Meat+Poultry - March 2020 - 88

M E AT P E R S P E C T I V E S

Retail beef cuts have
changed through the
years as carcass weights
have increased.

MEAT+ POULTRY | 03.20 | www.meatpoultry.com

and custom locker orders, but the retail beef
case of today looks so much different than
it did decades ago. The move to even more
subprimal products has allowed for or maybe
even encouraged the increase in beef carcass
sizes and weights. A visit to any of the major
beef plants today reveals complex layouts of
boning, trimming and packaging lines where
carcasses are broken into more products
than ever.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association
created new cutting styles focused on the
ribeye, strip loin and top sirloin butt. These
Beef Alterative Merchandising styles feature
combinations of marketing individual muscles
with some of them actually split in half for the
loin end of the ribeye or for the entire strip loin
or cut into many more pieces for the top sirloin
butt. Some of the challenges associated with
merchandising beef this way are the increased
labor required to transform these subprimals
into retail cuts and the potential for additional
yield loss. Ultimately, retail prices must cover
these issues, therefore, demand will have to
remain high enough for new and innovative
cuts to become commonplace.
While individuals in our generation may
mourn the loss of the cuts we grew up with
such as the 7-bone steak, round steak and arm
roasts, the next potential cut on the endangered list is the T-bone/Porterhouse steak.
This iconic beef cut may suffer the same fate
as traditional chuck and round cuts because
of its massive size, weight and cost. Today's
beef is merchandised much differently than
yesterday's beef, and innovation in cuts and
consumer demand will continue to influence
the types of cuts found in retail markets.

Natalia Lisovskaya - stock.adobe.com

The pioneers of boxed beef simply cut
carcasses into wholesale cuts. IBPs 7-box style
CattlePak had boxes for each round, loin and
chuck with one box for both ribs. This began
the shift from distribution in the carcass form
to vacuum-packaged box beef. While this
style of marketing began with boxing beef, the
next versions of cutting beef based on weight
became more evident.
With boxed beef, the opportunity to purchase subprimals rather than primals allowed
retail and foodservice segments to specialize in
the type of beef they utilized rather than having
to find a home for a wider variety of beef cuts.
Additionally, beef packers began expanding the
array of products offered to their customers.
Fabrication rooms became larger and more
complex, and the types of beef being fabricated changed.
During the 1980s, packers often sorted
carcasses by weights. The lighter carcasses,
usually 600 to 750 lbs., would be used to
produce bone-in products, and the heavy
carcasses, usually 750 to 900 lbs., would be
used to produce boneless products. Moving
to more boneless beef was one way to battle
heavier weights of cuts while ensuring that box
weights remained reasonable, at least initially.
The retail sector likely played an important role in the next evolutionary steps of
boxed beef. Traditional cuts of arm, blade, and
7-bone steaks and roasts no longer appealed
to consumers because of their sizes and price
points. Changes in fabrication paved the way
for innovation and increased demands for
shoulder clods, chuck rolls, inside rounds, bottom rounds and eye of rounds. The old-school
cuts can still be found in some ethnic markets

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Meat+Poultry - March 2020

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