You may have laughed the first time you heard the term “flexitarian.” But the new eating trend among mostly younger consumers is real, and could have tremendous bearing on the beef market – specifically, beef cross animals.
While there is no official definition of a flexitarian, it’s a person who limits meat consumption, typically having 2-5 meatless days per week. But on the days when they do eat meat, their choices definitely veer toward a high-quality eating experience, according to beef industry consultant Nevil Speer, PhD, MBA.
Speer recently told the audience of “Build a Better Beef Cross,” a webinar sponsored by Diamond V, that the shifting preferences of today’s American consumer are good news for the emerging beef-on-dairy-cross marketplace.
“Holsteins and Jerseys have a propensity to marble,” stated Speer. “Beef-on-dairy market animals are bigger, heavier, and they dress better.”
He said an unusual phenomenon has happened in the beef marketplace of late. Even as retail beef prices have risen in the past few years, demand for Prime beef also has climbed. While it defies the typical rules of supply and demand, it also shows that today’s consumers are willing to pay for quality.
“During the COVID shutdowns, there was greater access to restaurant-quality beef at home,” Speer continued. “Consumers are telling us they really like high-end beef, and are willing to pay for it.”
As an illustration, he said the Choice-Prime spread hit a whopping $90/cwt. in the summer of 2022. “On a 900-pound wholesale carcass, that’s $800 per head,” declared Speer. “It’s a clear illustration that the beef cross calf is a high-value animal.”
In addition to their quality potential, Speer noted additional factors that favor demand for beef cross calves:
- At 28.9 million head, the U.S. beef cow herd is the smallest it has been in 60 years, since 1962.
- Dairies have the ability to generate a significant volume of calves throughout the year.
- The construction of 7 new U.S. beef packing plants and one major expansion are currently boosting slaughter demand by about 12,000 head per day.
To fully capitalize on the opportunities in the beef cross sector, Speer said there is a need to build a resilient animal, starting at birth. “Feeding every calf colostrum at the dairy is a non-negotiable, and they also should have their navels dipped,” he advised.
The high incidence of liver abscesses and liver contamination among beef cross calves is a major issue that needs immediate attention, according to Speer. He believes although liver problems were once believed to be strictly an issue of dairy genetics, they may have more to do with the dairy calf production system than the animals themselves.
And if that’s the case, it may be an even trickier issue to solve. Unlike dairy replacement heifers, beef cross animals typically change ownership 3 or 4 times between birth and harvest. Speer noted that animal development with the end result in mind is well understood on the heifer side, but ownership changes can make it challenging to capture the true potential advantage on the beef side.
Still, he is optimistic about the upside potential for dairies producing beef cross calves and meeting the desires of today’s consumers. “We always need to remember that our business is based on feeding the consumer. They are the business,” Speer advised.
“Historically, there is a very direct correlation between consumer spending and the fed cattle market, so it truly pays to deliver what the consumer wants,” he added. “A lot of Millennials do not eat meat just to eat meat. They are very intentional about the experience. But if a product is really good, they’re willing to pay for it, and will seek it out and demonstrate loyalty to it.”
