Beef traceability in Canada

Cargill recently announced that by the end of 2018 its Canadian Beef Sustainability Acceleration pilot project will move closer to providing consumers with beef from operations that have been audited from “birth to burger” using an industry-developed sustainability standard. The initiative, which kicked off this month, has significant scale and will incorporate and explore new technologies. It will include only Canadian cattle, starting with animals processed at Cargill’s High River, Alberta, facility. Using the Canadian beef industry’s existing radio-frequency identification tag system, cattle will be tracked by the Beef Info-Exchange System from the time cattle producers tag them through processing. Verified Beef Production Plus—overseen by the Beef Cattle Research Council and operated with the assistance of provincial cattle organizations—will be the first certification body utilized to audit cattle producers who choose to participate. A unique aspect of this pilot involves rewarding participating cattle producers to help offset the increased costs associated with implementing and running the pilot. A variety of technologies will be explored.