By Patrick Thomas, Graphics by Jemal R. Brinson

U.S. meat companies are embracing "white bone" programs, aiming to pick every carcass clean as they move down processing lines.

America's cattle supply is at its lowest level since 1951, according to the Agriculture Department. That has helped push cattle markets in Chicago to a record high in January, almost 20% higher than they were two years ago.

Pricier cattle mean costlier cuts in supermarket meat cases. It also increases the pressure on beef giants such as Tyson Foods, JBS and Cargill to maximize profits by harvesting every last morsel of salable meat.

"It's a lot tougher to do than it sounds," said Wesley Batista Filho, U.S. chief executive at JBS, the largest beef processor in the U.S. by sales. The company's plant managers exchange photos of bones from their facilities, comparing their whiteness.

For a large company, a 1% increase in the amount of meat harvested from each carcass could translate to $80 million in annual revenue, according to industry officials. Running plants as efficiently as possible also helps meatpackers avoid cutting back on production, or closing plants altogether.

From the farm

The American beef business begins with ranchers who raise calves and sell them to feedlots. There, cattle are fattened and sold to meatpacking companies. These days, there are fewer livestock to go around.

Once cattle are ferried in from feed yards across the region -- roughly within 250 miles of the plant -- the animals are stunned and shackled by their back legs and killed. Workers wielding large mechanical saws slice the carcasses into primal cuts such as chuck, rib, loin, round and flank.

In the plant

Workers stand shoulder-to-shoulder around a table where primal cuts of the cattle carcass flow down the line through the center of the workstation. One such cut is the rib-eye -- a favorite among consumers and steak enthusiasts. Standing on both sides of a table, workers pull their assigned carcass cuts toward their workstation and shave off the steaks and loins, scraping as much meat as possible from each bone.

Creating the rib-eye

Workers handle individual cuts of rib-eye, often called the "king of steaks," weighing each to make sure they meet customers' specifications. Meatpackers can't trim rib-eye too much because they might end up with a cut that the customer -- a restaurant or grocery store -- may not want, leading to lost sales.

Clinging to the bone

Bones with bits of meat still clinging move down the line to a trim table in a different part of the plant. At that point, workers try to clean off the bones and add the remaining meat into trim used for ground beef.

That trim is worth roughly $1.25 to $3 a pound on average depending on how lean the meat is, says Henry Davis, CEO of Greater Omaha Packing, which has a white-bone program at its plant.

Going back for more

If the meat had stayed on the bone, it would be worth about 15 cents a pound when it's sent to rendering to be ground into product such as pet food. By getting the meat trimmed off into ground beef, the rough gross profit can be between $5 to $15 per animal at Greater Omaha, which can process about 2,400 cattle a day, Davis said.

Bone-in, bone bin

The ability to clean off the bones depends primarily on labor. "Deboning of carcasses is a very complicated process that demands constant monitoring," said Davis at Greater Omaha Packing. "It is a very labor-intensive process."

Trim that could be worth upward of $3 a pound, if left on the bone, brings only 15 cents a pound.

Write to Patrick Thomas at patrick.thomas@wsj.com and Jemal R. Brinson at jemal.brinson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 05, 2025 13:00 ET (17:00 GMT)

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