Better Than The Flat Iron?
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Suggested Lead: Extending work from the beef checkoff-funded Muscle Profiling Project, many successful new cuts have been uncovered, including the petite tender, the ranch steak, the flat iron steak, as well as five successful new cuts from the chuck roll. The third, and most recent phase of the project was to maximize value of the beef round. The chuck and the round combined make up about 50% of the weight of the carcass, but only contribute 25% of the value. Of this amount, the round makes up 23% of the beef carcass. One of the biggest attributes of the round is that its large size allows for many cuts to be generated. In addition, many raw material applications may qualify as lean. Tony Mata, round technical lead for the checkoff-funded Beef Innovations Group, says the beef industry has discovered a hidden treasure in the round.
Mata 1: “That’s one of the most surprising aspects of the way we fabricate the carcass. For many years, we have ignored muscles in the chuck and the round that we shouldn’t have done so. But as we look at those muscles, lots of opportunities have come up. We have gone through phase one and phase two of what we call the beef value cuts program, and those two phases were from the chuck, now we’re working on the round. And there are 14 muscles in the round that we’re exploring and we have found some very unique opportunities – there are challenges – but opportunities are there.” (36 seconds)
Mata 2: “The muscles of the round have the advantage that they are pretty good size, they are easy to train personnel for fabricating them, and the yield is pretty good. So, unlike for example the top blade which we had a challenge in convincing packers to fabricate it and sell it as the flat iron, and processors, and that item has a yield of 45-50 percent, and also you really have to have trained personnel to handle it. However, that’s not the case with the muscles from the round. They’re easier and higher yields.” (30 seconds)
Mata 3: “The good thing about it is that it has fantastic flavor, good marbeling, and it is good, by laboratory measurements and taste panels, number four in tenderness. So, some people have even dared to say that the Denver cut, once it takes off, is going to be a bigger hit than the flat iron. It has better size and it is easier, much easier, to fabricate into steaks than the top blade. So we have lots of hopes for that Denver cut which is phase two of value cuts.” (30 seconds)
For more information on beef value cuts, visit BeefInnovationsGroup.com. For information on other efforts being funded with your beef checkoff investment, visit MyBeefCheckoff.com.
The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.
Funded by the Beef Checkoff.
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