One of the speakers at the Dairy Producers Forum at the Cattle Industry Convention was Bridget Baird. She’s the Associate Director, Product Enhancement, in NCBA’s Research and Knowledge Management group. Her responsibilities include project management and research dissemination.

I spoke to her just prior to her presentation and she says she would focus on the work that her group has been involved in. That includes work on all the factors that affect beef quality like tenderness, flavor, juiciness and consistency.

She says that work in this area covers all beef types including dairy beef as well. A lot of her comments come from the Market Cow Muscle Profiling Study that was started in 2000. It’s one of the studies that has provided the impetus behind new beef value cuts.

Bridget makes the observation that data shows that dairy beef is very consistent in quality and that often it’s some of the higher grading beef.

You can listen to my interview with Bridget here: [audio:http://www.beefboardmeeting.com/audio/cic-08-baird.mp3]

You can find a lot more pictures and interviews over on the Beef Checkoff website Beef Board Meeting.com.