Beef

One of the first stories I ever did for our ag information network of the West was to interview Dr. Jason Ahola an Associate Professor of Beef Production Systems in the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University. Dr. Ahola was pretty adamant that the general population in America preferred beef to other types of protein. Like the old beef industry adage, “Beef, it's what’s for dinner.” The good doctor pointed out that there are a huge majority of high-end restaurants that are referred to as steakhouses. Then you have the other side of the coin. All kinds of people try to demean red meat for all kinds of health reasons. All of that said, according to Lindsay Chichester, who did her doctoral research on consumer preferences in the meat industry, beef reigns supreme among protein choices. Her research pointed out that nearly half of the participants put beef as their No. 1 protein choice, and 97% indicated they ate beef between one and 12 times each week “the research study looked at consumers preferences and perceptions of the meat industry and we asked them many different things from if they preferred branded beef, what type of system so grain fed, grass fed, natural, organic and overwhelmingly consumers indicated they wanted a high quality, tasty product that was something that they would spend money on. The term Angus outweighed any other branding term including crime, tender, organic or grass fed in consumers perception.