SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. (Staff) – Larger beef carcasses are hard to sell, Saskatchewan stock growers were told at their annual convention last week.
Dave Worke, beef manager at Western Canadian Beef Packers in Moose Jaw, said the average carcass weighed 750 pounds in 1995, up 75 pounds from 1993.
Cuts from large carcasses are too big to sell on a per unit basis, he said, yet that is how the consumer buys meat.
“The consumer is influenced by the unit cost of pre-packaged items,” Worke said. “There are few city dwellers who can sit down and eat a one-pound steak … or families who can afford it.”
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He said the days when families bought 450 to 500 pound carcasses for freezer beef have virtually disappeared. This has made heavy beef difficult for retailers to sell.
“We have to get those 800 to 900 pound cattle out of the system.”
Ideally, Worke said packers would like to see consistent 625 to 700 pound carcasses. Equipment and job stations at packing plants “cease to become efficient when cattle weight exceeds functionability,” he added.
Worke said packers have only themselves to blame for the prevalence of heavy cattle. They asked for them.
“We were getting light, dumpy A2 to A3 type heifers and thicker steers,” he said. “We said you had to get the weights up.”
Producers addressed the problem, but “we triggered an over-reaction and got 800 to 900 pound cattle. We made the mistakes ourselves.
But Gary Jones, who ranches at Crane Valley, said there is no incentive to produce the animals packers want because there’s no premium for them.
“If the weights are coming down, it’s because it’s costing more to put the weight on.”
Worke said it is difficult to pay a premium when packers are competing for large numbers of cattle.
“We would love to pay someone for premium cattle but unfortunately all those premium cattle hit at the same time.”
