BQA History
"BQA practices provide cattlemen an important tool in avoiding additional and burdensome government regulation. It’s a process of figuring out what could go wrong, plan to avoid it – then validate and document what you have done. BQA is just part of good business." – Dee Griffin, DVM, University of Nebraska.
There is consensus among most industry analysts that BQA efforts across the nation have been instrumental in recent successes in re-building beef demand. It’s also been recognized that implementation of BQA practices provides cattlemen an important tool in avoiding additional and burdensome government regulation.
The precursor of BQA that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s was aimed at assuring that beef was free of violative chemical residues. Originally called “Beef Safety Assurance” the emphasis at that time was on targeting real and perceived beef safety issues.
Measures were successfully implemented to discourage inappropriate use of blended antibiotics then being used at some feedyards. This included educating stakeholdersabout proper use of pharmaceutical products and the honoring of withdrawal times.
Program architects quickly developed the same principles developed by Pillsbury for quality control in supplying food to the NASA space program. By 1985 a cadre of feedlots had been certified by USDA as Verified Production Control feedlots using Pillsbury’s novel Hazard Analysis, Critical Control Point program (HACCP) as their template. Led by the National Cattlemen’s Association (now NCBA) BQA programs funded by beef checkoff money through the Cattlemen’s Beef Board fired up in nearly every U.S. state. The concept matured in the early 1990s as the industry’s Beef Quality Task Force began to look into why and where beef was falling short of the final customer’s expectations.
The 1991 National Beef Quality Audit, the first comprehensive audit of beef carcasses, determined that the industry lost a total of nearly $280 due to quality defects for the average fed animal marketed. The majority of the loss was due to excess fat, lack of marbling, and other carcass defects – including injection site blemishes. Since, the reduction of injection site lesions has been among the major success stories of BQA. While the signature of BQA has been in improving the quality and consumer confidence in fed beef, attention focused also on non-fed cattle – cull bulls and cows – and the beef they produce.
The 1994 Non-Fed Beef Quality Audit indicated the top 10 defects found in non-fed animals were due mainly to pre-harvest management practices. By managing culled animals properly, monitoring cull animals correctly, and marketing non-fed animals appropriately, the audit said the industry could recoup about $70/head marketed.
Dee Griffin, DVM and associate professor, Great Plains Veterinary Education Center, University of Nebraska, is among the BQA pioneers. “It’s a process of figuring out what could go wrong, plan to avoid it – then validate and document what you have done,” Griffin says “BQA is just part of good business.”
Montana Beef Quality Assurance,
2116 Broadwater Ave., Suite 307/11
Billings, MT 59102,
406-896-9068,
cpeck@montana.edu
Montana Beef Network,
119 Linfield Hall
Bozeman, MT 59718,
406-994-4323,
mharbac@montana.edu