National Livestock Credit is pleased to announce the purchase of Superior Livestock Auction, Inc.  National Livestock and cattlemen from several states have formed a limited partnership to acquire Superior.

The beef checkoff, through its Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative (NEBPI), saw to it that runners were fueled with beef for the 117th Boston Marathon. More than 27,000 of the world's most elite athletes who would be running the Boston Marathon learned that lean beef was a great recovery food for after their race.

Everyone in the beef chain seems to agree we need more of it.

That’s the simple explanation for a trend that shows hot carcass weights (HCW) have increased 200 pounds in four decades. But for all the opportunities that presents, there are many challenges.

John Stika, president of Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), talked about both at the recent Harlan Ritchie Beef Symposium during Midwest American Society of Animal Science meetings in Des Moines, Iowa.

At the end of March, the quarterly Grain Stocks report looked like just what the doctor ordered for an ailing feeder cattle market. News of larger-than-anticipated corn stocks sent corn prices tumbling. This, in turn, stimulated a sharp rally in feeder cattle futures. The April Feeder Cattle contract surged from just over $138 right before the report to almost $146 in very short order.  

In an effort to simplify the names consumers see on meat packages at the retail market, the National Pork Board and Beef Checkoff Program gained approval from their standards committee to begin using new terminology for fresh beef and pork.

Approval by the Industry-wide Cooperative Meat Identification Standards Committee (ICMISC) for new Uniform Retail Meat Identification Standards (URMIS) was the culmination of extensive consumer research, which showed an opportunity for retailers to build consumer confidence in how to shop for and prepare beef and pork.

Merck Animal Health has announced the sponsorship of a new blog focused on raising awareness of bovine respiratory disease (BRD), and providing industry professionals a central resource to access information vital to preventing, treating and managing the disease that costs the industry $800 million annually.