Beef Tenderness: A 30-Year Journey

In the early 1990s, the beef industry was facing shrinking demand for their product as it was too tough, too fat, and too inconsistent to stay relevant at the meat counter.¹ At the time, one in four steaks just didn’t eat right.² This was a pivotal time for the beef industry and changes were needed to keep beef on the plate. 

Beef’s unique eating experience is a key reason consumers purchase beef over other proteins. Eating experience is centered around three key components: tenderness, flavor and juiciness. These attributes have been well-established as key factors that determine overall beef palatability and extensive research has been conducted around each factor and the interrelationships among factors.³ While each factor is not considered independently, underperformance of a single factor can greatly impact the overall eating satisfaction. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for guaranteed-tender meat products.⁴ Thus, providing a consistent, high-quality eating experience is essential to keep beef on the plates of consumers. 

In the early 1990s, the industry rallied around a systematic approach to overcoming challenges and improving beef tenderness for consumers. The National Beef Tenderness Survey (NBTS, or Survey), managed by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff, was initiated in 1990 to quantify beef tenderness and identify areas for improvement. The Survey has been conducted six times over the last 30 years to benchmark beef tenderness, verify improvements, and identify opportunities for ongoing research around tenderness. Providing a benchmark for beef tenderness allows the industry to identify where improvements have been made and where tenderness challenges may still exist. 

From its inception the survey was designed to evolve to meet industry needs and provide insights as thinking around tenderness evolved. The initial survey began capturing relevant information and the evolution in successive surveys has bolstered applicability of the outcomes and helped to provide direction to the industry. Throughout the surveys, retail cuts captured and data collected have shifted to stay relevant to the market and the direction of the industry at the time. 

A key component to improving beef tenderness is quantifying the tenderness of the beef available in the marketplace to provide the greatest understanding of tenderness attributes. In measuring beef tenderness, two key methods are utilized. Warner-Bratzler Shear (WBS) Force, is a quantitative measure that reflects the amount of force needed to bite through a steak. Consumer taste panels are a qualitative measure of beef tenderness and provide greater insight into the interaction of tenderness as a component of eating experience. The dual pronged approach of combining WBS Force with consumer taste panels provides the most complete information about beef tenderness. 

Tremendous progress has been made since the inception of the survey in beef tenderness. The progress in beef tenderness over the last 30 years of NBTS is highlighted by three key phases: the initial benchmark, making tremendous strides, and maintaining the progress achieved. 

Initial Benchmark - The initial survey conducted by Texas A&M University in 1990 quantified and characterized beef tenderness. The findings reconfirmed the tenderness challenges the industry was facing. The undesirable toughness of these cuts was negatively impacting desirability and marketability of beef.⁵ An opportunity to evaluate both pre-harvest and product management to optimize product tenderness was identified as a key initiative because of this initial survey. 

Tremendous Strides - Ten years later, the 1999 survey was expanded to include products from the foodservice sector to fully characterize beef tenderness throughout the industry. The findings indicated progress in beef tenderness with a 20% increase in product tenderness compared to 1990.⁶ In the time since the initial survey, the industry shifted towards practices to promote beef tenderness including longer more gradual chilling. Product aging and management was identified as an area of improvement for beef tenderness. In 2005/2006, a follow-up survey was conducted and confirmed additional progress in beef tenderness. In the time since the 1999 survey, there was an 18% improvement in tenderness and a 34% improvement compared to the initial 1990 survey.⁷

Maintaining Progress - In the three subsequent surveys over a 15-year period,^8-10 the industry has been able to maintain notable progress in beef tenderness. The 2020/2021 survey highlighted the greatest percentage of each cut falling into the very tender category for tenderness.¹⁰

Despite the challenges the beef industry has faced over the last 30 years including drought, herd liquidation, fluctuating supply, and input costs, the quality of beef and tenderness have seen great improvements. Furthermore, recent surveys have indicated the ability of the industry to maintain its tenderness goals. With the dramatic improvement in beef tenderness, the industry has opportunities to focus on other factors important for palatability such as flavor development and increasing product consistency. 

To find out more, visit www.beefresearch.org/programs/product-quality. Funded by the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.