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Benefits for a Changing Beef Industry

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Where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how we’re going to get there . . . Throughout history, cattlemen have made use of the latest technologies and techniques available to help them be profitable and secure their operation’s future. Back in the Trail Driving Days after the end of the War Between the States, it was the chuck wagon, the western saddle, the lariat, and the six shooter. When the Great Ranches of the West were being established throughout the late 1800’s, it was barbed wire, the windmill, and new breeding stock. During the Rise of the Cattle Feeding Industry in the 1960’ and 70’s, it was new hybrid grains, large-scale crop irrigation, and later, computers. But today as we enter a new millennium, the tools are changing once again as the industry changes once again. Today’s beef industry faces many great challenges with loss of market share to other proteins, changing consumer demands, fluctuating markets, and other factors. So the industry is moving into what might be called the New Beef Quality Era. In the New Beef Quality Era, the industry paradigm is shifting as the old commodity-oriented, total quantity approach of beef production is discarded favor of a value-based, total quality approach in which each individual unit of production, in this case an individual animal, is managed to specific ends that are designed to satisfy con- sumer desires as reflected in the economic signals passed up the production chain. The new techniques are individual animal management, objective measurement and sorting, multi-segment coordination, and continuous improvement. The new tools are technologies like ultrasound, video imaging, and electronic identification. With 130 year-old roots in the cattle business, the founders of Micro Beef Technologies know the importance of innovation in changing times. That spirit is shared throughout the organization and it feeds the creativity that has produced so many technologies throughout the company’s 33-year history.

Micro Beef Technologies has introduced a number of unique, patented management systems for the beef industry since its founding in 1971. And today, Micro Beef has a tool – a proven tool with an impressive track record – that’s revolutionizing the way the beef industry does business.

That tool is the ACCU-TRAC® Electronic Cattle Management System or ECM® as it has come to be known. Not only does ECM build value and add profits up and down the beef supply chain, it also gives today’s demanding consumer a higher-quality, more consistent, wholesome beef product.

The ECM® system is bringing real value to people in all parts of the beef industry:

• ECM® helps producers improve their herds with individual animal data and increase profits by marketing cattle at their optimum end points.
• ECM® helps feedyards attract more customers, keep pens full, and manage individual cattle to their maximum potential.
• With ECM®, packing plants run more efficiently, and beef can be marketed sooner since cattle inventory is classified before slaughter.
• Retailers receive more uniform beef in predictable volume and increased meat case yield.
• And consumers enjoy a higher quality, wholesome beef product.

ECM® builds value at every level of beef production, which helps the industry regain market share from the other meats. Profits increase, and that’s good for the beef industry as a whole.

Yes, the industry has seen a lot of changes in its history from the Trail Driving Days through the Great Ranching Era to the Rise of the Cattle Feeding Industry and on down to today. But one thing has always remained constant -- the Pioneering Spirit of Innovation. It’s in that same spirit that Micro Beef developed the ECM® system.

And although today’s challenges are tough, the pioneers of the past faced obstacles just as daunting as those we face today and overcame them. And with new technologies, techniques, and partners in innovation, just like them, we can do the same.

It’s been said that the six shooter, barbed wire, and the windmill won the Old West. Maybe years from now, historians will look back at this time -- our time, the dawn of the New Beef Quality Era -- and say that Electronic Cattle Management won back the consumer dollar for the beef industry.

And that means it’s an exciting time to be in the beef business!