Beef packers bridge the gap between producers and consumers, but even “the largest packer in the world” is nothing without its suppliers, John Gerber said.

It’s no big deal, literally, but grading rules that applied needless discounts to a tiny fraction of carcasses are no more for most beef. As of Monday, Dec. 18, all graded beef in the U.S. can be evaluated for the most youthful “A” maturity category based on dentition as well as traditional skeletal metrics when assigning quality grades.

Growing up on a Colorado cattle ranch, earning an animal science degree and riding for the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) brand for nearly 16 years, Paul Dykstra has learned a thing or two about “First-class feeder cattle marketing.”

Depending on which side of the gate you’re on, it was heartening or worrisome to see cattle and beef prices recover coming into spring. Cattle markets are widely reported in farm and ranch media, but beef and competing protein prices underlie it all.

Four men with different roles in cattle feeding joined panel moderator Justin Sexten at the Angus Means Business National Convention and Trade Show Nov. 2-4 in Overland Park, Kansas. They explored “top 10 things I learned from feeding my cattle,” as part of Angus University at the convention.

Beef’s getting better, to judge by the uptrend in quality grades and resurgent consumer demand. However, an increasing share of that demand has been for ground beef – and an average pound of that versatile staple now sells for more than $4.