Written collaboratively by Kylie Krueger, Amanda Blair, Kyle Grubbs, Keith Underwood and Christina Bakker
The purpose of this guide is to serve as an educational resource to help bridge the knowledge gap between livestock producers, meat processors, and consumers to aid in furthering processor education and to serve as a resource to reference when answering consumer questions.
Beef, pork, and lamb fabrication will be discussed in this guide, including terminology such as directional anatomy terms and important skeletal structures to know. Carcass yields, fresh meat color, product storage, packaging options, beef product aging, grass-finished versus grain-finished carcass characteristics, and a trouble shooting section are also addressed. It is our hope that the information within this guide will be a useful tool in helping processors educate themselves and their consumers.
Acknowledgement
This work is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2022-70419-38561.
