001061 Ranchers Launch Designer Beef Labels

Island City, OR - After the steaks and beans were gone and the ice cream bars were being passed around at the annual barbecue at Intermountain Livestock's stockyards, the talk turned to a new idea moving through the Old West.

Oregon Cattlemen's Association President John Hays has been putting together a plan to market a branded product - as in brand name, not branding iron - called Oregon Trail Beef.

Starting around the first of the new year, Hays hopes shoppers who might typically choose the Calvin Klein label over less expensive jeans will do the same when they lean over the beef case at their local supermarket. The idea is to create appealing designer beef labels that also will beef up the wallets of the ranchers wearing the Wrangler jeans.

"The buyer gets a commission, the feeder gets a commission, the trucker gets a commission," Hays said. "It's gotten to the point the cow-calf operator was out of the equation. We figured there's got to be a better way to do this."

While brand names started showing up on precut packages of chicken parts in the poultry section of grocery stores in the 1960s and 1970s, most beef still goes to market as a true commodity, where one piece of meat is treated like another.

Hard numbers are elusive, but Hays estimates that about 4% to 8% of the beef sold in the U.S. now is under a brand name - Certified Angus Beef, Laura's Lean, and Oregon Country Beef, to name a few. It's a growth trend that should double next year, said Mark Thomas of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"The category is still very, very young, but it clearly is the direction the industry is going," Thomas said.

With its large cuts, long preparation time, and higher fat content, beef began losing market share to chicken as American families got smaller, more women joined the workplace and people became more health-oriented, said Thomas.

But that is changing as producers offer lower-fat cuts and companies like Harris Ranch Beef and IBP Inc. offer precooked entrees, such as pot roast and steaks, that budget-conscious or time-pressed families can warm up in the microwave.

The trend toward designer beef labels will result in fewer cattle breeds being raised commercially, as ranchers are forced to produce a more uniform carcass, said Harlan Hughes, a livestock economist from North Dakota State University.

Oregon Trail Beef is demanding ranchers raise cattle that are a Hereford-Angus cross, and that they handle their cattle more carefully so the meat isn't damaged.

Each calf will carry a button-sized ear tag with a computer chip storing information such as the calf's birth mother, sire, vaccinations, weaning weight, number of days spent fattening up in the feed lot and slaughter weight.

The idea behind brand-name beef isn't completely new.

When Doc and Connie Hatfield and their neighbors started Oregon Country Beef in 1986, for example, there already were some 100 brand names in existence. It was a time of ranchers trying to stay afloat amid historically low beef prices.

The Hatfields survived by survived by finding a niche. Theirs was to promote beef as raised on the range with "graze-well" practices - those considered environmentally friendly, and that produce fat without growth hormones, antibiotics or animal proteins.

Now, the trend toward beef labels is entering the designer phase.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com