New Zealand beef industry structure and opportunities to improve income

As a product, beef can be classified as suiting table or processing requirements. The aim of this study is to quantify the volume and value of table and processing beef arising from herds of beef or dairy origin to identify opportunities for increasing industry revenue from improving table beef harvest relative to processing products. A deterministic model was developed to calculate product flows and income from processing and table beef derived from beef and dairy herds over a 20 year horizon. The dairy herd contributed 52% of beef, 60% of processing grade beef and 45% of total beef income. Processing grade beef comprised 58% of total product by weight. Beef-breed steers and Holstein-Friesian (F) bulls were the largest contributors of any cattle class to table and processing grade beef and total industry revenue. Improving the harvest of table beef by 1% from F bulls would increase beef industry revenue by 0.7%, a similar increase in revenue that could be achieved from beef-breed steers. The relative contribution of beef and dairy origin cattle to beef revenue is insensitive to table beef premiums over processing beef. Any improvement strategy within the beef industry should be considered with dairy-origin beef animals in mind.