustrating and sometimes complicated.
What is more important — performance or consumer preferences? Can you find both in the same animal? What is the value of these traits separately and in combination? Do some of the traits that consumers find preferable translate into traits that are economically important in production?
These questions tell us that this is the phase in which we currently are. The most important thing that will happen to the beef industry in the next five years will be the lessons we will learn about how to use the information that we are currently gathering about our herds and our breeds.

Fertility, longevity
I think that we will learn from the data we have generated that performance and consumer traits are not separate. The traits that generate the most consumer acceptance are those that also generate the highest return on investment.
After all of the thousands of head of cattle data that I have reviewed over the last 10 years, I still have not seen anything that will return more money to a cattle producer than fertility. It is interesting that, as I look at herds of cattle that are highly fertile, they are also high in marbling genetics.
Longevity is the second thing that makes cattle producers money. If you do not have to replace a cow for a year or two longer than your neighbor does, your costs will be lower. It is also interesting that cattle with the longest productive life spans are also those that are high in marbling genetics. These cattle can withstand the stresses of weather and remain in production and reduce the cost of operation.
Lines of communication
If we know these things, how do we get the information, and how do we use it? There are many ways to gather information today. We have expected progeny differences (EPDs), electronic ear tags, ultrasound, alliances and others. However, it is up to each one of us individually to get with those with whom we do business up and down the line and to develop those lines of communication.
We also must learn how to use the information that is gathered and how to transfer that information to others so that improvement and increased value will develop. The industry will not do those things for us; it is our responsibility to join with others and to get the process done for ourselves. The knowledge and the information will make the returns increase, and the rewards will be evident.

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