- I'm Lavern Georgson the UW Extension agriculture agent
for Jefferson county.
It's my pleasure to introduce John Freitag to you
for the next segment.
John is a beef producer from New Glarus
and he has worked in farm management, farm sales,
egg finance, organization development
and has a broad spectrum of experience.
That he is able to contribute to Wisconsin agriculture.
He has, currently working with the Wisconsin Beef Council
and promoting beef for Wisconsin producers.
And the Beef Council helps to bridge the gap between
the consumer and the producer
by helping promote the producers product,
while they are busy producing it and raising the beef.
In addition to his job at the Beef Council,
John works and serves with
the Wisconsin Beef Improvement Association,
as their executive director,
and helps manage the bull sale,
which is being organized at UW Platteville Pioneer farm
as we speak.
So with that, John Freitag.
- Thank you, Lavern.
Well, I'm happy to be here today as well,
I enjoyed Wanda's comments very much so.
And I'm probably going to reiterate some of the things
that she said,
but it is really important that we talk to the consumer
and they understand what we are doing.
First before I really get started,
I know that some of you are BQA certified,
some of you may be BQA certified in the future,
and I'm just want to bring a little bit of an update
of what happened at the BQA training session that
we had back in early February.
Just a couple of comments about those.
Our main goal for our next session is
we need to increase ways to certify and verify BQA.
You know we spend a lot of time going to meetings
and just having a booth,
and talking about beef quality assurance,
but now things are changing.
And what we want and need is documentation for the consumers
so that they know that we are trying to improve our product
and that we are doing things right.
Our customers, Walmart, Costco, McDonald's and many others,
those are just three that come to mind, they're pressing
the packers really hard to trying to get us to verify
that we are producing our products in different ways.
The consumer is asking them
"How is this product being produced?
Can you prove it to me?".
And so we'll see
an assessment process taking place
first in the feeder end of it.
We know that 95% of all of the large feeder lots
across the country are already BQA certified.
Our job is try to get beef producers,
cow calf guy, the backgrounders,
those people involved in beef quality assurance.
But they will start with the assessments,
the feedlot assessments,
and trying to verify what the actual feed yards are doing.
I'm sure some of you have heard about the FARM program
and they are changing their format.
They updated every three years or so.
And they are going
to incorporate beef quality assurance training
in to the FARM program.
This is a big plus for us,
version 3, as it is used,
will be much more
educational for the producer
about beef quality assurance
and dairy-beef quality assurance.
And for those of us, who have worked on it,
for five, six years
trying to get it incorporated,
this is a big positive for us.
The next issue, one of the next issues,
that they are going to be keying on
is transportation issue.
They are going to be looking at semi-trailers
and stock trailers.
Tail docking is going to be a thing of the past.
Some form of animal ID is gonna be in your future.
We don't know what type of animal ID
and what kind of identification,
but everybody that is involved in the beef quality assurance
planning session feels that it needs to be
something that happens
because it helps us document to the consumer
that we are doing the right thing.
And last tell me your story.
Just like Wanda was saying, we need to emphasize
to the consumer that we are committed to producing
a safe and wholesome product.
So, I'm gonna just talk about
beef quality assurance a little bit,
and when I say beef quality assurance
I am talking about all types of animals
dairy and beef,
and, even to certain extent, veal.
So if I reference BQA,
I'm talking about everybody,
I am not just talking about the beef industry.
The BQA is an evolving program.
Nowadays, we are,
we were talking about antibiotic resistance
in order to talk about injection site lesions.
Nowadays, we are talking about animal welfare.
We are talking about antimicrobial usage
and best management practices.
These are not new things,
we have been doing them every day
of our operating of our farms.
It's just that now we are going to start writing them down
and recording them,
so that we can document to the consumer
exactly what we are doing on our farms,
and then it gives them a better feeling of confidence,
that what we are doing and the food that we are producing
is safe.
In 1980, 25% of the Americans lived alone,
2010, 50% of the Americans lived alone.
What happened to the significant other?
Who replaced the significant other?
It was fluffy.
So now we got, as one Wanda said,
less than two percent
of our population in producing food in agriculture.
We got 60% of our population that has animals or pets
in their household.
So, when you or I when, or we start talking about
turning the bull out in the pastor,
they can't quite comprehend that
what we are thinking about is
we are gonna producing food in 15 months.
Maybe, it is going to be longer than that
depending on the type of production that we have.
But we are not 1500 pound lap dog.
They don't understand that.
So that's our challenge.
We believe that when we are
asked about production practices,
we as cattleman can point to the established program,
like BQA, to help document these practices
so that we get them done correctly,
and it is very important to the consumer, that documenting.
That we do things correctly.
If we are going to fight for market share,
and yes, we have to fight for market share,
I don't know if you have heard about chicken creep,
but that's been something that we have been
watching all along.
Chickens have jumped ahead of the beef supply
as per in capita per consumption.
But we better do everything right,
so that we can show the positive attributes
of our product with programs like BQA.
Why?
Because we are going to be asked questions,
core questions like "How do you care for your cattle?
How do you document it?".
It is about asking what kind of operation do we want to run.
We, as beef producers,
need to create a culture of standing up
and doing what's right.
Then we can and need to talk about it.
In my mind that starts with beef quality certification.
So, to build demand that is sustainable
for future generations.
That's the mission statement for
the Wisconsin Beef Council,
but I think it should be the mission statement of all
beef producers or anybody that's in agriculture.
If we don't produce what the consumer wants,
we are not gonna have a market for very long.
So in order to be sustainable,
we have to,
we have to ensure that every customer,
who purchases cattle or beef,
or by products, beef products,
as well as every consumer who eats beef
or beef products will be satisfied
with their purchase.
Ask the right question.
Each and every participant in the beef supply chain
needs to answer this question.
How do I, or we deliver, the best in world products
and services?
The Consumer Rules
our food business climate is one of impatient customers
and aggressive marketers.
We must become more customer-oriented.
So in order for you to better understand
our consumer and our customer,
I'm going to take some of the things that
our Beef Checkoff pays for
and talk about the Consumer Beef Index.
I'll show you a few slides, what the consumer tells us
they want from our beef products.
This Consumer Beef Index has been done for 15 years now,
we do it twice a year.
We interview a 1000 consumers
and we asked them some very
pointed questions,
and
we listen to what they say,
and then we try to build our programs around
what they are telling us.
So this is the importance
and performance
of some of these questions.
They were asked if it was extremely important,
very important,
do you agree completely or somewhat.
The first bar is the importance to the consumer.
Second bar is what do they think the beef measure up
to or how does it compare to what the consumer wants,
and the third bar is chicken performance.
Great! Great tasting!
Our product is great tasting.
That's probably the biggest demand driver
that the beef industry has
and we don't want to screw it up.
But 91% of the consumers are telling us
that they like our product,
it tastes great,
but poultries right there besides us.
You can go down the line,
I'm not going to talk about all of these,
but I'm gonna also circle in the ones
that in mind the beef quality assurance program can effect.
So it is great tasting, it is extremely safe to eat,
there are good results consistently,
and it's always tender.
Well, we started at 91%,
and Always Tender we are already down
to 68%,
is what the consumer thinks they want to have.
Our beef product is only 58% always tender
in their minds.
Where as poultry is 72%,
when you look at that chicken and poultry is ahead of us
in just about every, every area of performance.
There's some more.
There is actually 30 of these
and I highlighted about eight of them.
But our beef is from humanly raised animals,
antibiotics are used responsibly,
and animals are raised without hormones.
So a lot lower in their area of recognition
but it is still something that they have highlighted
and said is important to them.
And the last one there is two and they are not necessarily
BQA involved,
but I think you can relate some of the BQA education
and programming to those.
Animals are sustainably raised
and they have a low impact on our environment.
So this the top five most important factors to consumers.
Like I said, great tasting
is the first thing.
91%.
Is it a good value for our money?
86% of the consumers are looking for value
and 65% of them say that "Yes, it is good value for money."
Extremely safe to eat,
81% of our consumers want some type of guarantee,
I shouldn't say guarantee but recognition,
that we are concerned about producing a safe product.
Because they want the most safe product for their family.
Does it have good results consistently?
Consistent in what?
Tenderness?
Size?
There's lots of different things that fall into
whether our product is consistent.
We will talk about maybe how to get rid of some of the,
or increase the consistency of product,
and get rid some of our things
that are making us inconsistent.
The fifth one is that it fits a moderate budget,
food budget.
And the last five.
How to prepare well?
Does it, do you feel confident preparing it?
74% of our consumers think that they want
to have confidence in it,
but what we are finding is that the millennial generation
they don't know how to prepare our product.
So we have to do things to help them
better understand that in there are things,
but that isn't what this talk is about today.
Provides fuel or energy and fuel,
balance of taste and nutrition.
Zinc, iron and protein zip.
We got a great nutritional story to tell.
So then we also have some other research
the Consumer Image Index.
This is a second
consumer research project
that we have been doing
and it is
only done once a year,
instead of twice a year,
but it still was done with a 1000 consumers.
So what's important for the meat industry?
Continually improving food safety.
Safety, whether it's for the consumers look at it,
or the consumers looking at the actual product,
or looking at our industry,
is the second main food driver that we have got.
Animals have to have room to roam and exercise.
Lots of times they will see pictures of the herd
bunched up, and what do they think?
"Boy those guys don't have any places to roam and exercise,
or move around?
They don't realize that they are hurting animals
and they are hurting instinct."
Takes over.
So, are we continually improving animal care?
Wanda talked about, how her hog industry,
what they were doing when they first started farming,
and now, the way it is now,
and all of the changes that have been made.
We can document that if we can show the consumer
that we are improving our handling
and our operations through education
and other things like that.
That there are alright with it.
We don't have to just be a number one,
we can show them that we are improving our product
and the way we are handling our product.
They are good with that.
Are we producing products that are free of antibiotics?
Do we use antibiotics responsibly?
Feed animal diets with no GMO's.
So, how many of these actually can be affected
by the BQA program?
Quite a few of them.
So, what's important in the eyes of the consumer?
It is safe for my family.
The animal was cared for.
There is continuous improvement.
Food safety and handling practices.
Is our industry transparent?
And specific practices,
that we all do,
generally on every day basis,
that they don't understand our know about.
So, why do we conduct a national beef quality audits?
There's lots of reasons,
numerous reasons,
but the main reason is, we have to find
and build benchmarks,
so that we can show that we are making progress
or we are going back.
The areas we are working in were successful.
So that it could also document to the consumer
that we are doing things right.
The industry must identify its quality shortfalls
because one of those could result in its downfall
unless the root causes can be ferret out
so that the problems can be corrected.
Most of you probably don't remember back in the late 50s
and early 60s,
that the auto industry was king at the time.
They did what they thought the consumer wanted,
they had these big tank cars,
they had fuel guzzlers,
they were just big old tanks is what I called them,
and they thought they were producing the best.
The bigger, the better.
What happened?
The consumers said "I don't want something this big,
I want something that's more energy efficient."
Detroit didn't listen.
So what happened?
Here comes Volkswagen, and Toyota, and Honda.
Smaller cars, more energy efficient.
The auto industry did not listen to their consumers
and we know what happened to them.
Somebody came in and took their business.
We don't want that in our industry.
So why have we conduct a national beef quality audit
every five years,
since 1991?
Some of the reasons I just deluded to,
but we need to provide a meaningful set of guideposts
and measurements relative to the quality conformance
of the US beef supply.
So we did,
our audit was broken into four different segments.
One we interviewed all of the different segments.
We started with the cow calf and the seed stock producer,
we went to backgrounder,
we went to the feeder,
we went to the packer,
and then we went to retail and food service people
to find out just exactly what they thought
of our product.
We did cooler audits,
so that we can look at the carcasses
and see what some of the blemishes were,
and see some of the problems we found.
Bruising and how much actually
trimmed off the product.
So that, we could just document some of these things.
Then we surveyed producers
and lastly we had a strategy workshop,
where we took all the recommendations
and we tried to figure out,
what do we as a industry need to do to continue
to improve our product.
So these are some of the ranked quality challenges
and changes from 1991 to 2011.
You will look, the external fats, seem fat, palatability
tenderness, cutability, and marbling.
Those were the first issues that our industry really
faced up front.
But some of those issues are still back
in 95 and even in 2000.
It took us a while to start to get moment
and to start to move forward on these issues,
but once we did you will see that
we don't have
some of the same issues coming back in the next audit
and in the next audit.
We did a great job in trying to correct the things
that we were finding that we were inefficient in
or that we needed to improve in.
So to me that document that the BQA program
is doing its job.
Common quality concerns across the sectors,
food safety,
and eating satisfaction,
whether it is tenderness, flavor, taste.
Some of these were more important for packers,
retailers, and food servers,
and then maybe less important to the feeders.
But we know that each segment is depended upon the other,
and if one segment doesn't do their job,
it's gonna affect what happens in the next segment,
or next part of the chain in our beef production practices.
Other concerns expressed, cattle welfare,
how and what cattle are fed,
the origin of the product,
and hormone and antibiotic use.
What was not said or included in the audit?
These were some of things that we actually corrected
in 1991.
Injection site lesions, hide damage due to manure and mud.
Now that is not always true, because the last audit
that was done,
it was a really wet time
and mud
on the carcasses come back were pretty prominent
and one of the things that we found.
Hot iron brands.
Foreign market doesn't like brands
on their,
not carcasses, but the hides that they buy.
Because they are putting them into the cars
and they don't necessarily want a brand in their car seat.
Liver condemnations.
These are all things that were an issue early,
but they are almost non existent nowadays.
Major weakness.
We do a poor job telling our story.
I wish we had more Wanda's in Wisconsin.
We have got
lots of,
in my mind,
great people telling our story in the dairy industry.
We got some really good ones telling the beef story too,
but we don't have enough of you, we need more.
Consumer has little understanding
of the actual practices used
in cattle and meat production.
Much of their information comes form uninformed sources.
Facebook, Twitter, all of these.
It is like Wanda said.
They would much sooner
believe and listen to what their neighbors are saying
or someone down the road,
then get the real story about the research
and the science behind what we are doing.
These are conclusions from Phase I.
Terminology needs to be standardized, so we can better
communicate with consumers.
We want, they want
to know more about the beef they consume
and where it comes form.
Retailers, food servers,
and packers are under pressure to ensure
that animals have been raised humanely.
I alluded to it a little bit earlier,
but if we start doing some of this document
in our BQA program,
we can use that to prove to the consumer
that we are doing things the right way.
And continuous improvement
in food safety, eating satisfaction
must be an industry wide focus
for enhancing the quality of beef.
There are a few things that we found out
when we talked to producers that or may be a little bit
disconcerting.
More than 25 said that they would use medications
other than directed on a drug label
without being directed by a veterinarian.
4.2%, that's not a lot of our producers,
but that's enough to give us a black eye
or our industry a black eye,
we need to be more down on that.
Never
part than we do on a always frequency.
Withdrawal times.
The use of written records
to track withdrawal times.
Only 46.7% of us
write down
what, when, or what the withdrawal time should be
and is.
Usually 26%, never 11%, almost 12%.
We need to change those things.
Product integrity.
How do we maintain or keep the integrity in our product?
We need assure clear communication that enhances the trust
and increases the value throughout the chain.
How do we do that?
We have to talk all the way up the line
through all the different segments.
We can't just be focused
and concerned about our specific segment,
whether it's cow calf
or maybe it is the feeder.
We have to be talking and seeing what is happening
going all across the country,
and this will improve our supply chain
and strengthen,
and give us increase trust and value in our product.
So, how do we influence consumer confidence?
Food safety.
How and where the cattle were raised?
Are they on a factory farm, family farm?
You ask when we go out and we are doing demos in the stores,
people say "Well, I don't want that.
That's from a factory farm.",
and you ask them what a factory farm is,
and I bet I can ask this whole audience
what a factory farm is,
and we get lots and lots of different answers.
They don't really know what a factory farm is.
They think they know
because somebody said something about it.
But we need to tell them where
and how our cattle were raised.
It might be organic,
maybe it is grass fed,
maybe it is green fed.
They need to know that.
Once they know that, they are pretty happy with it.
Why do we see more producers doing a private treaty sales
of their beef?
The consumer has a chance to interact with that producer
and say "Oh, I trust you now.
I know where it is coming from.
I have seen the farm or at least I have met the individual
that's producing the product.".
Animal health care, handling and well being.
BQA is important in protecting our product integrity.
Eating satisfaction.
These are factors that influence our eating satisfaction.
Our flavor profile, tenderness, and juiciness.
I would actually put tenderness at the top
and then I would have juiciness,
then I would talk about the flavor profile.
But our consumers are changing dramatically.
How many Hispanics do we have now in our consumer public?
That number is increasing
very, very rapidly.
What we also have Asians,
and we have other people coming in
and emigrating into our country,
and they want a flavor profile that they are used to,
but they still want to eat beef.
So we have to be conscious of that
and have to provide those different products,
and we have to think about it.
Factors that affect palatability.
Use of growth promoting technologies.
I know that some of our
growth promotants are more harsh to the animal
than others.
So, how we change that and adapt that so that we have more
tender carcass when it comes times to send it
to the processing plant?
Genetics.
Some people have said "You know if we would close down
our genetic input, we could really, really lock in
on producing a quality product."
We have to get rid of the outliers, obviously,
but I don't think we want to close our genetic base
so much that we don't have some variability.
We need to have variability.
Handling.
How do you handle your animals?
Are they quite when you load them?
And then they go to the packing plant.
Have they had a good ride to the packing plant.
Often times those of us in the dairy industry,
we kind of forget that the packing plant isn't right
where the auction market is.
It might be three, four hours down the road.
We need to think about that,
so that, that animal
can make it to the packing plant
and give us payday,
when it comes time to getting paid for.
And health practices.
What kind of health practices do we do
and do we document them?
Consumer, if we can document what we are doing,
the consumer has much more confidence
in our product than not.
So top priorities for food safety and animal health.
Implement and effect
an effective animal information-sharing system.
Are we gonna get to an animal ID program?
I think the way it sounds,
we are getting a lot closer than what we thought we were
a couple years ago.
I am not saying that is going to be specific animal ID,
but there's gonna be some ways that we can
tell the consumer where this product is coming from
and gives them more confidence in our product.
Need to develop, effective full supply chain safety
interventions.
Increase our focus on E. coli and Salmonella.
Some of the research being done with Checkoff dollars now.
E. coli yes, not as much, but Salmonella has just jumped
right to the forefront.
Need to implement BQA and demonstrate conformance
through written records.
Talked about that earlier.
Continues improved health of calves.
Yes, I'm connected with the bull test station
and we know that if that animal gets sick at
the bull test station.
Couple reasons, it probably isn't going make the sale,
or it isn't going to index very high in that area,
because it loses weight or it,
when it is not feeling well, until it gets back on its feet
it is not gaining as well as the animals that were healthy.
What we also know that,
if an animal gets sick in your feed lot,
you very probably use lose one quality grade
when it comes time to market that animal.
We really need to keep them as healthy as we can,
whether it is a baby calf that we are buying
to feed out.
Take it all the way to very beginning.
The person that has that calf or the farm that has the calf
needs to get it started properly
and then, when he just continue that health practices
all the way through.
And we need to encourage dairy
and veterinarian BQA engagement.
Now, this is a national outlook.
In Wisconsin I think I could say very positively
that the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association
has really brought this to the forefront
with their Food Armor program.
They are doing a really great job, in my estimation,
of trying to connect the veterinarian to the farm
and developing protocols,
so that if the owner isn't there
or the manager isn't there and something happens
people that are working on the farm have a set of guidelines
that they need to follow for that particular instance
to help make that animal healthy and get it back
in to production as fast as possibly can.
Telling our industry story,
we talked about it.
Beef Quality Assurance is an industry success story.
We started out in
the early 80's,
while we had lots of injection site issues
and we know that that makes our product
less tender.
We have changed that.
The beef industry was kind of
where the dairy industry is now,
and we improved that and gotten.
Make great strides, let's just put it that way.
And the dairy industry is coming along,
I think, really well in our state,
but if you look at some of the other websites
there is other states that haven't quite got word yet,
as far as I'm concerned.
Animal welfare has always been the top priority
for cattlemen.
We have to reiterate that to our consumer.
Once they know that we are concerned about it
and we're doing everything that we can
they have much more confidence in us.
There is a terrific story when it comes to food safety,
flavor, and tenderness.
Science is only a part of our story.
Most important things is,
we need to authentic, we need to be honest,
and we need to be transparent.
Here are some of the shortcomings
that we have in our industry yet.
We need to increase the use of written protocols,
we need to balance the needs of all industry segments.
I will go back to it,
whether you do in your segment of the production chain
affects everybody above you.
Maybe doesn't affect the one below you,
but we are all interconnect.
We have to improve our BQA practices with dairy beef.
I think Wisconsin is on the right road.
We need to reduce our carcass inconsistencies.
So let's say that you are a chef
in Milwaukee's,
might be at the Pfister hotel
or one of the, maybe it is part of (mumble)
and you got 1500 people for a special banquet that night.
And there are going to have rib-eye steaks,
as their main entree.
You got some rib-eyes that are 10 square inches,
you got some that are 12,
and you got some that are 14.
The customer says that I want an 8 ounce cut of beef.
How does that chef
cook all those steaks, to satisfy the consumer,
when they are varying that much in size?
Because if you got a 14 inch rib-eye
and you want 8 ounces,
it's going to be a whole lot thinner
than that 10 inch rib-eye
that's...
We don't think of those things,
but to them it is really important.
If we want to continue to have demand for our product,
we have to cut down some of the inconsistencies
of our product.
Needs to be more tender.
Some of the things that we are doing don't influence
tenderness.
We have to monitor emerging pathogen issues.
Checkoff is doing that for you,
because we are doing a lot of research on Salmonella now.
And poor story telling.
Here are some of the strengths of US beef industry
and look at what is
the same for the different segments
of our industry,
whether it is retail, food service,
packers, feeders,
and, yes, even the government is a partner, I guess.
Food safety, food safety.
Taste.
Promoting our industry.
Product quality.
Food safety, food safety.
These are all things that we can document to the consumer
with our BQA program that we are doing.
Weaknesses?
Well,
we're not telling our story.
Food safety,
some of the same things that are our strengthens
in some peoples mind.
It's changing depending upon what segment of our industry
that you are part of.
Food safety
and eating satisfaction were important across the board.
A clear sign that these beef attributes are fundamental
demand drivers.
Taste, safety, and consistency are our most important
demand drivers.
All things that the BQA training and education can affect.
If consumers have a bad eating experience,
we know their interest in future purchases of our product
goes down.
We need to get rid of the outliers,
who will help us improve the consistency of our product.
By doing the best job that we can in raising our animals
we improve the taste and minimize the safety concerns
of our consumers.
What is important to the consumers
in the areas of cattle production?
Safety practices, animal care,
responsible use of antibiotics,
and transparency all can be addressed
through the BQA program.
By being bale to verity
to our retailers and food service partners
that our industry is doing the right things.
This helps to keep them by giving us directives
on how to raise our product.
It also gives us the documentation that consumers want,
so that they can feel good about
the food that they are eating
and they keep coming back for more.
Each segment in the production chain
is depended upon the other doing their job.
Are you doing your part?
So, are there any questions?
(applause)