Assessing Bottlenecks in Vertically Organized Beef Systems

Summary The greatest challenge to successful beef systems is vertically organizing the beef supply chain in a way that adds value to the fi nal product and that mutually satisfi es the objectives of the diverse participants in the system. Results from this preliminary study suggest that the vertically organized beef systems included here met participants’ expectations with respect to information access, quality improvement, and business culture at nearly the same level of im-portance that participants gave to those motives for joining the system. Additionally, participants gener-ally did not enter beef groups with strong motives of lowering costs, nor did they rate beef groups’ performance strong in this area. Interestingly, the largest disparity in the study is between participants’ motives and participants’ perceptions of beef group performance with respect to price premiums, though the average increase in profi t per head reported by the respondents is certainly appreciable. Given that the study reports participants’ perceptions, it is important to recognize that the source of this disparity between motive and performance may stem from unrealistic profi t expectations or from poor performance on the part of the beef group. The study suggests that further research would include an examination of beef-system administrators’ perceptions as compared to those of beef-system participants.