Follow that cow! Tracking beef from birth to plate is the only way to guarantee its safety.
Your local grocery store may claim its beef is safe, raised humanely, fed quality ingredients, and given no unnecessary drugs. But it can't guarantee it. No one keeps histories of single cows; bad things can happen to good cows. We trust our hamburger with no means to verify.
Usually it doesn't make any difference; billions and billions keep getting served. But once in a while, we get a glimpse of the worst. Last December's detection of mad cow disease in a Holstein heifer in Washington state, the first recorded in the US, did real damage. More than 30 countries banned American beef, a $4.3 billion loss to the cattle industry.
But food doesn't have to work that way. A comprehensive tracking system for livestock and poultry could link an animal's identity to its history. Using sophisticated (but relatively simple to use) DNA-based technologies and smart database management, even the largest meat producers could guarantee quality and safety.
Other industries have already figured this out, granting customers, employees, business partners, and communities unprecedented access to information. The food makers haven't caught on, but they need to. Responsible government agencies - the Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture, among others - have neither the resources nor the ability to build this kind of system. (Putting Feds in charge of national databases is never a good idea, even when they're calibrated to tenderloin instead of terrorism.) So it's up to the producers. As usual, their motivation won't be found in the kindness of their hearts; it'll come from their bottom lines. Outbreaks hurt everyone in the business, and food companies that distinguish themselves with good practices will make more money. They'll feel naked in the sunshine, but feeling naked will motivate them to get buff.
Many other countries have brought transparency to their livestock supply chains, usually after outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - mad cow disease - which first appeared in Great Britain in 1986. In the European Union, every sheep, goat, and head of cattle gets a passport at birth that details its breeding history and accompanies the animal as it heads to market. At meat counters in one grocery store chain in Japan, which detected its first BSE cow in 2001, consumers can enter into a terminal a 10-digit ID number found on the price tags of domestically produced beef and see a copy of the document certifying the cow's breeding history - and that it's BSE-free.
US producers should seize this opportunity. Kobe beef commands a premium price; American cattle producers could strive for similar distinction both domestically and abroad. Instead of thinking like widget makers looking for the cheapest per-unit costs, they should view themselves as artisans, making a superior yet affordable product. Witness the wine industry, where the price of a bottle is tightly linked to quality - not only the taste but the vintner's reputation and practices as well.
Here's how it might work. Mothers of food animals would get DNA-fingerprinted; offspring would receive an identification number. The producer would keep a database, accessible to anyone over the Web, tracking the burger-to-be according to what the calf ate, what health concerns it faced, and what herds or ranches it came into contact with. An ear tag or an implanted radio-frequency ID chip would keep things simple. In the end, even plastic-wrapped cuts of beef in your Safeway would be labeled with its ID number. People with Web access near their dinner tables could actually read about what they were chewing. Morbid? Maybe, but it beats finding out some years later that your brain is melting.
Some forward-thinking companies are giving this a try. Food critics and consumers rave about Niman Ranch in California, which touts beef, pork, and lamb that are humanely treated, fed natural food, and given no growth hormones or antibiotics. Niman has a nationwide network of ranches and abattoirs that follow its practices, and offers public tours of suppliers. The privately held company is small - it slaughters only 175 head of cattle a week, compared with 400 an hour at big slaughterhouses like ConAgra Foods - but sales were up 30 percent last year, and Niman expects similar growth in 2004.
Maple Leaf Foods in Canada has taken that approach even farther. Its chickens eat nothing but grains and vegetables. The birds cost about 20 percent more than your average fryer, but have more protein, less fat, and better flavor. Today Maple Leaf's "Prime Naturally" label is Canada's leading brand. The company is also starting up a cost-effective DNA-based tracking system and working toward being able to generate a detailed biography of any cow, pig, lamb, or chicken from birth to the butcher's counter. But tags can fall off, and even biometrics such as a retina scan become less reliable after the animal is butchered. Michael McCain, Maple Leaf's president and CEO, calls traceability "the holy grail of the food processing industry."
Knowing how our food was raised or grown is not a radical idea. Our ancestors bought supplies at local markets or from retailers who sourced products locally. If they didn't like how a local rancher treated his cattle, they didn't buy his beef. But transportation and refrigeration have estranged us from our foodstuffs. We've lost the values of the old food chain.
We could get them back. We could lead the world in developing a modern, industrialized, open food system with down-to-earth family farm values. Transparency lets companies with superior practices differentiate themselves. The brand could evolve from the marketing notion of a trustmark - something that customers believe in because it's familiar - into a relationship based on the sharing of information. Surely food producers have an appetite for that.
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