Restaurant diners prefer Nebraska beef label

LINCOLN, Neb. -- What's in a name? Big money, according to the Nebraska Cattlemen association.

Three years after the group launched a program to sell meat under a "Nebraska Corn-Fed Beef" label, the product is gaining a foothold in the restaurant industry.

"It's going extremely well," said Jay Wolf, president of the association's Nebraska Corn-Fed Beef Board.

Beef with the Nebraska label is now featured at four restaurant chains, including Dave & Buster's and Dick Clark's American Bandstand. And the restaurants have reported a 37 percent increase in sales of beef with the label.

"We've gotten a lot of positive feedback from our customers," said Michael Plunkett, a vice president with Dave & Buster's. "We're even getting comments from our staff and grill cooks -- there's a sense of pride with that group of folks as far as what product we're giving them to use."

The program eventually will expand to supermarkets, but that's at least a year away, said Jim Jenkins, the program's executive director.

"We're kind of holding back to make sure we don't outrun the cattle supply," he said.

Nebraska produces about 20 percent of the nation's beef, and annual sales approach $5 billion. The Nebraska Corn-Fed Beef program takes a page from producers of other food commodities that gain consumer loyalty through strict quality control.

Consumers for years have bought Butterball turkeys and Tyson chickens. And some high-end steaks in supermarkets now sport brand names such as Sterling Silver, or carry the gold, trademarked label of the Certified Angus Beef Program.

But about 95 percent of U.S. beef is shipped to restaurants and supermarkets with no clue as to its origin. For the most part, consumers have relied on the U.S. Agriculture Department's grading system, which is intended to gauge the beef's tenderness by visual looking for "marbling," the flecks of fat that give meat taste and tenderness.