Miranda Reiman:
Welcome to the Angus Conversation. I'm your host Miranda Reiman with my co-host, CEO of the American Angus Association, Mark McCully, and around the table today, we've got three board members, as we just wrapped up our September board meetings.

Mark McCully:
It was a good week of really great discussion and I hope our members always want to know that the amount of time and effort that you guys as directors spend away from your operations in here conducting business. And we know it's not just this week, it's the weeks leading up to, and I know a lot of times evenings spent on phone calls with members listening. Yeah. Charles Mogck from South Dakota. Charles, thanks for joining.
Charles Mogck:
I truly appreciate being here. It's always fun to be at board meetings, talk about the Angus Breed, the association and everything it does.
Mark McCully:
And we've got Darrell Stevenson from Montana, and I always tease Darrrell he comes with his wool vest on. It is warm here in the Midwest, but back home it's probably still chilly.
Darrell Stevenson:
It is.
Mark McCully:
Still chilly, getting really chilly.
Darrell Stevenson:
Yeah, we froze a couple of times so far and there's been snow in the mountains already, but a week in St. Joe is just, it's a privilege to be here and we've had a big, full week. We've got some exciting things going on.
Mark McCully:
Absolutely. Congratulations are in order. This meeting was an election of the treasurer by the Board and you were elected the treasurer to serve for the coming year, so congratulations on that.
Darrell Stevenson:
Thank you. That means a lot. It's truly a humbling moment and I couldn't be more honored for the confidence and support from the fellow board members. So truly excited and moving forward.
Mark McCully:
Fantastic.
Miranda Reiman:
And then of course, anchoring this podcast here for the last year has been Dr. Pollard just sitting here at the end of the table and given a lot of service and we had a fun evening getting to recognize you and thank you for your service in the past year.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Thank you. Now it's been eight years now of being on the Board and it's coming to an end in November. I can say it's truly been an enjoyable opportunity to serve the Angus Association and the membership, and I've enjoyed it and I will miss it, but I'll stay involved.
Mark McCully:
You're a phone call away, right?
Dr. Barry Pollard:
That's right.
Miranda Reiman:
Okay. We'll count on that. So as it always is, it's been a full meeting and we've got folks that have flights to catch, so we probably should just dig right into it, Mark.
Mark McCully:
Absolutely.
 
This is the time that we do budgets and forecasts and kind of talk about year end things as we're projecting out to the end of our fiscal year later this month. So I guess thoughts on what you guys heard as we talked about the budgets?
Darrell Stevenson:
Well, most successfully, I think from a budgetary standpoint, the association had an incredibly successful year, so I'm proud of that across not only Angus, AAA itself, but all the entities. So we've seen a tremendous, tremendous growth and I think that's all optimism pointing forward.
Charles Mogck:
I think it's being on a board, it's very, very important to be financial responsible. We're lucky to have reserves, we're lucky to show income, very, very important. The worst thing I would want to go off of a board and have a association that's in trouble lacking income. So yeah, we are lucky to be in the financial position we are in.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Mark and the staff work very hard at controlling expenses and keeping things in line. We've been very fortunate with our investment portfolio. We've had a really good year, and that continues to grow and provides a lot of stability for us and gives us the opportunity in the future to, perhaps, make investments in things that are meaningful to the association and to the membership. So we look forward to continued progress in that area and the opportunities that could arise.
Charles Mogck:
Yeah, I have to add on, we're always trying to cut expenses, but we are a service organization and association, so we have to keep spending money to provide our services that we need.
Mark McCully:
That's well said. And I think not only did we, so this year is obviously we're forecasting year end and again, excited to report financial health across the organization and then also proposed budgets for the coming year. You guys got to see budgets for all entities and very happy to put balanced budgets in front of you for every one of the entities. That's optimism for the year moving forward.
Miranda Reiman:
As we talked about other association business and budgets, one thing that came up in the Angus Media budgetary discussion was a little bit of talk about accounts receivable that we have in that entity and how maybe it's a little bit different than, as you know, you prepay for services and AGI. And just when we have marketing services that are lined up with wanting to let you have your sale and then go ahead and pay your bill. That also has caused some challenges for us as a staff and as a company.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
We have to be mindful that this is a membership organization, we provide services. But on the other hand, we have to run this company like a business and like any other business would be, we have to set some policy in place to make sure there's some accountability and make sure that everyone's being treated fairly and equally.
Mark McCully:
Because not doing that puts a burden on those that are, right?
Dr. Barry Pollard:
That's correct.
Mark McCully:
So I think that was the sentiment that we heard from the Board and just to continue to again, be a service organization but also a sound business. And so we appreciated that guidance and direction we got.
Darrell Stevenson:
And with that, I think that provides full support for the new leadership and Benji Lemon in that capacity. That enables him to conduct business a lot more thoroughly moving forward.
Charles Mogck:
With that, Darrell, we're very, very lucky to have Benji on board. He's coming in with some new ideas, some new revenue streams. He's looking at streamlining everything. Deadlines was something I heard that--yeah, we always are slow at getting things in, but deadlines are important.
Miranda Reiman:
We had a little bit of a confession around the board table as to who's better with deadlines and who isn't. I won't, won't name names here, but...
Charles Mogck:
It does start with J, right?
Miranda Reiman:
As you think about fresh eyes, I guess I'm going to transition our topic, but something that I guess we probably have been status quo, we've done the same for years and years and years that we kind of took some fresh looks at would be member security in your accounts, talking in the membership committee. And I know Dr. Pollard, that's something that you brought forward and were pretty passionate about.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Yeah, I think support note, we provide some protection for our members and there's opportunities for fraud and theft and other things out there and we've experienced that. And we want to take caution to provide as much security as we can and make sure that people can protect their data and protect their registration base.
Miranda Reiman:
I was pretty vague when I brought that topic up. I should note we're talking specific to login and security as it relates to who has access to your membership account, I guess, am I describing that right?
Mark McCully:
No, you're doing great. And I think that's, again, unfortunately, we've had a couple examples of members that maybe had a situation where some cattle were getting transferred out of their name without them knowing it. And so that was some of the discussion we had of what are some additional levels of protection we can offer to our memberships. And then a lot of it's around best practices, some things, what other things we can suggest around changing some passwords. No one, everyone knows managing passwords is kind of a pain, but we also know keeping 'em current and updated, not maybe. So just a really good discussion on some things we could do. Kind of some low hanging fruit and then maybe down the road if it continues to be a problem, maybe some additional levels of security we could add if a member so choose.
Miranda Reiman:
So don't get frustrated if we're asking you a few more questions. It's all for your security, right?
Mark McCully:
Yeah, yeah.
Miranda Reiman:
Very good.
Mark McCully:
But the data is safe. I want to be also clear, I had somebody ask me about that item. It's like, did you have a data breach? No, no, no, no, no. Right. So we've got an incredible team here that really works hard to ensure that we do not have an issue with. And again, it's just a new world we live in, right? And so, unfortunately, the amount of steps we have to take to keep our system safe, but we got an incredibly talented team that stays super current and we take it very, very seriously.
Miranda Reiman:
Sure. Speaking of incredibly talented teams, we did hear a lot from both performance programs and the AGI teams that kind of work in concert with each other. First thing probably to talk about would be those Zoom meetings that we had, the maternal...
Mark McCully:
The maximizing maternal, with that coincided, I mean these are meetings we talked about, I think last fall, maybe even November, we said we wanted to do these and coincide with the release of the research EPDs for Teat and Udder. And so that happened back in July-August and those 13 of these regional town hall meetings were held. And so you guys kind of heard, I know all of you participated in individual ones, but got to hear kind of the report of what the feedback was on those.
Darrell Stevenson:
From a personal standpoint, I had extraordinary feedback actually. I was kind of surprised there wasn't as much attendance as what we possibly hoped, but those that did attend, truly engaged. And for me, sometimes we overlook the simplest forms of education. About 30-minute YouTube video that was sent out prior to that was incredibly educational for myself and a lot of the membership. So it gave a stronger base understanding, and the platform itself, I think the membership has got to understand that just general cost of travel and time for staff to be everywhere at once. That in my opinion, I think this is a new form of better connecting with the membership. And so I would anticipate and I would hope moving forward that we're able to do this more often with different concerns down the road. So any feedback from the membership is certainly welcome.
Charles Mogck:
I totally agree with you, Darrell, that this type of setting is very, very important. We got to get Kelli and Esther and the whole team out educating us, education of all the new products they have, all the new technology, all the new science that's out there, the EPDs that were coming out, the dollar values. We just need to stress education. We all have no time to do this. And I think this type of setting saves us time, saves them time, saves the association a lot of travel time. So excellent thing. I hope we see more. We need input from you guys how we can do this better.
Darrell Stevenson:
Absolutely. And I know that there's a generation of producers that aren't probably the most comfortable with Zoom, but this is kind of the way of the world and it'll evolve and it'll get easier with time. So I really urge anybody moving forward to participate.
Miranda Reiman:
So of course that was focused on the maternal index somewhat, but also talked about Teat and Udder. I don't know, I can't remember if we've talked about that on this podcast before or what kind of updates we need to share here.
Mark McCully:
Yeah, I guess the release of the research EPD, we've been talking about that. Of course we've got the research EPD of Functional Longevity out there and then the newest release was Teat and Udder. And so these town hall meetings were one, to get some feedback on those. And then also the discussion and feedback around the dollar maternal weaned calf index, $M, and how these might potentially fit in and some philosophies, I guess, around how these fit into that index moving forward. And so those town hall meetings, we also got some good feedback on $M just in general.
Darrell Stevenson:
Yes, definitely.
Mark McCully:
Maybe related to that, an item we put out on the agenda highlights was potential sunseting of $W. And for some that have been following this around for a while, know that when dollar maternal wean calf value, $M, was first developed and released, the intent at that time was to be a replacement for $W because it was a more inclusive index, had a lot more traits in it. I think the feedback at that time when that decision was made, from breeders, was don't take away $W, we're still using $W, we're not comfortable with this new index yet. And so the decision was made several years ago to keep both of 'em out. And then from time to time the Board has discussed this item again of should $W be sunset? So it was really to get some feedback and to get some discussion going.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
I think a lot of people out there are familiar with $W; it's become part of their language and thing that they look at, especially for the people who sell their calves at weaning. It's an important index that they look at. So I think we're looking for more feedback from the membership and whether or not it's got a place to continue. Certainly we don't have to get rid of it. We can just add it to keep it there as well as $M.
Charles Mogck:
You are totally right. We need more feedback from our membership. Sitting at the board meeting, there's been a lot of questions. Not everybody's in agreement how we handle this, how we go forward. So yeah, we need more information what you people out there are thinking.
Darrell Stevenson:
Absolutely, definitely want to reemphasize this isn't a done deal and we are asking for feedback.
Miranda Reiman:
One thing that I thought was interesting and that I heard, was using some of our data that we know from advertising over on Angus Media side, that it used to be that 93% of the books went out with $W and about 79% of them went out with $M. Today that has reversed so that it's about 86% with $W and 95% with $M. So you kind of see that trend reversal a little bit, at least in how people are using it as a marketing tool. Now, how they're using it as a breeding tool. That's what we, it's harder to collect data on that.
Mark McCully:
To get that feedback. But that's some indication, and maybe that's an indication as much as anything, of the confidence in $M over time I think has grown. And so we see that in a vast, vast majority of the books that run through our shop.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
I think most people would look at $M as a maternal index and more people with $W as a weaned calf index. So there may be a place for both of them.
Miranda Reiman:
Sure.
Mark McCully:
I think we heard that. I think some folks, maybe not without a full understanding of the breeding objectives of dollar maternal, thought it was more of a replacement heifer index and $W is if I'm selling weaned calves, that's the index for me. So again, back to your point earlier, opportunity for education. We'll continue to talk about how we continue to communicate to members and commercial producers alike.
Miranda Reiman:
Another area that I would say falls in that that was probably good education for me, not something I spent a lot of time thinking about, but we talked about those age adjustments, the AHIR age adjustments, and had really good discussion on how those are calculated, why they're relevant. So I don't know what you guys heard in that room that you want to share, but...
Charles Mogck:
What was interesting to me that Kelli and her team has always looked at that, has gone back in the past to make sure this is right. The research they do to make sure that our numbers and our adjustments are right. And I was very, very surprised that they are looking at this type of stuff. I think Mark made a comment at one meeting that we have to verify what we're doing and I think AGI does a great job at that. And I'm glad our membership is asking them questions. Are you guys verifying? Are these numbers right? It's a good conversation, and we always will question the numbers because they aren't a 100 percent right or there's accuracy. It isn't a 100 percent accuracy. So things are going to change and we just need to keep verifying.
Darrell Stevenson:
Yes, and I would like to point out that this conversation was directly influenced from a member concern. And so this has been, over the course of a couple of months, to dig a little deeper into this. And it was a learning process for myself and I think the rest of the Board to go back, historically, and see where the baselines were established. And for me, I gained some real confidence in knowing the third-party validations that do exist, primarily through the Meat Animal Research Center and then the constant support that we do get out of UGA. And just what Charles mentioned, it's so impressive to me that even the academia of the world, they're now coming to us for referencing our models. But rest assured to the membership that we do have that validation in place. And that was a good exercise to go through for us.
Charles Mogck:
At time, I think there's a lot of people at AGI geneticists. But man, are they busy doing, checking, verifying, all this type of things.
Miranda Reiman:
One thing that I thought was an interesting quote that came up in there, I can't remember if it was from Kelli or from Larry Keen, was that there's nothing biologically that has changed about the effect that age of dam has because, I mean, that's kind of a set thing. If that was it in 1990, it also has that same effect in 2024. So that was, oh yeah, that makes sense once they said it.
Mark McCully:
I think as they walked through how age of dam adjustments are made, I think sometimes we think, well it's some BIF table that we go and plug a number in. It is your data, as members and breeders, that turn in the data that ultimately put in a linear regression. Kelli teaches me how to say linear regression and the appropriate time to use it. But it plugs it in using your data, the data submitted, and to build out what those adjustments are for age of dam. And I think a lot of times we get the AHIR reports back and all those adjusted weights and we tend to not think about maybe what's in them. It was also a good discussion, reminder, of what's not in them, right? They're adjusting for age, they're not adjusting for creep feeding, they're not adjusting for Montana versus South Dakota versus Oklahoma. That's in your contemporary group. And so really it was a really, really good discussion about looking at phenotypic trends and the age of dam adjustments. And to your point, Charles, we've got such a talented team that get to tear these, look under the hood and tear these things apart and share them with you guys for your feedback.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
I think with the AGI team that we now have, where we've got some additional people on board now. They make a very strong, very, very, very strong staff. And I think for the membership, it's important to know that these numbers and EPDs are really based on a lot of data, more data than anyone else has. And in this world, I call it EPD confusion, we have different organizations throwing out different numbers, and we have the data and the numbers way bigger that can be more accurate. And we reinforce that with constant revisions and looking at our data to make sure it's accurate. So the American Angus Association data is accurate and will always be updated and looked at and that's important.
Mark McCully:
And all tied to pedigrees. And we've even celebrated the 21 millionith registration that came into the herd book in July. And you think about the power of those pedigrees behind the data, along with the genomics. Yeah. Makes for a super powerful prediction.
Darrell Stevenson:
Well, I'd just like to take a moment too. I'm just so proud of Kelli and her growth in that position, but we are fully staffed and with the four geneticists now that are working...
Charles Mogck:
Talented geneticists.
Darrell Stevenson:
It's unbelievable about the talent.
Mark McCully:
They don't give those PhDs away in geneticists.
Darrell Stevenson:
They're so active that it consumed about a full day of our time here.
Mark McCully:
We did. It was a big part of the time together.
Miranda Reiman:
.And part of that is why we've been able to pick up on the haplotype research. You probably heard us talk about that several. I mean it's been an ongoing project for several years, and just being fully staffed has allowed AGI to take some additional time and to re-look at the haplotypes.
Mark McCully:
Yeah, and you guys got an update on that research. I think some would've known several years ago we were talking about fertility haplotypes or being able to identify what potential animal matings could be that would result in embryonic loss or a lack of pregnancy. And so again, it was probably one of those projects, being very candid, it had to get put on a back burner for a little bit for some other priorities. It's not easy research, it's not something you can do in 30 days. It needs validation. It took a little lower priority. It's been pulled back out as a higher priority, and the number of genotypes we had when that was first started versus the number of genotypes we have today, I think we went from 500,000 now to like 1.8 million. So some of it'll be reworking some of the initial work that was done, the repeatability of some of the things we found.
And then, one of the things that came out of there as maybe a call to action, was an opportunity. We have a number of breeders that have asked how can they help contribute to the data we're going to have. I think most breeders should be familiar with an abnormal calf report. Should you ever have a calf born that you want to report to the association, this is a similar type of thing for a calf, maybe a premature calf, an abortion that you know of, that you're able to pull a DNA sample off of that fetus. And a new report that we'll have available for a breeder that wants to help us participate and get phenotypes and genotypes into that research discussion.
Darrell Stevenson:
Critically important for our membership involvement in that. So that request is going to be put forward to the membership here shortly.
Charles Mogck:
We've been talking about this all four years and I think they talked about it before Darrell and myself got on the Board. I do have to say at this meeting it seems like we are moving forward with this. I think Maternal Plus and Whole Herd Reporting is a vital part of finding this fertility haplotype. So yeah, the more records, the more information we get from our cattle, our cows, it's going to help this research a lot.
Mark McCully:
Darrell, you mentioned one of the discussions around age dam adjustments was prompted by membership questions out to you guys and to us. Another one of those questions that prompted some really good discussion with the Board was around our DNA policy, and I think most that have submitted DNA know there's a clickwrap agreement. Probably like a lot of things, we hit clickwrap agreements and agree to. We don't maybe read all of the things in there, but...
Miranda Reiman:
I bet you read all of 'em.
Mark McCully:
I do not. I should. I do not. But there was a really good discussion there, and I think where some of the interesting discussion came around when a genotype is or when a sample, rather, is submitted. We have cases today where we have other breed associations that require a high-density profile test on all of their AI sires. And, of course, we know we have Angus bulls that are used in other breeds and had an example of a bull that had been parentage tested and conditioned bundled testing, but someone had used that bull and was registering a calf in another breed and, as a result, needed a genomic profile. So ordered a genomic profile on that particular bull. And we've had this in the past where somebody's bought a straw of semen off of somebody else's bull and sent it in and ran that profile.
And so we had a really good discussion about it. I think, again, it's somewhat of a philosophical discussion. There was discussions around what do we need to also–we just got done talking about fertility haplotypes. That research is possible because AGI's ability to go in and really research in that data. And so we had a good discussion, we're going to continue to talk about it and take it back up in November, with some things to think about and things to consider as it relates to breeder-submitted samples, and I guess comments on some of that discussion?
Darrell Stevenson:
Once again, another membership concern that came forward and I was so proud to actually go into a real deep dive on this, and it was rather new information to some people and I think it deserves stronger consideration. So this isn't going away and it will continue for discussion how to best handle, manage this for the bull ownership in this situation.
Miranda Reiman:
So we spent, as you mentioned, almost a full day on what I would consider genetic and kind of breed improvement-type of topics, but we also had all of our entity boards. We had meetings of the commercial programs committee, activities. I mean I could go through them all line by line, but we're going to talk maybe more a little bit about some demand drivers here.
Mark McCully:
Yeah, I think you think about what the mission of this organization is, it's about promoting the breed and creating demand for the breed. And so I think obviously a big demand driver is Certified Angus Beef. A year of tight supplies and yet the team is still pretty optimistic they're going to get some growth in this fiscal year.
Charles Mogck:
If we can supply the product to them
Mark McCully:
Absolutely.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
I think in the long run, I think one of the greatest drivers for Angus bulls is obviously CAB, but whenever we look at the potential rebuilding of the herd that we're talking about in the future, the ability to use GeneMax and use the different, the new GeneMax, is going to come out with what we call...
Miranda Reiman:
Common currency.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Common currency that maybe correlates better with our EPD profiles. We'll give people who are going to expand the herd an opportunity to look into each animal they intend to keep and decide if that is a worthy animal to keep, and to keep the best ones that have the kind of carcass data that perhaps they want to propagate in the herd. So the ability to use GeneMax and then select those replacement heifers, I think, gives us a great advantage to those who choose to use that method to make the right kind of herd for them. And then on top of that, they can get that information, then they can select the type of bulls that they need to help their program that will increase the number of available carcasses for CAB in the long run and increase the profitability of our breeders, because they'll get more money for the kind of animal that we need to get that type of animal that has that type of carcass data that gets that profit back into the hands of our customer base and our membership. So it's a big circle, and I think it's really out there on the horizon and really gives a great opportunity to those planning to expand their herd in the future.
Darrell Stevenso:
Good points, Doc, and I completely agree. From the CAB perspective, one highlight that impacted me was the onboarding of, I believe it was four new plants that are going to be certified with discussions into two more. Because it is a lot of pressure on that staff on securing supply and, as tight as we are, everybody in the industry realizes we've got to be able to build more product. And we're doing–acceptance rates are completely competitive and we've got to give 'em supply in order to market for us.
Charles Mogck:
The thing I want to add on to that, to get the best data for these GMX people, they have to use a registered Angus bull on Angus Link. They have to use a registered Angus bull. If you aren't using registered Angus bulls, you aren't going to get the data. You aren't going to get, you need a registered bull. And that's the whole thing about these programs. We're pushing a registered Angus bull. Buy a registered Angus bull.
Miranda Reiman:
And also a step in that process that, yeah, you just brought up I guess with the AngusLink program would be the Genetic Merit Scorecard. And of course we've talked kind of at length some of the successes of that program recently, but that was kind of another highlight I would say, especially of committee meetings as we talked in the commercial programs.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Oh, I think it's fantastic the growth that we've seen in AngusLink. So when people can combine the EPDs they can get on these heifers and use the right kind of bulls, registered Angus bulls, get the progeny in the AngusLink program. It's all going to be a very helpful and very rewarding opportunity.
Charles Mogck:
Our partnership with IMI, also with National and US Premium now paying a premium for AngusLink scorecard cattle, that's a big part. This program's going to grow. It has grown in the last year. It's a good sign that registered Angus bulls are going to have more demand in the future with this program.
Mark McCully :
And Troy and Troy Marshall and the committee report gave kind of an update of the summer video sales and we all know we're in these super high-valued feeder calf prices and yet we're still seeing the spreads. I mean these cattle are selling so well and we've got nearly double. The program has nearly doubled, I think 86% increase in enrollment year over year. I'm going to call that nearly doubled. That's pretty awesome. I think again, your guys' point of what USPB and National Beef has done, we've started getting some of those cattle through the plant. We're starting to get some of that carcass data. They're sharing some of that carcass data back with us. I mean these cattle are, they're high-scoring cattle and they are 50% Prime, 80% CAB in Prime. They're doing exactly what the scores say they are supposed to do, and...
Charles Mogck:
We're verifying what that score is doing.
Darrell Stevenson:
Truly. It's not only that we're assisting on the marketing value, but that feedback, especially from National US Premium Beef, is validating these beef scores specifically that we're going back into the industry. Since we're organically moving into AngusLink, I can't even hardly contain my optimism. I mean, personally attending the Bighorn Classic Superior Sale just a couple of years ago, it is glaringly obvious on the buyer demand on these cattle. I'm not going to get into lot by lot cases, but it's incredibly impressive actually. Mark mentioned that we've seen an 85-86% increase in enrollments this year over next. And I don't know if we can actually see an end in sight, and I'll reemphasize what Charles mentioned earlier, that every step specifically on the Angus-verified portion, is driving the demand for registered Angus bulls and it's separating us from this other sea of black cattle that's out here, whether they're commercial bulls or lease bulls, and it's bringing the demand back to where we want it and where we need it.
Charles Mogck:
I think one thing we talked a lot at the meeting is education. Education to breeders to promote this AngusLink.
Darrell Stevenson:
Absolutely.
Charles Mogck:
Education to the feedlots that are buying, the order buyers. We need to keep educating. I say that a lot, education, education, education. But that's sort of our next step is to get the breeders behind that, to help the breeders learn about it so they can promote it to their customers. This thing I think is going to blow up big time.
Darrell Stevenson:
Without question. I mean if you listeners out here are registered breeders and members or commercial members, talk to your regional managers, talk to your seedstock suppliers because we're all working at this together, and learn the system that's in place because it's doing nothing but promote our registered cattle and it's creating value for every segment of the industry.
Mark McCully:
One of the things I think we talk about demand drivers, we talked about Certified Angus Beef creating more supply because that continues to be the...
Miranda Reiman:
Limiting factor.
Mark McCully:
The limiting factor. And I've been around the shop for a while and it has been the limiting factor for a long time, and that's such a great story. And the premiums continue to stay big, the spreads continue to grow. And we talked about the team at CAB, talked about a lot of the marketing efforts at food service and retail, kind of their three- to five-year plan. A lot of it has to do with, in light of what we know will be super tight supplies and competing for product, how do we continue to grow and grow the brand internationally and grow the brand globally and strengthen the brand? And a part of that discussion became a production opportunity that we have in Uruguay to produce Certified Angus Beef. That was a request that came out of Uruguay, and I suspect there might be some members in all of your states that would say, why would we produce in Uruguay? But it has everything to do with getting the brand into the EU and to some markets that we've not been able to access in big part to protect the trademark of Certified Angus Beef as a global trademark when you have product use. But also tap into some markets. So I guess guys, maybe thoughts on some of that discussion?
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Well, I think one important part of that is that that product is not going to be coming back into the United States. We want to protect our market here and protect our breeders and our membership. So I think, first and foremost, we need to make that statement and then talk about the other opportunities that it provides for us.
Darrell Stevenson:
So first of all, I guess I'd like to say that understand this is still in the fact-finding stage, that nothing is done. This is up for consideration. I'm incredibly excited. For those of you that know me, this is in my arena and there is a lot of upside.
Mark McCully:
It all gets pretty excited talking about global things.
Darrell Stevenson:
I do. Yeah. And so there was one question asked by a board member that I think is probably the easiest or best way to respond on this podcast is what benefit is this for the average member? Well, I look at this twofold. First of all, we can get product into the EU, but we are incredibly limited. I mean, we'll never impact that supply with the chain that's in place today.
Mark McCully:
We can get US beef into the EU.
Miranda Reiman:
But the brand we can't.
Mark McCully:
We've had a really tough time getting CAB product into the EU. Almost impossible.
Darrell Stevenson:
Correct. We're so limited on our ability on that.
Miranda Reiman:
They don't want to rail off the cattle. I mean, I think it's important to say why that is. It's because they've already railed off cattle that are accepted into NHTC. They don't want then to take another sort on those cattle.
Darrell Stevenson:
Exactly. I mean to me, Uruguay, the country, Uruguay, you guys are going to say I refer to the way...
Mark McCully:
The way they say it in Montana.
Darrell Stevenson:
Yeah, thank you, is a–I refer to it as the Switzerland of South America, I mean their general health and their trading policies. They don't deal with many sanctions and they've got a wonderful supply of cattle. I looked this up last night. It's close to 12 million head of cattle, 30 to 40% of that is actually directly Angus. So the supply is actually there. It's a different type of cattle than what we are. But to just keep this brief is this gives us an opportunity as a brand to establish us potentially in that EU marketplace with a predictable and a constant supply. So from the CAB perspective, I think that's important for the membership, but secondarily, let's bring it back home. What can this do for us? Well, the simple fact is I am a non-believer that their acceptance rates will at all be competitive with ours, and I think they're going to need some automatic upgrade in terms of growth and more terminal carcass traits. And so I think it could be a strong driver for semen sales and possibly live cattle eventually. So once again, restate that this is still in the fact-finding phase, but I think there's an upside for opportunity.
Mark McCully:
And probably not huge volume, right? No, I mean when we say opportunity, it's the opportunity to get brand presence, product flowing into a market, to establish and protect the trademark, to tap into, you get an account started. Does that, in the EU with some product that we can't get to them today. Does that start growing some demand and pretty soon doing that grade break at our domestic plants here in the US on NHTC Angus cattle? Pretty soon that becomes all more feasible, right? That's typically how these things have worked, and that's kind of this strategy in this particular case.
Miranda Reiman:
But as you mentioned, obviously things are still in the fact-finding phase. It was really to get it in front of the Board to get direction to say, yeah, go make another trip over there.
Mark McCully:
And I think it's important to know the Board's aware of this from, gosh, we've been talking about this in that fact-finding mission for some time, and keep you guys aware of what that is and get feedback and involvement in the step-by-step process of this.
Darrell Stevenson:
And repeat once again what Doc mentioned earlier is none of this product would ever come back to the United States to compete with what we're doing here at home.
Charles Mogck:
I think that's the key there.
Darrell Stevenson:
Yes.
Miranda Reiman:
So I guess we talked about all kinds of things that we're not going to have time to cover.
Mark McCully:
On media. Miranda, you did a fantastic job covering some of the new digital media opportunities.
Miranda Reiman:
Is this a chance to give a plug for some new advertising opportunities?
Mark McCully:
I set it up. You do with it what you want.
Miranda Reiman:
You're going to spend money marketing your Angus cattle. Angus Media has some new options and also, of course, the old resources or the experienced resources we always have. But you're right, we're always looking for new ways to continue to help you market your cattle. And so that's what we covered. We covered ways to reach people outside of the traditional retargeting efforts in Facebook and Instagram and...
Mark McCully:
Traditional retargeting efforts. This is how far we've come, talking about some pretty innovative stuff that you're now calling traditional. So it speaks to the breadth and scope of our Angus Media team and all what you guys are exploring. Again, the tried and true and some of the new and innovative. And our members are really blessed to be able to access the skills and the talents and the creativity that we have in Angus Media.
Miranda Reiman:
So anything from Snapchat advertising to premium eblasts, but then we also covered with our editorial teams, of course, the outlook on things that we should be talking about in the coming years. So this is where I'll put in that plug of, if you want to hear it on the podcast, if you want to see stories about it in the journal, we're an open book. Come talk to us. Head to angusjournal.net or angusbeefbulletin.com and suggest a topic, suggest a story idea because we're here to provide the news and information that you guys need.
Mark McCully:
On digital, we talked about the new angus.org website and you guys gave us some updates, some feedback on that. We talked about how do we add value to a membership? Even talking about how do we leverage our collective membership maybe for some discounts and some corporate partnerships. We talked about a lot of stuff. Other things that we talked about that you guys wanted to highlight?
Miranda Reiman:
Is there anything we haven't hit on our list?
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Oh, I don't know. We fill up the day, I know that. People sometimes say, what do you do for three days up there? And I say, well, it's a full lineup. Yeah, we can just have a break to go to the bathroom and that's about it.
Mark McCully:
Five minutes. Everybody's got five minutes for the bathroom. That's it. Yeah.
Charles Mogck:
We're always improving here. Just like API. Always improving how we can advertise, pr how you guys, what you can do to get more advertising out for us. angus.org, we're improving that big, big upgrade. We're always improving. AGI, we're improving the accuracy. We're adding more dollar values, we're improving your herd. We're always improving. We aren't sitting still. That's what's great to be on this Board, there's a lot of people that think about the future, how we can make it better for our membership. So yeah, in every category, CAB, they're great in making it better, improving, and being on the Board, we got to continue to do that. We got to continue upgrading our building, our computers, everything. We don't want to fall behind because there's competition out there, and if we aren't doing the right things to improve, we're going to fall behind.
Darrell Stevenson:
Couldn't agree more, Charles. One of the most wonderful things about this breed association is the one vision to improve this breed every day. And the staff that's here, the Board, the membership in general, we're all aiming in the same direction.
Charles Mogck:
Always looking at the future.
Darrell Stevenson:
Absolutely. Let's create a better opportunity for the next generation.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
The state of your association is good. We're in a good place right now, but we're not, never satisfied, and we're always looking forward to the next thing we can do to make it better. And that's what's important.
Mark McCully:
Well, I could not have scripted a better place to land, Charles.
Charles Mogck:
Well, I think we land with the foundation. The kids are our future.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Absolutely.
Charles Mogck:
We come a lot of money or we're lucky to have a lot of donors that donate to the future. And our kids are the future. Our research is our future to verify, to learn how we can make cattle better, how to make kids better, how to make people better.
Mark McCully:
Amen. And we appreciate you guys as the dedicated board members that come in to make sure that we as staff are a), keeping our eye on the ball, staying mission-minded, as I say, and staying as innovative and moving as fast as we need to. Always improving, the ideas to improve come from board members. And those ideas either come originally from them or largely, I know, from conversations and feedback that they get from you guys out there as members and listeners. So thank you for that. Guys, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your leadership.
Darrell Stevenson:
Much appreciated. Thank you for the opportunity.
Charles Mogck:
Thank you for the opportunity.
Dr. Barry Pollard:
Come buy that Foundation heifer.
Miranda Reiman:
Always enjoy having the board members in for the week and we enjoy the chance to get to share those conversations with you. If you want more in-depth information on any of the topics we talked about, a lot of times we've already covered them in the magazine and you can go back and read our regular columns such as By the Numbers, Data Dive, or Common Ground for more information. Visit us at angusjournal.net to subscribe today. This has been the Angus Conversation, an Angus Journal podcast.