Is beef still king?

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 14

Is beef still king?

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

in San Francisco

Is beef still “king of the American table”? Cattlemen and beef merchants twitch a bit at the question. They are wondering whether a profound shift is occurring in the popularity of what have traditionally been the symbols of hearty eating — steaks/ roasts and stews.' The causes of their jangled nerves also affect the traders who ship New Zealand. Irish or Australian beef to America, where the annual consumption of beef — about 36 kg per capita — is high, but is falling. Beef prices are lagging behind the inflation which affects most foods. The people who watch the beef market with concern and close attention say

the American appetite for beef may be undergoing some lasting changes. There is even some indication that other meats, notably pork and poultry, are losing ground. The per capita consumption of beef, veal, sheepmeat and pork is below that of ten years ago. Chicken and turkey have moved up. Some of the causes are apparent • in the beef industry; some can be deduced. The hazards of cholesterol in the diet have been reiterated to a generation of Americans with telling effect; the consumer is turning increasingly to leaner meats, fish and poultry. Price is a powerful factor. Choice cuts from grain-fattened ani-

mals are more expensive to prpduce as beef, than as pork or poultry. Pigs and chickens are more efficient converters of* protein. In a curious way, heightened American interest in “gourmet” dishes may be depressing the market for beef, long regarded as the choice of gourmets. Ms Jane Anderson, manager of the California Beef Council, says there is growing belief that it is stylish nowadays to depart from conventional meat dishes, to offer pastas and other foods with little or no meat content. “Price is the first factor, however,” she said. “But taste is a positive one.” The beef industry seeks an answer to the question, “When does price turn off taste?" A salesman for New Zealand beef said in San Francisco recently, “There has been a big change in our industry.” He noted that more lean cattle are being sent to slaughter, in part because of the customer acceptance of lower fat content and in part because growers and feeders want to avoid high grain costs and the tie-up of money borrowed at high interest.

Many cattlemen would like to see alteration or abolition of the grading system which makes marbling (the flecks of fat within the flesh) the paramount measure of beef quality. Some consumer organisations attack such proposals as deception. A farm analyst in California wrote recently: “If the red meat industry is to survive and be competitive with other industries such as poultry and pork, changes in the present grading standards must be made to more accurately reflect consumer preference.”

Ms Anderson thinks the decline of beef can be reversed. Her council joined with other state beef councils in- Denver on October 29 to hear the proposal of a lage San Francisco advertising agency for a newspaper, television. and point-of-purchase campaign to turn beef demand up. “We think beef still can be king of the table,” she said.-One of the beef councils problems is whether the king’s countinghouse can come up with the funds for the campaign. “We need $7 million,” she estimated. ?