Latest Beef Quality Audit Shows Improvements

May 30, 2023

The National Beef Quality Audit (NBQA) delivers a set of guidelines and measurements for producers and other stakeholders to help determine the quality conformance of the beef supply. Results from the 2022 audit indicate the industry is producing a high-quality product consumers want and the focus of the supply chain remains food safety.

Early audits focused on attributes like marbling, external fat and carcass blemishes. This list has evolved to include food safety, sustainability, animal well-being and the growing disconnect between producers and consumers. As a result, NBQA has made changes to the research, leading to an increasingly meaningful set of results.

Based on interviews with industry stakeholders, as well as in-plant research, some of the key findings from the 2022 audit include:
• Market segments no longer consider food safety a purchasing criterion, but an expectation.
• When comparing 2016 and 2022 audits, the largest improvement was increased efficiency across the beef supply chain.
• An increase in usage of electronic identification.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.