08/21/08 Tender scan

Some new technology has been developed that will help market beef. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back after these words to tell you about it. I hate to admit it but a lot of the new technology just passes me right by and if I do try to use it, it's obsolete by the time I almost master the procedures to reap the benefits. Well this recent bit of technology probably won't be used by me, but it could really help the cattle and beef industry. Tenderness is one of the main parameters of a great beef-eating experience, but tenderness is hard to measure on full carcass at the speed they are processed. That is, it was hard to measure until Analytical Spectral Devices Inc. of Boulder, Colorado started operating their QualitySpec BT beef tenderness screening units in meat packing plants. An article in Wallaces Farmer by Alan Newport relates the new technology is very accurate testing beef tenderness at packing plant processing speed. The instrument uses visual and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy to identify tender beef carcasses. The prototype unit was tested on a group of carcasses that were 30 percent unacceptable for toughness and eliminated nearly 85 percent of those undesirable carcasses. When the instrument says beef is tender it is right 95 percent to 96 percent of the time. This technology could assure a high degree of tenderness uniformity that can be relied on by the seller to pass on to the consumer and that will be a good thing. I'm Jeff Keane. Wallaces Farmer January 2008