This is a guest post written by Frank Hendrix of Callipyge Genetics and Tenet® Beef.
Have you ever gone out to eat and ordered a steak that provided a less-than-enjoyable eating experience? It’s happened to me more than I would like to confess. According to USDA consumer surveys over the past 25 years, being served tough beef occurs more than 25% of the time.
Tenderness is near the top of all concerns beef customers have with beef. Beef tenderness measurements, when enumerated on a graph, have a wide-ranging bell-shaped curve. On a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being most tender, average American beef is measured and ranked as a 3. Tenet® beef is ranked as a 10! Nothing is better!
Until now, beef producers couldn’t do much about tenderness. The prevailing thought has been to add weight to the animal and produce more fat. Most of this extra fat is inedible and trimmed away as waste. We know from shear-force tests, marbling has very little to do with tenderness. A Tenet® animal can be grassfed and tender, because the animal carries the genetics for tenderness and does not have to be excessively finished before marketing.
Beef tenderness is a complicated issue. I hypothesized that beef tenderness was a genetically inherited trait, and that DNA marker technology could be used to eliminate toughness in beef. It wasn’t easy and it took 38 years of private research, but Callipyge Genetics finally discovered DNA markers that singled out the top level of beef tenderness – Tenet®.
The marker is unique and 100% accurate! It has nothing to do with GMO or cloning or any other DNA markers trying to rank tenderness. We have found that only 2% of the beef animals tested are Tenet®. However, since Tenet® is moderately to highly heritable, Tenet® certified cattle can be created in just two generations by using Tenet® certified bulls. Visit Tenet Beef for more information.
We recently used our markers to test a group of Pharo Cattle Company™ bulls. To our excitement and surprise, 64% of the PCC bulls tested positive for Tenet® and will be certified shortly. This is extremely positive for the future of the American Beef Industry.
Pharo Cattle Company™ has been selecting for some phenotypically unique criteria for nearly four decades. Within their phenotypic selection protocols, they have unknowingly been concentrating the genotypic selection of Tenet®. This is a uniquely positive situation, and we look forward to working with Pharo Cattle Company in making the quality of American beef the best it can be!