Chapter 5: Bovine Meats

With the onslaught of technology, carcass animals are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain from the larger Meat Packing Plants. Most bovine carcass meats are now cry-o-vac’d in atmosphere controlled packaging and sold as: Block Ready, Knife Ready, or Counter Ready Meats. The main reason for this is marketing. Other benefits are an extended shelf life, handling, storage and shipment.

Major topics of this chapter cover the production and processing of bovine carcasses, the identification and characteristics of primal and sub-primal cuts and the processing of sub-primal cuts into retail cuts of meat. Included are offals, grading and labelling requirements of each species. The chapter is a guide to the development of hands-on skills in the processing of bovine carcasses. Included is a collection of retail images charted in cutting sequence from primal to retail cuts.