6-18 IAN Better Beef Cuts

 About a year ago there was a doom and gloom picture on the subject of beef. I’m David Sparks and the picture might be changing a bit. Last year, about this time, in separate conversations with Jason Ahola, a U of I Extension Specialist in Cattle, Rick Stott, Executive Vice President of Agri Beef and Traci O’Donnell, Executive Director of the Idaho Beef Council, I learned that people were cutting way back on the prime cuts of beef they were ordering in restaurants. What a difference a year can make. The latest economic indicators suggest people are eating out more and that’s good news for farmers and ranchers. Here’s John Anderson, an economist with the American Farm Bureau: “It has felt like we’ve turned a corner in the last few weeks but now we’re starting to get some hard data that starts to confirm that.  One of the things that has gotten a lot of attention in the last several days is the national restaurant associations restaurant performance index.”  That index tracks the outlook for the restaurant industry.  For the first time since September of 2007 it showed that restaurant operators expect the sector to grow.  “Food is a staple.  You eat no matter what the economy is doing, but you don’t always eat a New York strip, right?  You can select down to a lot lower-value products and so with meat it’s very important that we have strong demand. It is important for dairy as well. That’s something we overlook a lot of times because we do think of milk as being a staple. But think about something like cheese.  People eat a lot of it in restaurants.  Think of pizza.  So when the economy is weak and people are eating out less, that’s something that has a fairly big impact on the dairy industry.” So let’s toast. Our Vine to Wine program will help you make your selection.