MAPLE CREEK, Sask. – An audit at several Canadian packing plants has found fewer bruised beef carcasses but more with major bruises.
Preliminary results of the 1998-99 Beef Quality Audit were released at the annual Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association convention here last week.
The audit was conducted under the beef industry’s Quality Starts Here program, and is a follow-up to one conducted in 1995-96, said Rob McNab, of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
“Overall, it’s favorable,” said Joyce Van Donkersgoed, the CCA consultant who led the audit.
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But a shift from minor to major bruises, and results in some other areas, concern her.
Bruises are defined as minor if they require 0.1 pounds of trim. Major bruises require almost half a pound and critical require three lb.
“There are less critical bruises, which is good,” she said, but she can’t explain why the middle category increased.
“You can measure the difference but you don’t know why,” she said.
The number of carcasses without bruises increased from six to 21 percent in cows, 25 to 52 percent in heifers and 21 to 50 percent in steers.
At the other end of the scale, the number of carcasses with more than four bruises dropped from 39 percent to 10 in cows, nine to two in heifers and 10 to two in steers.
Van Donkersgoed credits the improvements to better education efforts by the industry, including packers and truckers.
The audit also found:
- Carcass weights went up, attributed to low prices and cheap feed.
“From a retailer perspective, they don’t like that,” said Van Donkersgoed. “From a cost perspective, it depends how much the packers discount.”
Ribeye weights went up correspondingly, but retailers want smaller steaks, she said.
- Injection site lesions went down, but 14 percent are in the top butts. “That’s still way too high,” said Van Donkersgoed.
- There were more AAA grades, but also more external fat.
- There were more cattle with tag, brands and multiple brands.
Cost to producers
Van Donkersgoed said it will be several weeks until the economic analysis is completed, and that may give producers more reason to be concerned.
She said a food safety survey two years ago concluded that because Canada hasn’t faced any major “wrecks” like the mad cow disease scare in Britain, the push for change isn’t as strong.
“It doesn’t hit the individual producer in his pocketbook,” she said of some audit results. “There needs to be some economic reason. The feedlot industry has been responsive to (education efforts), but we’ve got a long way to go with the cow-calf industry.”
Van Donkersgoed said some producers want to do things properly but few individuals could, for example, justify the cost of a hydraulic chute.
McNab added, “In my opinion Saskatchewan is second to no other province in this country … in implementing and carrying the message of Quality Starts Here.”
Van Donkersgoed said the advent of the national identification system, scheduled to be in place Dec. 31, 2000, may help by providing more information and traceback capability.
