CAB® 3QQ
Three quick questions with Phil Bass.
Phil and his wife, Tina, have one son, Vince, and live on an acreage near Sterling, Ohio.
The Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) staff is made up of folks from all different backgrounds — some sales, some PR, others more science-focused. In fact, there are just two "doctors" of meat science at the branded beef company, and one of them (John Stika) is tied up being president. That leaves the other to focus specifically in that discipline.
The company recently announced the creation of a new position: corporate meat scientist. Phil Bass, a native Californian with a doctorate from Colorado State University, was serving on the international sales team, but his heart has always been in digging into data. He eagerly looks forward to the new responsibilities, and I caught up with him to visit about what this new title means.
What will you do in this new role?
I have two big projects initially. First, I'll be responding to quality issues, mostly with distributors because a chef complained. Distributors really focus on how the meat looks before they get it to their highly judicious chef clientele. We've been diligent about addressing issues as quickly as possible, but we have not had a recording system to identify patterns. So that's my first goal, identifying what those issues are and seeing what we can do to prevent them from happening again.
The second project will be analyzing our dataset of about 120,000 carcasses from several different packing plants. I'll look at the marbling scores, backfats, ribeye areas and so forth to get a better grasp on consistency between plants, for example, just trying to better understand our overall product. Because of how much product we're starting to identify and certify, we just want to make sure that the consistency is still there. Regardless of where you purchase it, you're still going to get that high-quality eating experience.
How significant is this for the company?
This is huge. This is a very proactive role that we can have now. Being on the sales team, I had a lot of reactive time, responding to issues. The history of CAB has been primarily a proactive approach, staying ahead of the curve. This is an opportunity to go back to our roots and truly identify potential problems before they occur.I'm going to try to get more involved in the academic community now, in organizations like the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) and the American Meat Science Association (AMSA). I will continue to bring attention to beef quality within the animal- and meat-science arenas.
How did your previous role as executive account manager for Canada prepare you?
The Canadian role was almost like a postdoctorate to me. It was crucial. It was absolutely essential for me to better understand the sales background, to better understand what happens at the foodservice and retail sectors, and to directly interact with those folks. I had the international aspect, too, so I kind of got three divisions in one shot. I also interacted with packers and ranchers, since we didn't have much contact with those folks in Canada at that time. It was such an eye-opening experience and really changed my perspective on a lot of things, helping me better understand what I'm going to be doing now.
Phil and his wife, Tina, have one son and live on an acreage near Sterling, Ohio.
