Oklahoma Farm Report’s Ron Hays talked with the CAB’s Director of Producer Engagement, Kara Lee, about the Ranch to Table program, which allows producers to sell products directly to consumers and businesses with the Certified Angus Beef ® brand logo on their packaging, so the consumer can rest assured they’re getting the highest quality beef straight from the source.
The program has been running for a little over a year, but it started with producer demand. Prior to its introduction, all CAB stamped beef was sold through a licensed packer with a USDA grader evaluating each animal for the ten requirements of CAB.
“Today, as we see more and more producers taking more hands-on, direct-to-consumer beef merchandising roles, we began to see a lot more demand from within the membership of the American Angus Association to have more access to CAB branding when working with custom processors,” Lee explained.
As an organization that believes in sustainability across the board, CAB found a way to make it happen. Currently, there are slightly more than twenty members actively engaged in Ranch to Table production.
“I would be remiss if I said the program wasn’t without its own hurdles,” Lee admitted. “We certainly know that you have to have some direct conversations with your processors in terms of what they are willing to work with you on because we do still require USDA grading.”
She said that many people involved in direct-to-consumer beef merchandising don’t realize that there is a difference between USDA inspection and USDA grading. This means that although a producer’s custom processor is USDA-inspected, it may not be using USDA grading.
“The inspection is paid for each April when you and I send in our tax dollars,” she said with a smile. “FSIS covers inspections, but USDA grading is an added fee that the processor incurs.”
She said that USDA has recently introduced a remote grading pilot project, and it has helped the Ranch to Table program take off. This option allows smaller processors to implement remote grading where they bring in a person from USDA to do an initial set up for them, then going forward, the processor can use an online portal to upload images of a carcass to be remotely graded by a USDA employee.
While there is still a fee for remote grading, previously, the processor was responsible for the time and expense of the USDA grader’s drive to and from the facility in addition to the time spent on site.
“It has been really cool to see this go from a producer-demand program to a consumer-demand program when we start to see some of our end-users say they have always believed in the quality of Certified Angus Beef, but now they are in a position to have access to it from a local perspective. They can sell, not just a great product, but they can sell a great product with a more robust local story. A lot of our end-users love that!”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
