Perspectives On Traceability And Bse Testing In The U.S. Beef Industry

by DeeVon Bailey, James Robb, and Logan Checketts

The discoveries of a dairy cow in the state of Washington in December 2003 and a beef cow in Texas in June 2005, both infected with BSE, essentially removed any doubt that a better tracking method for animals and meat needs to be implemented in the United States. These tracking methods are often referred to as traceability. However, an important consideration evolving out of the pressure placed on the United States to develop some type of animal and meat traceability system is how to address consumer concerns about food safety related to BSE effectively without drastically disrupting the current domestic meat production and processing system. This article describes why farm-to-fork traceability is a difficult and costly task in modern, high-volume beef packing plants and also provides some insights based on survey data about consumer preferences for different tracking and testing methods to address food safety concerns relative to BSE.

The Emergence of a Two-Step Traceability Process in the United States

The dominant existing model for traceability is in the European Union (EU) and calls for farm-to-fork (linear) traceability systems for meat and other food items; a system many in the American food business currently consider either too costly to implement in the U.S. system or not justified by "sound science." For example, USDA estimates that implementing just farm-to-slaughter traceability for all program species would cost approximately $500 million over six years. Sparks Companies Inc. estimated that the initial capital investment required to implement a farm-to-fork system just for cattle in the United States would be approximately $140 million with an additional annual variable cost of about $108 million. Farm Foundation (2004) reports that American food firms would prefer a market rather than a regulated (such as in the EU) solution for traceability. Consequently, concerns about costs and flexibility appear to indicate that a model different than the EU's needs to be developed in the United States to address consumer concerns about food safety related to BSE while being cost effective.

The U.S. animal and meat tracking system is currently developing as a two-step process. The first step of this process is the eventual implementation of an animal identification system from farm to slaughter called the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). NAIS may be phased in as a mandatory system and full implementation is scheduled for 2009. The second step of the process would then have meat being tracked after it leaves the packing plant. This two-step approach creates a "break" in traceability at the processing plant.

Technical Challenges Associated with Linear Traceability for Beef

Robb and Rosa (2004) explain why a break in a two-step process would exist and also discuss some of the technical difficulties associated with a farm-to-fork beef traceability system in the United States. When beef packing moved from selling whole carcasses to selling cuts derived from primal cuts, the link between the identity of the animal(s) and beef cuts was broken. Transforming cattle into beef is a disassembly process. That is, rather than assembling inputs into a final product as is done in most manufacturing processes, an animal entering a processing plant is broken down into many parts or cuts and these parts are then reassembled with the same or similar cuts from other animals and then typically placed in a box for shipment. Modern packing plants are complex incorporating skilled labor, mechanization, and government oversight at all production stages. The major stages involved in beef processing at a packing plant are illustrated in Figure 1. Cattle ready for slaughter typically are purchased from feedlot operators and then shipped to the processing plant. Stage 1 at the processing plant involves slaughtering the animal as it enters the plant (Figure 1). The internal organs and hide are then removed from the animal and the carcass is split in two. These two halves are left hanging on hooks that are part of a trolley system that moves through the plant. In Stage 2, the carcass temperature is reduced and the carcass is stored in the plant's cooler. This is also the stage in which carcass grading typically takes place (Figure 1). In many cases, sorting in the cooler (Stage 2) results in batches of like carcasses (e.g., size and grade) to be subsequently processed as a group or "batch." As a result of BSE- induced regulations in the U.S., segregation of carcass groups may also be done based on animal age.

Stage 3 of the processing operation is the fabrication stage. The representation of Stage 3 in Figure 1 is a simplification, but understanding Stage 3 is important because it is essentially a "batch process." This means that groups of inputs such as carcasses or parts of carcasses enter the process separately but similar parts of the different carcasses leave in groups at the end of the stage. In Stage 3, the carcass leaves the cooler and is reduced into large primals (typically quarters of the carcass). During fabrication, parts of the carcass move in different directions in the plant while being further cut, trimmed, and sized. Many different butchers work on the different cuts and parts of the carcass as it moves through the fabrication stage of the production process. At each cutting stage of the fabrication process trim is collected from different carcasses. The fabrication process involves preparing the meat to meet customer specifications such as cut, size, grade, and other special requirements. USDA's Institutional Meat Purchase Specification (commonly called the IMPS code) indicates that there are approximately 30 beef products just from the loin, each with four standard weight ranges and 20 "portion cuts." This describes how many different cuts and specifications might be dealt with in the fabrication stage. The final stage in a typical U.S. packing plant (Stage 4 in Figure 1) involves moving boxes of cuts to coolers to await transportation to customers.

Figure 1 illustrates that the breakdown in linear traceability between the animal's carcass and the beef exiting the processing plant is in the fabrication stage. Tracking within processing plants can be accomplished to the carcass cooling stage relatively easily if technology is invested in to connect animal ID information to a microchip embedded in the hook carrying the carcass through the plant on its trolley system. Tracking meat once it is in the box, to the end user is also relatively easy using bar coding on boxes or some other type of identification method.

Farm-to-fork traceability assumes