Understanding and Improving Beef Cattle Carcass Quality

Interest and questions about the quality of beef are on the rise due to heightened awareness about the marketing of beef, from procurement and processing to consumer acceptance. Belatedly, producers are now beginning to receive information about the quality of the beef they produce. Consolidations among beef marketers have resulted in better communication between marketers and producers on carcass quality. Other changes have resulted in monetary incentives for improving beef quality. New marketing structures such as vertical integration and value-based marketing provide direct financial rewards to cow-calf producers who offer more desirable carcasses. With more emphasis on the beef product and carcass information more readily available, carcass attributes are figuring more and more into the cow-calf manager’s decision-making process and yielding financial rewards. The goals of this publication are to help producers understand carcass information: what it means and how producers can use it to improve beef quality.