History
The World’s First Branded Beef Company
A bad steak inspired Angus producer Harold Etling, Marshallville, Ohio, because it was represented as being “Angus.” He conferred with Fred Johnson, of nearby Summitville, who was on the American Angus Association Board of Directors, about creating an Association-backed license for retailers and restaurants to market premium Angus beef.
The Board considered the idea in October 1975, weighing claims that it would create much needed demand for Angus cattle. Nobody knew enough about the product side to say how or if it could work, but the Board appointed a committee to look into it. Most of them lived in the Eastern Corn belt, and met often to look for ways to make the dream come true.
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| Colvin and members of the Angus Beef Certification Advisory Committee select the organization's logo at the February 1978 meeting. |
In late 1976, Angus Regional Manager Louis “Mick” Colvin, West Salem, Ohio, attended one of those meetings and asked questions that cut to the heart of the issue: “ Can you identify Angus cattle in a high-speed packing plant and maintain identity to the consumer? Will the consumer pay more for the product?” The committee asked Colvin to find the answers, and those led to the birth of a brand.
The CAB® Program would debut in 1978 with Colvin as executive director seeking legal advice about visual type and licensing, and science-based brand specifications that would stand the test of time.
Differentiation would be the key. “We knew we wanted to add value by sorting out those that would qualify,” former Ohio State University meat scientist Bobby VanStavern says. “What we didn’t know was how many cattle would be identified or would qualify for the brand.”
It would take a few more years for the strategy of building a broad base in the post-harvest segments to return significant market premiums to Angus producers.
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| First sale: October 1978 in Renzetti's IGA, Columbus, Ohio |
From retail meat managers to restaurant wait staff, foodservice salesmen to packers, brand-directed training had become a successful hallmark of the Program. But Bob Hillier, Stillwater, Okla., who replaced Johnson on the Board in 1987 and served as chairman from 1992-1995, noticed a rift between the growing acceptance at the trade level and producers who felt left out.
It was time for Phase II. That’s the name the Board used in approving the concept of CAB supply development in 1981, figuring it would follow from Phase I, brand development.
The Association had been building closer ties to the commercial industry, and when the CAB® Program added a Supply Development Division in 1988, areas of cooperation appeared.
It would take many more years to build ownership among Angus producers, so that they could explain the market-driven program to their customers.
Predominant black hide was only the first door to the brand; focused Angus genetics were required to achieve significant CAB acceptance. Few commercial ranchers would care until premiums were widely available.
Association executive vice president John Crouch says CAB’s first impact on seedstock sales came in 1988, shortly after the first CAB premiums were reported.
With the new focus on high quality beef, “we saw a tremendous resurgence of interest in evaluating seedstock for carcass traits,” he says. “Breeders who had never sold any cattle on carcass merit all of a sudden were being asked for information.”
Collectively, CAB licensed packers were paying more than $20 million in annual grid premiums for the brand by 2000. That had increased to nearly $200 million since 1998.
Sellers of finished cattle can deal with several licensed packers paying premiums on competing grids. “Over those years of rapid growth, licensing more facilities across the packing segment, we built the base for those premiums,” CAB vice president Brent Eichar says. “It’s the competition on a grand scale that Mick [Colvin] envisioned.”
The cattle industry is always changing, but trends don’t develop overnight, Crouch says. “We are fortunate to be associated with a breed that excels in reproduction, early growth, maternal ability and end product quality.
“We are four times larger than our nearest breed competitor because we have been successful in creating a market for our end product,” he says.
Hillier says CAB led producers to focus on the upper end of the market, which led to value-based price discovery and a recovery in consumer demand. “The whole industry owes a debt of thanks to CAB for pulling a thorn out of their paw.”
You can learn more about the CAB Program by downloading these .pdf articles: