How does high-quality beef go from pasture to table? The commitment of Kerchin Cattle Industry

Kerchin cattle get their name because they are mainly produced in the Horqin grasslands of eastern Inner Mongolia. They were bred by crossbreeding, using Simmental cattle as the sire and Mongolian cattle, Sanhe cattle and crossbred Mongolian cows as the dams. Over the past nearly 20 years, a group of Kerchin cattle people have devoted persistence and boundless enthusiasm to building a domestic beef cattle brand. From forage cultivation, natural grazing, scientific breeding, production and processing, cold-chain transport, and omnichannel sales to the creation of a delicacy that reaches the table, they have formed a complete and orderly industrial chain, safeguarding the food safety of the Chinese people.

A rigorous industrial chain brings beef from the grasslands to the table

The Kerchin Cattle Industry industrial chain begins with forage cultivation. There are seven major planting bases in total, and the main crops grown include silage corn, forage sweet sorghum, alfalfa and oats. Among them, alfalfa, a legume, is a forage greatly favored by Kerchin cattle. A steady supply of high protein is delivered to Kerchin cattle, making their meat more delicious and more nutritious.

At the forage planting bases of Kerchin Cattle Industry, from sowing, irrigation, pest control, weeding, harvesting, baling and film wrapping to loading and unloading for storage, all the machinery used is imported, with excellent performance and fine equipment, enabling large-scale combined operations.

At the seven modern farms of Kerchin Cattle Industry, only feeder cattle that pass strict inspection and are deemed qualified Kerchin feeder cattle may be accepted into the farm. They are given a dedicated ear tag as a marker, recording the information at the time of entry: age, weight, source, keeper, veterinarian, feeding, entry time, physical condition, inspection and quarantine, and so on, just like an ID card for Kerchin cattle. This is the starting point of the traceability system. Professional keepers use the feeding method of forage first and concentrate second, strictly implement feed ratios, feed at fixed times and fixed points, and carefully record the growth changes of each cow.

After 8 months of scientific breeding, once the Kerchin feeder cattle reach the standard for slaughter, the ear tag information is checked and they can enter the next step——production and processing. Advanced production and processing equipment and techniques, like an intelligent master butcher, break down a whole cow successively into halves, quarters, large cuts and small cuts, until finally forming a beautifully vacuum-packaged beef product.

Every cow has an ID card, enabling full traceability

In August 2015, Kerchin Cattle Industry officially launched the Kerchin Cattle Industry traceability system. This makes beef from the “grasslands” to the “table” more transparent and safer, and is a milestone innovation in food safety traceability for China's beef industry.

The traceability system of Kerchin Cattle Industry refers to the use of intelligent production lines to collect and organize product data information, and through the central data processing software system (Innova) to generate a one-dimensional code or QR code, marked at the designated position on the product label. Users can log in to the website and enter the one-dimensional code, or use WeChat on their mobile phone to scan the QR code, and then know which cow each product came from, which farm the cow came from, and the breeding, production and processing information, and so on.

In plain terms, Kerchin Cattle Industry has established a huge database that collects all data and information related to cattle entering the plant, such as ear tag number, farm, age, veterinarian, and so on, and links and integrates it into a one-dimensional code or QR code on the product label before it leaves the factory. People can log in to the Kerchin traceability website and enter the one-dimensional code, or open the “Scan” function in WeChat on their mobile phone to scan the QR code on the label, and then query the information related to the scanned product.

At Kerchin farms, every cow is given an ear tag number, recording information including the cow's age, weight, entry time, epidemic prevention records, departure time, and so on. This is the first collection of information data in the traceability system.

At the live cattle receiving point of the Kerchin Cattle Industry processing plant, staff use the ear tag number to carry out weighing, receiving inspection and quarantine and other assessment work for Kerchin feeder cattle (that is, raw material cattle), as well as the second collection and entry of information. This is the second collection of information data in the traceability system. Once the entry is completed, the cattle can enter the slaughter stage. Before and after slaughter, the live cattle ear tag number corresponding to the cattle carcass is collected. This is the third collection of traceability data.

After slaughter and preliminary processing, the Kerchin cattle carcass is sent to the acid discharge room for acid discharge treatment, with one information collection and entry each time, namely the fourth and fifth collection and entry of traceability information.

After processing on the Marel intelligent boning and cutting line, the beef's cutter, weight, cut, customer, cutting requirements, and so on are all automatically collected. This constitutes the sixth collection and entry of traceability information. Any single piece of meat can be traced back to the previous link, all the way to the original live cow; it can also be traced forward to each customer's order requirements. From then on, the three major links of breeding, production and sales are fully connected and run through.

Following the upgrading of consumption, products continue to upgrade

With the upgrading of market consumption, the product structure of Kerchin Cattle Industry has continued to transform and upgrade. On the one hand, large cuts of meat are finely divided into small-packaged products of different specifications, such as vacuum shrink bags and modified atmosphere trays. On the other hand, to meet the demand for convenient and delicious consumption, prepared and deeply processed products have been continuously developed and launched, and Chinese-style home-prepared products such as beef slices, beef fillet and beef cubes have also been developed. Consumers only need a few minutes of simple preparation to enjoy a delicious beef meal. Through continuous iterative development, Kerchin has now formed four major product series: fresh and frozen meat, deep-processed products, beef offal, and leisure meat products.

Kerchin Cattle Industry has 9 major sales regions across the country. Its products cover more than 3,000 hypermarkets and more than 400 specialty stores nationwide, and it has formed a huge nationwide sales network across all channels, including supermarkets and hypermarkets, specialty stores, convenience stores, fresh food stores, farmers' markets, restaurants, industrial customers, import and export trade, and e-commerce. With families and individual consumers as the main consumer group, it has transformed from a beef raw material supplier into a beef food production and sales company, transformed its business model from one almost entirely dependent on B2B to a business model mainly based on B2C, and expanded from a regional product with ethnic characteristics to the broader mass leisure market.

From planting to breeding, from slaughter and production processing to packaging and transport, from terminal sales to delicious food on the table, on this fully traceable industrial chain, what Kerchin people uphold is the concept of full traceability, and also the persistence in delivering a piece of high-quality beef directly from pasture to table.