Mark McCully took the reins as American Angus Association CEO about 2 1/2 years ago, but he is no stranger to the Angus business. Mark served the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) brand just short of two decades before transitioning to his current role as head of the association. In his time working with the Angus breed, Mark has stressed the importance of allowing all breeders to come together in something bigger than their individual programs.
“This allows them to ultimately stay independent and leverage the size and the scale of the association to help them maintain access to genetics or markets, or whatever that may be,” he told WLJ.
National shows
WLJ spoke to Mark shortly after the Angus events concluded at the 2023 Oklahoma City Cattlemen’s Congress, a show that saw strong entries and competition, he said.
“I continue to be amazed, as someone who grew up in that world and has been around it for a while,” he said. “It’s the quality of the top end. There really is not much of a bottom end anymore to these shows, and it’s pretty impressive.”
In addition to the show numbers, Angus had nine pens and two carloads of bulls, each of which exhibited a great set of bulls, Mark said. There were also a number of Angus sales held.
“There really wasn’t a soft spot in any of them,” Mark said. “The different types of Angus cattle is the unique thing there. Some sales had really big numbered cattle, some had stout phenotype cattle, some had a combination and others had different breeding philosophies on display. And they were all met with really strong demand.”
Angus also hosted their 2023 National Angus Bull Sale at Cattlemen’s Congress, the only association-sponsored sale. The sale began by selling a female donated by Coleman Angus of Montana, which was purchased by Ingram Angus of Tennessee, raising $130,000 for the Angus Foundation. There were also a number of pregnancies sold throughout several sales, with proceeds benefiting the foundation.
Mark noted the show ring has evolved, just like every part of the business has. He grew up going to open shows where breeders had strings of their genetics on display, and you were able to see each breeder’s genetic programs. While that still exists to some extent, he said, open shows now are largely about the junior heifers and the junior exhibits.
“That market has gotten so strong that these junior heifer prospects are pretty valuable commodities,” he said. “There’s so many ways now to market those prospects because of the internet and some alternative marketing options that we didn’t have available to us back in the ‘olden days,’” he said.
He added that one of the unique things about the Oklahoma City show was there were a few people exhibiting in the pen show who may not have exhibited at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, CO, in the past, opening up marketing opportunities for some Angus producers who are located in more southern or southeastern parts of the country.
While the landscape of shows has changed a bit, they are still a great opportunity to showcase a breeder’s genetic program and to use them as a marketing outlet, he said.
Next on the association’s itinerary was the National Western Stock Show, which was set to host the Angus events shortly after WLJ press time. Mark said the pen and carload shows were expected to have strong turnout, with just over 30 entries submitted for the pen show. Numbers “on the Hill” were also expected to be very strong, rebuilding after COVID-19 put a pause on events.
“One of the things I always enjoy most going out to the show is having a tent down in the Yards where breeders can stop in. It’s always a fun way to get reconnected, sometimes with folks that we see once a year,” Mark said. “We look forward to hearing what’s on breeders’ minds and answering any questions that they might have.”
CAB
The growth at CAB has been incredible, Mark said. Most impressive is the impact the brand has had across the industry, he added, saying it’s not just because of the number of pounds sold, but the fact that it drives people’s businesses at food service.
“We may not think of it that much from a producer standpoint—we tend to think about it as a product spec and knowing they’re out there selling our beef—and maybe we don’t think about how critical that brand is to these businesses,” he said. “To have the brand is so valuable to them. I think that’s pretty key.”
When Mark first started out at CAB, one of the questions the brand most often answered was “Where is my premium?” Now, the brand never has to answer that question, he said.
“When you’re out watching these feeder cattle markets, you see these cattle that bring the bigger premiums for sure on the fed cattle market. We see things like $900 premiums on a Prime carcass today,” he said. “What it’s taught me in a bigger way, is that it is simply about creating pull through demand.”
He continued, “If you stay consistent on that and you build something that has value that somebody wants, you create the pull through demand, and then you allow the system to take advantage of that demand. It’s a model that works.”
One of Mark’s favorite things working at CAB was seeing every segment of the supply chain. In his role as association CEO, he is able to combine his experience at CAB with his duty to brainstorm about genetics and evaluation, and how to put tools in the hands of cattlemen to take advantage of economic signals, making them as profitable as they can be.
“When you couple the really strong pull through demand with the most powerful tools and the most predictive power of a database that the American Angus Association has today, it’s a pretty good recipe for success for our commercial cattlemen,” Mark said.
In today’s industry, three-quarters of fed cattle are black hided, he said, and one of the association’s biggest focuses has been driving the value of an Angus registration certificate: “The power of the pedigree, the power of the data that comes with that, the power of the programs that a registration certificate unlocks for a commercial cattleman,” he said.
Mark emphasized the importance of recognizing the diversity within the association and knowing that not all of its members come to the association for the same thing. He recalled a recent interaction where one moment he was speaking with a brand new member, who was wanting to learn how to get started in the breed, to walking over to a fourth-generation breeder who was asking questions about future genetics.
“Both of those people are members of the American Angus Association,” Mark said. “So we work to serve that very diverse membership and we’re fortunate in that we have some size and resources that we’re able to do that in a fairly significant way. Every member is different, but every member has a seat at the table.” — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
