There is Such a Thing as Good Meat - The Good Beef Index
As the turn of the year causes many people to worry about the state of the world, the dawn of 2021 is offering us plenty of time to think about the way we look after our planet.
And - as is usual during the reflective New Year period - various media outlets have been analysing the way we eat. One common thread in recent times has been to make the over-simplified claim that all animal-based products are bad for the environment.
But it is a massive and inaccurate generalisation when it comes to carefully grazed cattle, raised on the traditional complex grass leys of South West England.
Now a West Country farmer has developed a high-tech scheme which is aimed, not only at ensuring prime British beef survives the ramifications of Brexit, but at allowing consumers to know a great deal more about the meat they are buying while at the same time helping producers of premium meat to command fair prices in the future. You can read all about it at Goodbeefindex.org
David Andrews - who spent much of his career in charge of a large international technology services company - runs two herds of pedigree beef cattle on the Devon-Cornwall border where he feels he is being “exploited” by the way in which the meat industry works in Britain.
“When you’re working your socks off for three years planning and raising a single beef animal, then you go to the abattoir where you get £3.95 a kilo, top whack - but actually it’s costing you £4.60 a kilo to produce… Well, you feel miffed,” says Mr Andrews, who recently launched the Good Beef Index.
It has taken the one-time corporate CEO who used to employ 9000 people worldwide three years to borrow on his business software experience and develop the new grading and tracing system - called the Good Beef Index - which he says will revolutionise the way British farmers are paid for good beef.
“Added to that, consumers will instantly be able to know which is good beef, and which is not,” Mr Andrews told me. “One problem is that in this country there is just plain beef on sale - the mainstream retail system does not differentiate between good beef and bad. Farmers who rely on eco-friendly grazing practices in places like the South West are producing some of the best beef in the world - and yet we are making a loss on every kilo animal we sell.
“That does not happen in beef-loving countries like the USA, Australia or Japan where they have advanced grading systems. That’s what is needed in the UK where you can fatten male dairy calves on soya protein imported from anywhere around the planet and it will be sold in exactly the same way and at the same price as West Country pedigree beef raised outdoors on regenerative grazing, which is good for the environment.
“We need a way of allowing the industry and the consumer to differentiate between these two entirely different products - which is why we have developed the Good Beef Index (GBI),” said Mr Andrews.
The new programme is similar to beef grading systems used in places like the USA but - borrowing from Mr Andrew’s previous experience in the international technology and procurement services industry - it utilises computer power to allow both producers and consumers to benefit from multiple layers of data.
The system not only allows a farmer to grade and value cattle, it also means - with QR code technology - shoppers can instantly learn everything about the piece of beef they’re thinking of buying, even down to the individual animal’s environmental impact.
David Andrews keeps on eye on his cattle on the Devon-Cornwall border
“Good beef is good for you and good for the planet,” says Mr Andrews. “There are three underlying drivers. You’ve got nutritional value - that’s for our wellbeing. Then there’s the well-being of the environment - and with properly grazed animals you’ve got carbon sequestration. The third thing is the eating quality and the amount of intramuscular fat (IMF) - which is important because some fats are good for us. IMF is, and it drives eating quality and nutritional value.
“At the moment there is no way a consumer can find out about the quality of beef they are eating. They can be assured, yes. But there is no proper grading system or definitive structure in this country.
“Beef is beef, is what people think. But it isn’t. There is good and there is bad. There is no transparency. In other industries there is transparency - in the car industry, you know what you are getting. We’ve lobbied for years that we need a better measurement, but governments haven’t been interested in doing that.
“With the Good Beef Index we are saying: right, we aren’t prepared to sell our beef for a loss so we are going to start grading on behalf of the consumer. We are going to be transparent about superior beef. Then consumers can decide. Also the abattoirs have got to decide - do they really want to have transparency and pay for distinctive quality of beef, or not?”
Well known agricultural writer and author of the book Grass-Fed Nation, Graham Harvey, commented: “For those who want good food produced in ways that safeguard the planet, this is a great step forward. It’s no coincidence that the healthiest beef comes from animals grazed in ways that protect the environment.
“It's the way evolution has set things up. If we're smart we'll use the Good Beef Index to make choices that are good for us and for the planet.”
At present the UK adheres to an information-poor European classification system for beef.
Grass-fed rib of beef
“With Brexit there is an opportunity to start the dial again,” says Mr Andrews. “We cannot sit on our laurels in this country - we’ve got our backs to the wall at the moment and we have to do something different or get out of the beef business. Brexit is a break-point.
“When it comes to grass and grazing, the West Country is best in the world - second to none. There’s a lot of Mother Nature there which is a fantastic asset and resource. We can do regenerative grazing which returns high nutritional value at a net carbon negative.
“Grazing is not being used as much as it should be because we are not paid enough. We don’t earn enough to make it profitable. Come on Government - wake up! Let’s get this sorted out!”
Mr Andrews has joined forces with an increasing number of other West Country beef farms which have agreed to work under the auspices of the Good Beef Index - and now he and his fellow farmers are looking for others and for abattoirs and butchers to join the scheme.
One of those farmers is Jonathan Chapman, a farm vet who runs a pedigree Aberdeen Angus herd at Hele Barton Farm in North Cornwall. “This is such a good idea,” he says… “It is exactly what the UK beef industry and the consumer needs…”
Mr Andrews added: “We want to hear from like-minded farmers. That is why we have built the Good Beef Index website (https://goodbeefindex.org) - because we want farmers to take a look and grade their animals. We’ve done all the research. We’ve had scientific research to back our assertion that this is good beef. Now we’ve got a cadre of farms which can kickstart this - and we’ve got the software…
“So we are ready to go. Now is the time. What we desperately need is a movement of farmers across the South West who are saying: enough is enough! We want a fair price for our premium beef.”
PHOTOS: Steven Haywood
