Transforming the Beef Industry: Gary Smith on Asking the Right Questions and Solving Problems

HOSTS: Mark McCully and John Stika

GUEST: Gary Smith

Gary Smith had no plans to become a meat scientist.

In this episode, Smith shares how he found his path in the industry to dedicating more than six decades helping transform the beef industry through research, education and mentoring. He highlights how far the industry has come, including the development of vacuum packaging and the important work of the National Beef Quality Audit helping shape today’s quality-focused beef industry.

Smith also provides some insights on the future and the importance of delivering a consistent, quality eating experience for consumers.

GUEST: Oklahoma native Gary Smith, with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education and a master’s in animal breeding, was tapped to fill a vacant meat science professor position at Texas A&M University where he completed a doctoral degree in meat science. Smith was at the forefront of industry-changing research, including studies on beef palatability, food safety, product packaging, beef shelf life, transoceanic shipment of meat, and food safety, including mitigation of E. Coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria in packing plants. He has been an advocate of value-based marketing and worked to keep ranchers profitable. Alongside a team of researchers from Texas A&M and Colorado State University, Smith pioneered the National Beef Quality Audit. Other notable industry research projects include the International Beef Quality Audit, National Consumer Retail Beef Study and exploring USDA beef quality and yield grade standards.

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SPONSOR:

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Transcript

Mark McCully (00:00:03):
Welcome to the Angus Conversation, an Angus Journal podcast. I'm your host, Mark McCully, the CEO of the American Angus Association, and I'm joined today by a special co-host, Dr. John Stika, president of Certified Angus Beef. Welcome, John.

John Stika (00:00:17):
Hey, it's great to be here, Mark. I appreciate it.

Mark McCully (00:00:19):
Well, I appreciate you jumping in. I think many know Miranda's been on maternity leave, and so I am trying to do my best to hold this show together, and so you, I know have ablely agreed to come in and join and have a pretty cool discussion coming up for our listeners, so thanks for doing it.

John Stika (00:00:39):
No, glad to do it. I'm a poor backfill for Miranda, but given the guests that we're going to get a chance to speak with, maybe it makes sense for me to join for this one.

Mark McCully (00:00:47):
Well, I think it makes perfect sense. So John, obviously know you as president of Certified Angus Beef. You've been in that role for 19, getting close to 20 years I believe. And so maybe tell us a little bit about your background before that.

John Stika (00:01:04):
Yeah, so I've been at Certified Angus Beef now for 27 years, so it came right out of graduate school here to Certified Angus Beef. But before I was here I was working on a PhD in meat science at the University of Kentucky. Coached a livestock judging team there and prior to that was at Kansas State University where I got both my bachelor's and master's degrees, a bachelor's in animal science and a master's in meat science. And so really this whole career at Certified Angus Beef focused on the end product quality standpoint and consumer demand has honestly been just a dream career, an opportunity to serve and to focus on quality. It's been just been a great time, so been a while and it's been something I've really enjoyed.

Mark McCully (00:01:56):
Well, we're going to hear from our guest of a meat scientist and how he found his calling in meat science. It started with maybe dental school and some other things. How bumpy was your path to find meat science or was it something you found pretty quickly?

John Stika (00:02:11):
Well, I enjoyed meat science. We grew up on a small farm in central Kansas and we processed all of our own meat and so forth for our own family and my extended families. And so I always had an interest and a passion for it was on a meats judging team in high school that really began to spark my interest. But I went to college, it seems like every animal science kid did at the time I was going to be a veterinarian. And lo and behold, I had a really good mentor. Dr. Miles McKee was my advisor at Kansas State, and he decided he would change my major because he felt I could be eligible for a few more scholarship dollars that he thought would be helpful. And so he switched me over to animal science and told me afterwards, and we never looked back and I've been a meat scientist and in the meat industry ever since.

Mark McCully (00:03:05):
Wow, that's awesome. Well, we're thankful for Dr. McKee for a lot of things, but changing your trajectory or shaping your trajectory. Well, I'll add now to the list. I didn't know that story.

John Stika (00:03:15):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I did his Dr. McKee told, and it served me well.

Mark McCully (00:03:20):
Awesome, awesome. So John, just closed the fiscal year for all of the entities, obviously Certified Angus Beef had another great year. You maybe want to give us some of the highlights as you guys look back?

John Stika (00:03:33):
Yeah, I think it was a bit of what I like to call peaks and valleys. This past year we had some really good moments and we had some areas that were a little bit more difficult and honestly, I think it was a year you really just can't be shortsighted. And that probably is a bit of what we need to keep in mind moving forward is it's really about the long haul because there are going to be some peaks and valleys. But at the end of the fiscal year, Mark, we finished up with our third best year in history from a sales standpoint, 1.235 billion pounds sold and that's just 5 million pounds back of where we were a year ago. And so every pound that we sell makes a difference and you think about 5 million pounds we sell, that's about a day and a half worth of sales is what that is over the course of a year.

(00:04:21):
So it gives you some idea how close we were, but it was pretty exciting. Retail was up for the first time since COVID, so that was an exciting success. Our foodservice sales actually ended up again this year as well, which should be about the 14th year out of the last 15. So strong improvement there and strength in foodservice. And I think as everybody would expect, our international sales areas where we struggled, you've got tariff dynamics, you've got pricing dynamics, you've got conversion rates on currencies that all had an impact this past year, but demand is strong and I think that's the thing that we really look forward to moving forward from a supply standpoint, we're beginning to feel some of the tightening and supply. We still certified 5.77 million carcasses this year, but that is the fifth tightest supply or the tightest supply we've seen in the last five years, and we only anticipate that we're going to get tighter moving forward. But it's interesting, all this talk around quality, Prime, we had an all-time record in Prime across every division, all time record and value-added products as well. And so just a lot of really good things going on that we're really looking forward to continuing to build demand because that's been probably the thing that we all across this business have just really felt really good about that even at these prices, consumers have still picked up our products.

Mark McCully (00:05:47):
Yeah, it is a great story and we continue to hear about all time high or multi-decade high beef demand and the idea that we're, record sales of Certified Angus Beef Prime in these prices. I think that should be pretty encouraging I think for cattlemen and Angus producers focused on quality for sure.

John Stika (00:06:08):
No, absolutely. I don't think the consumer's going to let us go backward, and I think that's probably the message that we have heard is they want to buy beef with, not only do they love the taste, but there is such a change. And you probably see it too, Mark, such a change in the health perceptions around beef, all the things going on, the focus on dietary protein, beef is winning in that space in large part because people love its taste and that's driving I think a big portion of the demand. All of us in this business have worked so hard for so long to win the consumer over. It's paying off. It's paying off.

Mark McCully (00:06:47):
Yeah. Awesome. Any big highlights as you look towards the coming year? Anything that's a change in strategy or continuing on and taking care of the licensees and the customers?

John Stika (00:07:01):
Yes, it's really not a change in strategy as much as it is more of the same when times get a bit more difficult. Margins in every segment are pressured right now, if there's a change in our approach, it probably is more focused on making sure that we're directing dollars and resources towards the things that we can associate more closely with driving sales. There is a need, a constant need to continue to build brand equity, brand awareness with consumers and so forth. We do that every year, but I would say this year we're going to do everything we can to really draw that consumer's attention, not just to the brand, but to specific licensees where we know they can purchase the product, get the product, enjoy the product. And so some of our advertising we've shifted over the last year to driving consumers to the meatcase or to the restaurant to directly influence sales.

(00:08:01):
We'll continue to do more of that. We've seen the sales momentum that comes with that at retail and foodservice, and we're going to continue to do more of that. But at the end of the day, Mark, it's all about continuing to put quality product in the marketplace and go create demand for it, and it's engaging our licensees so that they have a better idea how to continue to leverage the quality and creating the value that consumers are looking for when we're going to ask consumers to continue to pay a higher price. So it's continuing to influence the value side of that price value relationship that consumers think about when they decide to purchase this product.

Mark McCully (00:08:39):
Awesome. It's been a pretty successful formula, one that I anticipate will continue to be successful, and I think as you always first call out the mission of the brand that is about driving demand for registered Angus cattle in the very end. And, we've sure seen that on display here this fall, and so it's exciting to see where we are today and where we're going to go.

John Stika (00:09:02):
No, exactly. Exactly.

Mark McCully (00:09:04):
Well, hey, this special guest we had in this podcast, it was really appropriate, John, that you got to agreed to join and be a part of this conversation because it's a renowned meat scientist, Dr. Gary Smith, and I think most would know that name. If you've not met him personally, you may even recognize as his very distinctive voice and delivery of, and he's just really an industry, a legend and an icon and really so fortunate that Dr. Smith carved out some time. And so I think our listeners are really going to enjoy getting to hear the conversation that we got to have with Dr. Smith. So let's just get into it.

(00:09:49):
Well, today's guest is really a true legend in the beef industry and in the world of meat science. Dr. Gary Smith. Welcome Gary.

Gary Smith (00:09:58):
Thank you.

Mark McCully (00:10:00):
I know you've been referred to as the dean of meat scientists. You've spent literally six decades transforming our industry. You're a groundbreaking researcher, a passionate educator, certainly an influential leader. You've had this seems to be an unwavering commitment from the early stages of your career for beef quality, for food safety, for beef safety, of course, your time from a faculty standpoint, you spent some time there at Washington State University, Texas A & M, Colorado State University. You've probably been presented enough recognitions and awards that you probably have to build an additional wing or two onto your house, but I know one of those was the 2025 Certified Angus Beef Industry Achievement Award that John, you presented to Dr. Smith back in August.

John Stika (00:10:56):
And it was our pleasure to be able to do that. And as we were told by multiple colleagues of Dr. Smith, it was long overdue. And the reality is, I think if you're my age or older and you have a little bit more perspective and time in the industry, you are probably aware of just how significant Dr. Smith and his work has been and his leadership within this industry. But if you're younger, you may not have that perspective. And I know that evening there at Feeding Quality Forum, I made the comment that it's pretty widely agreed that Dr. Smith may be the most impactful meat scientist of all time to shape our business. And I feel honored to have been a part of this industry to see that come to fruition and to feel that impact because there is no doubt in these phenomenal record times that we're seeing right now.

(00:11:53):
We've got the best beef demand we've had in 40 years. We've got record high cattle prices, and we're seeing profitability back at the cow-calf level again and in rural America. And there is no doubt that Dr. Smith and the work that he has led and his colleagues have assisted in is a big part of why we're seeing this prosperity in our industry right now. And so it's an honor to have you here, Dr. Smith, and the chance to visit and maybe pick up on some of the conversation that we had in Rochester. Maybe just a place to start, maybe just give us a bit of an idea about how upbringing and your early experiences with agriculture, with your family and so forth really drove you towards a career and as an educator.

Gary Smith (00:12:42):
Well, I grew up on a farm in Caddo County, Oklahoma, and most of my life thought I would grow up and be a farmer and farm next to my dad and mom and a drought came along and really ended my interest, or opportunity really, because just as I was about to go into my senior year in high school, my dad lost everything we had. And so I stayed in Oklahoma so I could graduate from high school, wanted to be a junior master farmer, then moved out to California, went to college. And when I was trying to decide what I was going to do with my life, one of the opportunities was it just didn't cost much of anything to go to junior college. In fact, it was $8 a semester. And so I went home, talked to my folks and asked if I could live with them while I went to junior college.

(00:13:39):
And then I decided even though they first put me in predental as a major, and I went home every night thinking, I just don't think I can spend my life looking at people's teeth. And so I decided I better do something that I know something about. And what do I love most? Well, of the people that I really tried to use as mentors growing up there was my grandpa, my dad, the principal of the high school, my coach and my FFA teacher. And of all of those, I sure enough couldn't be a pastor. And so I decided I probably ought to do something that I really know something about. So I decided to go general agriculture, agriculture education, because I really truly loved, I had two different ag teachers as I was going through high school, and that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be able to help young people. I wanted to help farmers survive if they could. So that's how I got interested in doing that as a lifetime achievement.

John Stika (00:14:53):
Funny, you mentioned $8 a semester now that same $8 will buy you a cup of coffee in a lot of places.

Gary Smith (00:15:00):
Isn't that incredible? $8, total.

Mark McCully (00:15:07):
So keep going on that career path. So was that the goal you were going to get your degree and go back home and be an ag teacher? What got you into the meat science realm?

Gary Smith (00:15:20):
Well, I was in my senior year and I was doing my practice teaching at Sanger, which is just south of Fresno. I went to California State University of Fresno, did my practice teaching at Sanger. And the thing they assigned me to do was to teach welding. And I wasn't really a very good welder at all, but I found out that there were three guys that were seniors in high school that had won an award that they used to give welders, young welders. And so I decided, here's the way I'll teach. I'll have those guys do the welding, and I'll stand over to the side and say now, as we approach this vertical weld. And it always turned out a lot better. It would've actually had it. But sure enough, I was doing that in a class one time and the students welded me to the table while I wasn't watching.

(00:16:24):
I had a lighter over on this side of my belt, and they put an acetylene torch to that thing, and I started to walk away and I drug that table and I went back to Fresno State and told Dr. Bell, I don't think I can do this. I think you need to help me figure out what to do. And he suggested that I go to graduate school, and he knew Dr. Gene Ensminger, who was the head of the Department of Animal Science at Washington State University of Pullman. And so he rigged the deal that I would go there and work on my master's. And I went there really majoring and actually got my master's degree in genetics. And my research project was I had 50 bulls, four different breeds that I tied in. There were calves that I tied in twice a day, weighed the feed in and out, and we did a production test.

(00:17:28):
It was something called W1, which was western part of the United States, supported USDA production trials to determine the value of bulls. But I was working in that area, perfectly happy. All of a sudden, the head of the department, Gene Ensminger called me in and told me, our meat scientist has just taken a job at the University of Wisconsin. I've got to have somebody teach the meats courses. And I've asked some people around, do we have an energetic young guy that could maybe do that? And he said, they told me it would be you. So I said, I have a few questions. I said, yes, sir. I was scared to death. I thought he was going to fire me. When he called me, he says, now you went to that school down in California? Yes, sir. Did they have a meets course? Yes, sir. Did you take it?

(00:18:22):
Yes, sir. Did you like it? I said, no, sir. He said, no, sir? What didn't you like? I said, I don't know. I just didn't think it was a very good course. I said, I grew up and my grandpa and six of his sons all had farms together, and when we ran out of meat, we gathered as a family and we did it. And never will forget grandpa sitting in a rocking chair holding a .22 rifle. And his only part of the game was he got to do the stunning, actually. And the rest of us worked on it, and I didn't dislike it. It was fun. We did hogs and cattle and chickens all at one time if it was close to Christmas for Thanksgiving or turkeys. But anyhow, I knew a little bit about farm meat, but I didn't know a thing on earth about the industry or how it actually was done.

(00:19:22):
But Dr. Ensminger said, ah, you can do it. I just feel certain you can do it. And so I did. I tried and I just absolutely fell in love with it. I had to teach that first fall semester course in animal science, a course in food science, a course to hotel and restaurant management kids. And then I had to work with a meats judging team. And I just absolutely loved all four of those things. And the best thing that ever happened to me was the person who was teaching meats that had left Washington state and gone to Wisconsin did not leave a single piece of paper of what he presented in lectures. And in the long run, that really helped me because it made me figure out, what is it that you need to teach next? What should you cover? And what I did when I first started teaching, as I've told people hundreds of times, a class period was 50 minutes.

(00:20:23):
I prepared my speech for each class period for 55 minutes because I could not possibly have answered a question that anybody asked. And so the way I stayed ahead of them was to go a little bit over on every lecture. But the second thing that really influenced me was I didn't know how I could convince young people to do things related to meat that were better than that meat judging team. Because the opportunity to get in the car and drive up to Spokane, and it was an hour up there and an hour back. And when I was coaching that meat judging team, I used that period of time to talk with those kids

(00:21:10):
And we'd talk about what we were judging and grading and so on, but we'd talk about life and all of a sudden I just fell in love with the idea of working with young people. And it was really a very convenient way to do it on those teams. And I was not any kind of an athlete growing up. Everybody had to play or we wouldn't have enough people to have a team. And so I participated in sports, but we didn't have the kind of coaches that we learned to love in the process of going through that. And I wanted to be influential in terms of helping the kids plan their futures. And some of those people, most of 'em are gone now because of my age, but I have a lot of those people that still send me Christmas cards and they call, and now that we have cellphones, they get back to me. So anyhow, it was all those kinds of things. I just fell in love with meat and trying to teach it.

Mark McCully (00:22:11):
Well, we're the benefactor that you did. We have a lot of young folks that listen to this podcast, Dr. Smith. You went from almost a dentist, almost a welder to world renowned meat scientist, when

John Stika (00:22:24):
This is your typical path. That's your typical path.

Mark McCully (00:22:26):
Exactly. Very typical. But when a young person maybe is, what counsel, I know you've mentored and counseled a lot of young folks on their career paths. What counsel do you give young folks as they're trying to find their thing, the thing that they fall in love with?

Gary Smith (00:22:44):
I have found that usually if you try to start off by telling them things that they can do that didn't work. But if you start off saying, well, what kinds of things do you really enjoy doing? What kind of life do you see yourself having a family? How important is that family going to be to you? Because I personally believed, and I think my dad did, it's me and God and the family. And so if you can make a living and do it without doing things God wouldn't want you to do and raise your kids, that's what makes you happy. So anyhow, I think if you let them tell you what they're interested in, and I've had people say to me things like, well, I want to be governor of Washington. And I always would say, you can. You absolutely can. All you have to do is work hard enough, do the right things. And I think if you encourage them, then it really doesn't matter whether that's what they do or not,

(00:23:58):
But you give them the opportunity to begin to think, he believes that I could do that. And maybe what they told you was actually the second or third choice. They didn't want to tell you their first choice because they didn't want you to laugh at 'em. I just think you have to help people. And I tried that with my own children. I was not any more successful with my own children than I was with students. But whatever they did, I tried to help them. I tried to support them, and I think that's what most good people do. Yeah.

John Stika (00:24:34):
Dr. Smith, one of the things is that I've always noticed and admired because it's not common, but great instructors and mentors are naturally inquisitive or inquisitive. They ask good questions, sometimes more so than giving great answers. And I guess, is that something, as you think back and you look at the number of people that you've influenced across the industry, is that a skillset asking the great question, is that something that you've intentionally focused on over your career, or is it something that just is inherent to who you are or because it obviously impacted your influence as an educator, as a researcher, as a communicator. And I'd just be curious of your take on that, or if I just shared something with you you've never thought about before, I'd be curious.

Gary Smith (00:25:36):
No, no. It's a very good question. And I think the truth is I never thought of what I was doing or why I was doing that. I just think that it was somehow or another, it's the way I was programmed. My brain just was the kind of brain that said, see if you can help them. If you can't do anything to teach them more than they already know or inform them better than they were informed, you can then support 'em, help 'em, give 'em that extra little push that gets 'em across the goal line. So no, I don't think good teachers even think about, I'm going to be a good teacher. I just think that they find people, and especially people that inspire them, and I think you do things to help them. I was really embarrassed because one of the things that my wife was once asked, well, now that you and Gary are married, what is the most surprising thing that you know about him that you didn't know when you got married? She said, that's easy. When I married him, I thought he loved everyone, but he doesn't. But he spent his life trying to prove that they'd never know the difference.

(00:27:14):
And it's terrible for me to say that now, but there were people that I just didn't really like. And both of you have done this very same thing in your management, the administration of Certified Angus Beef. You have to work with lots of people that you do not like, you do not respect. You do not think that they're better than you or smarter than you, but you have to work with 'em. And so the key to that is they should never know what you actually think. And so I tried to do anything and everything that I could do to help people, whether or not I liked them. And I did that. Never even thought about it. I just thought, this is what I want to do. I want to help this person. And I did some I think, and others I didn't, but I always tried.

Mark McCully (00:28:12):
Indeed.

Gary Smith (00:28:13):
You're grinning. Do you agree?

John Stika (00:28:14):
Hundred percent, yeah.

Mark McCully (00:28:17):
I have to be careful. As a breed association made up of 22,000 members, I always say I love every one of our members. And of course, yeah, we refer to it as a likability factor. And I think some people's just likability factor is higher than others. And there's compatibility

Gary Smith (00:28:35):
 I think it is too.

Mark McCully (00:28:36):
And I think some people work at it harder than others.

Gary Smith (00:28:39):
Sometimes you get to know those people and you were really wrong. You just didn't get to know them well enough. Absolutely.

John Stika (00:28:49):
I'm just sitting here trying to determine, which group am I in?

Mark McCully (00:28:57):
This is going to get awkward, John, so we probably need to move on.

John Stika (00:28:59):
What's next question? Next question.

Gary Smith (00:29:02):
Well, that's the one you can edit out.

Mark McCully (00:29:05):
That's gold. That's gold.

Speaker 1 (00:29:07):
And that's a good place to put a pin in it while we hear from today's podcast sponsor

Speaker 2 (00:29:13):
Ingram Angus is committed to producing high quality proven genetics that perform for real world cattle producers. You are invited to their annual production sale on Friday, November 7th, featuring an outstanding set of fall yearlings, spring bred heifers, spring heifers, split pairs, embryo transfer heifer calves, and the largest offering of bulls they've ever featured. For more information on some of the breed's most proven cow families, visit ingramangus.com. The team looks forward to seeing you on the farm in Pulaski, Tennessee, on November 7th.

Speaker 1 (00:29:49):
Now, let's pick up right where we left off.

Mark McCully (00:29:52):
Dr. Smith, that curiosity that John referred to and asking the great questions. I think no doubt has my opinion made you the researcher that you are because I'm guessing there was probably never a day where you weren't asking questions of how we get better, how we improve, how we make it, why are things the way they are, right. And which I think is such a gift of great researchers. As you look back, I'd be curious, as you look back across your career, where do you believe, was there a particular research project or area of projects that you believe were the either most important to you or the most impactful for the beef cattle industry? It's like picking a favorite child a little bit.

Gary Smith (00:30:40):
No, I think a lot of the things that we did research on came out of, first of all, where could we get the money to study those things? And that is one of the things that affects university professors more than all others. And if someone at a relatively small school never becomes known as a good meat scientist, it's probably because he never had the money to do the kinds of things. He probably had the same ideas I had. He just was in a place where he couldn't get the funds to do it. So I was very fortunate to get the funding. I also tried to go to meetings like NCBA or breed association meetings and just sit in the back of the room and listen to the things that were their problems, and then think about ways that I could do something or my students could do something that might be helpful to them.

(00:31:40):
And it got to the point at NCBA, I would go to a meeting that say, Gary Cowman was running on BQA, and I would just sit there and somewhere in that period of time, Gary Cowman would yell to me, Hey, Smitty, could you put four or five students together on that if we got you a little money? That's the way we started looking for the shot infections we were creating largely in the top sirloin butt, that happened that way. He turned to me and he said, could you possibly have a graduate student or two that could work on that? And so we started. So I think a lot of it is just being opportune with whatever comes in front of you, and then trying to seek out things that you could do that would in fact be of benefit to the industry as a whole.

(00:32:36):
And we were just really lucky. I had some of the smartest young people to work with. Oh, my gracious. And I had had great mentors, people that helped me. I didn't know a single thing about coaching a meats judging team, but eight miles away from Pullman, Washington was University of Idaho. And there was a young guy there who was coaching their meats team, and his name was Dell Allen. And so Dell Allen and Leon Orme taught me enough about judging meat that I could get competitive. And I lost a lot of contests to them, but they're the ones who really helped me. I'd been on a livestock judging team in college, but never meats team, and they helped me. They taught me, and it was Dell Allen primarily willing to just give me whatever he had. He would go around and set up classes. We were working in the same coolers, Armour in Spokane and Clarkston and all these places.

(00:33:43):
And if he'd set up a class, he'd come by and say, I've got a set of rounds over there where you ought to work on those. So it was people that helped me. Yes, it was important when I got my PhD that I had a major professor and other professors at Texas A&M that helped me learn to be a scientist. But Leon Orme taught me how to do extension because he did extension in Idaho. And he'd invite me to go with him, and he and I'd room together, and I'd kind of learn, okay, this is how you work with people to do these things, to tell 'em the things they need to do. So I've just been really blessed. I know I'm talking too long, but you can edit this out, but it was great people who helped me and great students that came across.

John Stika (00:34:32):
Yeah, I know one of the things that we talk about all the time, not just us at Certified Angus Beef and Angus, but the industry, the importance of the '91 quality audit and how that really changed things. And I definitely want to get into that with you a little bit and kind of talk about the dynamics around that and what was going on at the time. But this is why I'm not a good interviewer, because when we were visiting in Rochester, I would've given anything to bet that that would've been what you said was one of the most impactful research projects that you worked on. And I learned quite a bit during our interaction there that you actually said that it was working on some of the original work with vacuum packaging. And I thought to myself, without a doubt, that is one of the most impactful research projects ever to take place when you think of the prevalence of vacuum packaging and how important it is today.

(00:35:33):
And I guess maybe just give you the freedom to talk about some of the different research projects that you've been a part of over your career, because I think we don't always appreciate how far we've come as an industry in some of these areas when it comes to food safety and quality, just the ability to ship product around the world today, where before some of this work that you were critically a part of, honestly, we didn't have that capability. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts about some of the, I guess maybe the variety of projects and maybe the impact of many of the projects that you've worked on.

Gary Smith (00:36:12):
Well, when I was at Washington State University, I was there five years working with a master's degree, but they still expected me to do some kind of research. So one of the things that I really got involved with is there were two lamb plants, one in Ellensburg, one in Walla Walla. So I was working with lamb, and one of the problems they had with lamb was their stuff was it needed to age, but it didn't need to age as long as it was aging. And so one of the things that they were trying to work on was a different kind of package. And so there was a company called Dewey & Almy later changed its name to Cryovac and WR Grace bought 'em. But anyhow, they got interested in trying to use this bag and then pulling a vacuum on it with the meat inside. And so we were doing some really interesting things, but we needed to spend more money.

(00:37:05):
So Dr. Ensminger was one who helped me get started. I went into his office and I said, Dr. Ensminger, I need some money to do this project. Told him all about it. And he said, okay, please excuse yourself. He was really a stern kind of guy. He said, seat yourself outside and I'll get back to you. So I went outside, sit down. 15 minutes later, he invites me in and he says, be at my office at eight o'clock on Saturday morning. You and I are going to go out in the country. So we did, and we went to Ellensburg, Washington. Then we went up into the mountains and to this really mansion of the house. Went inside. Dr. Ensminger had me present my request for research, and it was on cryo vacuuming, vacuum packaging, lamb cuts so that we could ship 'em across the country without 'em spoiling in between.

(00:37:59):
So anyhow, we get back in the car, we're headed home, and I turn to him and I say, who was that guy? He said, well, he funded you, didn't he? I said, yes, sir. He said, his name is Bill Boeing. And he was the Boeing of Boeing aircraft. So I don't remember how much money it was, probably around a thousand or maybe $1,500 to get started. But anyhow, we were very successful using that kind of technology to put shelf life into meat. So one of the first things I did when I moved from Washington State University, Texas A&M University, was I decided to see if they would fund a project over in a group of scientists called Transportation. And there was a guy named Carl Hoke. And Carl Hoke wound up getting us about $150,000 because he said, we've got a problem. We need to get our beef to our military bases without freezing it.

(00:39:02):
All we're doing at this point is just freezing and shipping it over. We need to figure out a way to get it to them fresh. So we did the work. Originally, we did three sets of studies where we were shipping 'em from different places for different periods of time. We went to Hawaii with a bunch. We went to Alaska with a bunch. We went to Japan with a bunch, and Cryovac worked. So I would think that that's one of the most important things that we ever did, because we immediately then could sell beef overseas to anybody and everybody that had never been frozen. And the problem with frozen beef was we didn't protect it. We just threw it in there and froze it, and it got over there and it had freezer burn, and it was subject to everything it came in contact with. And the idea of putting it in those bags wasn't my idea. I didn't know any of the engineering. All I knew was we're going to get some meat, we're going to try to follow it over there. I remember bringing back trays full of bacterial samples, and I'd be thrown in prison for taking those things on airplanes now. But anyhow, we did those studies. So I think that was really important

(00:40:13):
Relative to the National Beef Quality Audit. Actually, that wasn't my idea. It was Chuck Lambert. Chuck Lambert gave a talk in Houston, Texas, at the time of the Houston Livestock Show. They used to have a meeting there, and they had speakers that spoke for the International Stockman's Educational Foundation. And at that time, Chuck, who was a K State graduate in animal science and law school. So he was a lawyer as well as an ag economist. He was animal science and ag econ, and then a lawyer. But at any rate, he gave a talk that was whether or not we were capturing every penny that we could from every bovine animal that we generated. He went over the places where, well, if we didn't have this type disease, if we didn't have that type of disease, if the quality was better and so on. So on the way home from attending that, I decided, gosh, what we need to do is figure out whether or not all that money that Lambert says we're leaving it on the table, is there.

(00:41:26):
And so I just created an idea of having a national survey of beef industry, see which of those things he was right and which things were wrong. And so fortunately, I was able to get funding, and we, along with Texas A&M, Texas Tech and some others did the first one. And we found a whole bunch of places where we just absolutely could recover lots of our money that was lost as had been identified by him. So I think that was important. I think it was important that we developed the electrical stimulation of beef carcasses because that is still used by virtually every packer in the world. I'm really proud of the bacteriological things that we did when we were in trouble with E. coli 157.H7. I worked with some really, really smart people, really, really smart students. We came up with a system that everyone uses where you use a series of things to actually accomplish killing the bad bacteria that are there.

(00:42:38):
I enjoyed being able to work when we were having the mad cow disease thing and getting to travel overseas and find out what those folks were doing, coming back to the United States and trying to teach the people that were trying to avoid us getting involved in that. And we did. So I just had a lot of really important things that I just out of pure luck, got to work with and got to work with some really talented scientists, really talented graduate students. I would probably put the beef quality audience right up there toward the top John, because people rallied around the flag and we just did the things that we needed to do. Would you agree, Mark?

Mark McCully (00:43:25):
Yeah. Really, because prior to that, we just didn't have much of a benchmark, right?

Gary Smith (00:43:31):
That's correct.

Mark McCully (00:43:31):
We really didn't know where we were. Right. And the old adage of you can't manage what you don't measure. This was really the first attempt of and successful effort of the industry to measure where we were and what I'm guessing we all probably understood there was lost opportunity, but until it was quantified with specifics around it, it created some targets, right, for producing

Gary Smith (00:43:56):
Absolutely.

Mark McCully (00:43:57):
In the industry to rally around. Yeah. So important. Talk about the, so the quality audit includes both the surveying of end users and getting there, but then also you literally go into the coolers and audits. What did you find in 1991? How were we doing from a quality standpoint today we're producing more Prime than we are Select. It wasn't quite the case there in 1991.

Gary Smith (00:44:21):
Yeah, I think the biggest difference was that we had been fighting very hard trying to make everybody believe in marbling. And you folks and Mick Colvin and your ideas for specific kind of beef weren't really registering as strongly as they could have. And I think that's what pushed it across the line because I think people want a specific level of quality if they're going to buy it every time. I just read a report from Glynn Tonsor and Glynn Tonsor is a great ag economist from Kansas State. It said, how are we keeping all these people with the price of beef the way it is? And guess what he put first? Taste, taste. And it's the consistency that's provided by programs like yours. They're going to get the same experience time after time after time. And one of the things that the National Beef Quality Audit shows us about quality is whatever your quality level is going to be, be there every time, don't surprise us. And I think that's what we do with the kinds of qualifications that you have built in, for example, to your program.

Speaker 1 (00:45:48):
And with that, we're going to take a quick time out for this word from Angus Media.

Speaker 3 (00:45:54):
Are you looking for your next influential Angus sire? The Angus Bull Book is your resource for some of the top genetics in the breed. EPDs are updated weekly so you can find the perfect fit for your herd. View the 2025 Angus Bull Book sire directory on the sale book search page at angus.org, or find the link in our show notes.

John Stika (00:46:20):
Yeah. One of the things that you've always done, Dr. Smith, it's not just surrounding yourself with great people that you became a tremendous mentor to. You rarely give yourself enough credit for the impact you've had in influencing so many, but you always ask the right questions and conducted research with colleagues and so forth. You bring this sense of collaboration that I think makes everything better in this business and this industry. But the other thing that you relentlessly did is you were always willing to get out and talk about the information and maybe share a little bit about what I've always seen as a passion for communicating the results of the research, because that seems to have always been the difference. Just to cite one example that those early national beef quality audits, I mean for the younger listeners, there was a time where one out of every four steaks that we produced were tough, and it's hard to build demand on that. And I maybe share a little bit of your experience as you communicated that information repeatedly to the industry. I'd be curious how the industry responded to that information.

Gary Smith (00:47:41):
Well, as I said earlier, I think the reason that has become so important that the National Beef quality audits have become so important to us is that we did get people who changed what they were doing and believing that they were headed in the right direction. I was afraid early on that it was too pessimistic. And I remember being somewhere going to give a talk, and I was around a corner and I heard some woman, an industry wife who said, well, you have to sit down and listen to Gary bitch again about all the stuff we're doing wrong. And I thought to myself, maybe I am. Maybe I'm emphasizing the wrong too much because I don't want to be known as the bad Pied Piper. But I think they listened. I think I probably did overstate the case. Nevertheless, we made progress and we made progress because we told people, this is relatively similar folks, that we can do this and this and this, or we can not do them. And if we, not do them, we don't have an industry. And I think people responded to that. Was I too negative? You heard so

John Stika (00:49:01):
No, actually, honestly, to hear you say that I sit here and go, what if you would've sugarcoated it? Where would we be? Or what if you would've underplayed the significance of an absence of quality? We look at, not to pick on other proteins, but pork finds themselves today asking a lot of the same questions about growing beef demand that you posed to the industry clear back in the late eighties and early nineties. And I just find it, I'm just really appreciative that the industry embraced that message, maybe reluctantly in many cases. And it took a while for the economic signals to really communicate through the industry what everybody or many believed to be the case. But boy, what if we wouldn't have made change based on objective data and respected scientists that presented it to the industry? And so your comments actually just conjure up an alternative reality that I don't really like. And so I'm just glad we did embrace it and that you did communicate it the way you did. And that the industry,

Mark McCully (00:50:17):
I would tell you my recollection of those, anytime I saw Dr. Gary Smith on the program, one, I knew it was going to be a full house, but two, I knew I wanted to be there. And I sure as heck don't remember negativity. I remember thinking, this is the truth, this is the direction. And so to your point, John, I'm sure thankful that you didn't sugarcoat things because I'm sure you got some pushback from time to time. I'm sure some groups that probably didn't maybe think we needed to chase down a quality route and maybe it needed to be more about lean and red meat yield. And some places we had been earlier with a focus that had maybe lost some direction around consumer acceptance of our products. For sure. Dr. Smith, I think about the listeners of this podcast a lot are in the seedstock business. So genetic designers, as I think about 'em, and I think a job of registered breeders and folks in the genetics is to try to look down the road as much as possible as an industry trying to prepare genetics. Are there some changes you see underway or think are likely coming in the beef cattle industry in particular that are very interesting to you? Even maybe concerning to you or things we need to, if your opportunity to speak to the genetics folks, what do we need to prepare ourselves for?

Gary Smith (00:51:47):
I just read a really interesting story in Bovine Veterinarian written by Tyne Morgan, and she was talking to people really in of the sectors saying that, here's what's happened to us since beef on dairy. We have made our cows too big, too big, too heavy. And what we need to do is we need to go back to smaller cows, but with larger bulls. And so it would be a system in which you got the size. If we're going to have 940 pound carcasses, which is what we have, we probably can't afford to have 940 pound cows or the kind who would produce those. And so I think the future is going to be almost crossbreeding. I don't think it has to be crossbreeding. They say in the article they need to cross breed. I don't think they need to cross breed. I think they need to breed two different types of cattle within a breed.

(00:52:59):
And you need smaller cows to keep those great big carcasses. The packers are not going to let us go down much. Once they've worked out ways to sell these great big old cuts, they're not going to go backward because everyone knows they've got so many shackles that go through a day. The more weight hanging on that shackle, the more profit they make. And they're not going to go back to little bitty carcasses just because somebody tells 'em that the consumer wants a four ounce T bone. And so I think the future is, and with my own interest, I have absolutely no capability as an animal breeder, but my interest in animal breeding will be, what do you guys, let me ask you two guys. What are you going to do? Will you go with small cows? But heavy thought,

Mark McCully (00:53:53):
I think that is truly the question that the industry is wrestling with right now. If you look at the trajectory of carcass weights over the last 40 years, I mean, this thing is pretty consistent. And so I think we're feeling it in places in the country where we've got cows that have the growth potential to produce that 15, 16, 1,700 pound finished steer, maybe bigger, but she might not be able, you may not have the nutrition to support her and get her in the right rig and right flesh and get rebred, right. So I think it's matching that cow. I think there'll be some parts of the country as I talk to folks where they've got more abundant feed or they can maintain that bigger cow. The economics may fit for them a little better, but for the most part of our country where we're converting grass to pounds of weaned calf, we're going to have to struggle with that and get the cows to fit the environment and then the genetics that can produce that calf, that can go on and produce an acceptable carcass and stay efficient and all of those things. And we see it, I think, Dr. Smith in the Angus breed today, I mean, we've got a tremendous amount of diversity in our breed.

(00:55:19):
We've got almost the spectrum, and we're not really calling them maternal lines and terminal lines, but it's really almost kind of what in some regards, some would say is developing a little bit in the breed. And it, economics are taking us down that path. As you think about the size of carcasses today, did you think there was a time when this cut, John and I, you're kind of smirking John. I don't know how many conversations we've had over the years with foodservice folks saying we need that smaller ribeye, and we've worked the math for 'em a bazillion ways and finally just said, we're just going to cut the carcass up a little different. Are we bigger than you ever thought we would get 'em though? Did you ever think we'd be getting carcasses on average this big?

Gary Smith (00:56:11):
I did not. And I think I listened too often to people talk about the size of the loin eye and ribeye, and I think that was really incorrect. People like Dallas Horton kept telling me, well, Gary just cut 'em in half. And I wouldn't listen to some really simplistic answers, but I don't don't think consumers say that it has to be. We can put a half a ribeye out there and sell it, and if it performs for 'em, they'll come back and buy a second one. And so I think we just tricked ourself into thinking something that was not correct. And it represents too little of the carcass. That's like saying, I'm going to produce a pork carcass for the spare ribs, which by the way, is what they're doing now.

John Stika (00:57:09):
That's right. Yeah. No, you're exactly right.

Mark McCully (00:57:14):
The loin's a byproduct. Yeah.

Gary Smith (00:57:16):
I went to a dinner last night, a bunch of people, my birthday's coming up and a whole bunch of the people that were on the faculty while I was here, and somebody during that thing said, Hey, have you eaten a pork chop lately? And somebody else said, absolutely not. I grew up as my favorite meat. And then somebody in the audience said, they could have solved that problem and they could solve it tomorrow. Just go back to Duroc. And I thought to myself, that probably would be the solution, not making the ribeye, loin eye, smaller.

John Stika (00:57:58):
Yeah, it's been fun to listen to your guys' conversation on carcass size and so forth. I would tell you that I really do think that the production side of the business, the producer, the cow-calf producer and so forth, has a lot to say around what size these cows need to be. As long as we are able to provide cattle that can go to the weights that feeders and packers need them to be. And so there is a lot of individual discipline that can be applied to those decisions based on the sector you're in. Because you're right that we've not had consumers complain much about carcass size or end users even, because the best technology we have is still the oldest. And that's a sharp knife.

Gary Smith (00:58:47):
That's right.

John Stika (00:58:48):
And you're right, it does come back to we've kind of trained ourselves that a ribeye steak has to look like a ribeye steak, but beyond that, no one's ever been too concerned about the shape of a top round roast or a London broil. We can manage that with the knife, and I think our industry is doing a really good job of it. We just have to manage cow size. And I think, Mark, you said it, let the cow fit the environment, let the bull fit the market, and kind of go from there and use some of the variants in genetics within the Angus breed to make that happen. And I think it's as good a solution as any.

Gary Smith (00:59:30):
Well, I think it's really important that you both are saying within this breed, because the way I read this article there saying crossbreeding, crossbreeding, and to me they're encouraging. I don't think we need to cross breed.

Mark McCully (00:59:45):
Well, this is The Angus Conversation. So we do have a bit of a bias we acknowledge from the get-go. But I do think, and the breed of Angus cattle today does have so much diversity that folks can get what they need and do it with the database and the power of the database today. And we're continuing to work on maternal, maternal tools and things that help producers navigate some of these economic signals that get sent with the cow and the carcass and that friction that's always existed, but it just continues to get stronger and stronger as we go. But with that, I guess all in mind, Dr. Smith, as we start to kind of wrap up, as you think about the future of the beef industry with your wisdom and watching the things we've done right, and candidly the things that we've maybe not gotten right over a few decades, what's your best advice to beef producers today? And what are the things, what are the non-negotiables, the things that we've got to keep front and center as we think about planning for the future of this beef industry?

Gary Smith (01:01:02):
Well, and I'm not saying that because I'm talking to two people who have developed probably the most effective marketing system ever in beef. I think you have to present quality consistently time after time after time. The reason I was concerned about the crossbreeding is going back and looking at the industry, because if we do everything just to get to some end point in the carcass, what happens to heifers? I can cross breed and create a good thing to put in the feedlot is a steer. But what happens to a sister if she doesn't work? And that's why I think within one breed, you can have the genotypes that you need, and you know much more about this than me, and you guys are doing a great job. But I just think you need to plan into different people, different geographic areas, different everything. But there will be people who contribute these and these and these, and there's a place for all of them. But I think as an end product, we're getting help now. We're going to get more in the future. One of the things that they keep pointing out in every article about beef is that the people who are using the GLP 1 weight treatments for, what am I thinking? Weight loss. Loss, blood pressure and diabetes, that's helping beef,

(01:02:41):
We're selling more protein and beef is really doing better than the other proteins because of its flavor.

Mark McCully (01:02:48):
Protein is pretty hot right now, isn't it? Absolutely. I saw some data for GLP 1 projections for, I think there's some patents that are ready to come off, and the projections for GLP 1 usage over the next 10 to 15 years is exponential. And so that lends itself to, I think we're going to see some pretty strong protein demand. I think for some time and making sure that beef continues to be the protein of choice or as John as you, I say the protein of celebration for sure too.

John Stika (01:03:22):
Yep. And we celebrate every day.

Gary Smith (01:03:24):
I just read an article inside Precision Medicine and it said, as more people are engaging in the use of GLP 1 drugs, the demand for protein is increasing and beef is leading the charge again. And then when they describe why it is, it's taste, taste, taste. That's where you guys are and you know that much better than I, but I think you're on track if anybody's going to survive and if anybody's going to succeed, I think it will be programs like yours.

Mark McCully (01:04:07):
Well, Dr. Smith, you saw a time when our industry took our eye off that ball and we took our eye off of that consumer eating satisfaction. Now you've seen the error in our ways and candidly saw how long it's taken us to correct that curve and

Gary Smith (01:04:23):
Absolutely

Mark McCully (01:04:23):
Get our demand back to where we're enjoying what we have today. And so we want to make sure, we're talking a lot today about we do need to improve red meat yield on these cattle, and yet we got to do that while not taking our eye off of the quality eating experience and the consistency of that eating experience in the end. It's not an either or. It's an and and

Gary Smith (01:04:48):
Absolutely.

Mark McCully (01:04:49):
We can do the and. Yeah,

Gary Smith (01:04:50):
Absolutely.

Mark McCully (01:04:52):
Well, Dr. Smith, we've taken a bunch of your time and you're, how close are you to this birthday party? Is it a day away or a couple days away, or do you celebrate a month at a time?

Gary Smith (01:05:03):
I'll be 87 on October the 25th.

Mark McCully (01:05:07):
Happy early birthday. Happy early birthday. Well, one of the things we always end our podcast on, and Miranda Reiman is normally the, she's the leader on this and she's out on maternity leave. So I have to hold up the tradition of asking a random question of the week. And so the random question of the week as a meat scientist, you've probably also got to consume some, maybe some unusual meat dishes, meat and meals maybe along your career. Has there been anything, even maybe in international travels, is there a very unusual meat dish that you've enjoyed or not enjoyed in your time as a meat scientist?

Gary Smith (01:05:55):
No. I would guess that the steak that I love most is my mother taking a piece of round steak using the edge of a saucer, beating it to death, putting flour on it, and chicken fried. And that's what an Okie kid grew up eating. Chicken fried steak. Do you guys remember those?

John Stika (01:06:25):
Oh, yes, absolutely.

Mark McCully (01:06:29):
Yeah.

John Stika (01:06:30):
And they're even better when made with Certified Angus Beef. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Mark McCully (01:06:37):
John, have you ever got in a spot where you had some, I know you're not a steak tartare fan, but that's not really unusual. You're just not a steak tartare guy.

John Stika (01:06:46):
Yeah, I've had too many. I was never taught you're supposed to eat steak raw. Rare is fine, but raw has always been a struggle for me. But I will consume it if presented with it. Honestly, I've never had a beef meal of any kind that I haven't found to be excellent. I would say the most unique one actually isn't unique today. It is octopus. I actually enjoy octopus if you consider that among the meats and actually would seek it out at least as an appetizer today. But menudo is one also that has some beef items in it, some offals and so forth. Those are the ones that I still find unique, some of the offals and so forth that I'm still working on to be a regular consumer of those items to help drive beef demand. But we don't certify those into our brand, so that's just helping the general industry.

Mark McCully (01:07:45):
Some of those where the acquired taste takes so long to acquire, I guess I just don't see the point. Right. Well, Dr. Smith, this has truly been a privilege to have you come on our podcast and visit and really hear your story and your perspective. This beef industry owes you an incredible debt of gratitude for your leadership, your curiosity, your willingness to listen to what the industry needed, and then roll up your sleeves and go to work. And man, we enjoy the situation we have today with demand and prices and profitability and some margin in our business because you led us and helped us see as an industry that we got to take care of the consumer and we got to take care of food safety and we got to do all these things. And so just on behalf of the beef industry, I am not sure I feel qualified to speak on behalf of the beef industry, but I can tell you on behalf of our Angus community, we just sincerely thank you and it's been certainly a privilege to have you on here today and to have you share your insight and your story.

(01:09:03):
So thank you.

Gary Smith (01:09:04):
Well, thank you for asking me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
And that's a wrap on today's podcast for all the latest Certified Angus Beef news, including Dr. Gary Smith's article and other award winners from this Fall's annual conference. Be sure to visit angusjournal.net. This has been the Angus Conversation, an Angus Journal podcast.