This book provides an in-depth analysis of the factors providing the impetus for change in the North American beef industry and how the industry is responding to the challenges. The beef industry story provides lessons for other agri-food industries attempting to respond to rapidly evolving food markets. The book provides important insights into the process whereby industries respond to a rapidly changing marketplace and, in particular, industries with complex supply chains consisting of many actors. The agri-food industry provides an excellent example of a market that is evolving rapidly in ways few would have contemplated even a few years ago. The beef industry has an exceedingly complex supply chains that must co-ordinate complex resources such as genetics, extensive grazing, precision feeding strategies, high tech processing, cold chain logistics and food safety protocols. The interaction between changing demands and the beef industry's responses to an evolving marketplace provide the focus of the book. The book examines the process whereby the beef industry prior is making the transition from a supplier of commodities to a provider of differentiated products with attributes tailored to individual consumers. The book then provides a theoretical basis for the examination of evolving supply chains and a means by which the industry's response can be assessed using modern quantitative methods. Case studies are developed to dig deeper into the transition the beef industry is experiencing. Insights are drawn for other agri-food sectors facing similar challenges. Ranchers have always had a special place in the cultural heritage that defines North Americans and beef has been the premium product in the dietary hierarchy in traditional North American cuisine. As urban dwellers who are generations removed from agricultural production now overwhelmingly make up the consumer base, the image of cattle producers is buffeted by new customer priorities such as animal welfare, environmental sustainability and the ability to determine the place of origin of their food. As the proportion of food consumed at home declines and consumers seek to expand their range of culinary experiences, food from cultures where beef is not a mainstay of the diet have gained more prominence. These restaurant experiences are increasingly being reflected in the near table ready products on offer in supermarkets. Consumers are still likely to enjoy a good steak, other traditional beef products now struggle for consumers. The implications of the response of the beef industry to the changes buffeting the sector goes beyond strictly commercial concerns and will determine the place of beef and the industry's participants in the evolving North American culture.

This book relates the modern development of the Kansas beef cattle industry, combining both the history of production—including specific business problems and the significant work in upbreeding—and an examination of the marketing aspects of the industry that became so important during the twentieth century. Sharpest focus is on the period 1890 to 1940, after the Western beef industry had passed through the transition from using the expansive, open-range method of beef production to the more rational and organized methods of today. Wood presents a detailed discussion of the history of upbreeding. He points out the little-known fact that the fine-blooded animals—especially Herefords—that moved out from the Midwest were probably more important in stocking the ranges of the Plains and the Southwest than the many thousands of Longhorns driven from Texas. He emphasizes the interregional aspect of beef production and the unique role played by Kansas. On the threshold of the Great Plains, Kansas received cattle from both the Midwest and the Southwest for many years—upbred cattle moving South, and stocker cattle moving from the South or Southwest into Kansas for additional maturing before being shipped to the Midwest for fattening or for slaughter. Wood also looks closely at the relationship of cattlemen to government and to big business—railroads, stockyards, and packers. He sees the cattlemen as agricultural producers and business managers, rather than as romantic, self-reliant giants of the earth. Taking issue with the popular myth that cattlemen were and are ruggedly individualistic and disdainful of outside help, Wood discusses the cattlemen’s repeated demands for aid, especially during the 1930s. Included in the book is the history of the Kansas Livestock Association, which the author credits as being one of the most significant stock associations in the West during this century. Wood sets the KLA’s growth within the context of the larger organizational revolution in the nation’s business world. A concluding chapter surveys major developments after World War II, including the development of feedlots and irrigation, the new cross-breeding, decentralization of packers, and the advent of trucking to replace railroads. There has been scant information on these topics in the general literature of the Great Plains.

Whether or not you are a beef consumer, are you satisfied that you know all you should about this product? Usual sources of information might, to a very large degree, not give adequate information about beef. Some of these sources might be biased—either f