A large part of the beef industry's job involves making sure that beef is safe and wholesome for consumers. BQA began as an effort to ensure that violative chemical residues were not present in marketed beef. Originally called "Beef Safety Assurance," the program's early emphasis was on assuring the real and perceived safety of beef. However, BQA has become much more than a safety assurance program. Today, BQA programming is expanding with information to help producers implement best management practices that improve both quality grades and yield grades of beef carcasses. Previous National Beef Quality Audits have summarized that the number one leverage point to improve competitiveness and regain market share was to improve beef quality, uniformity and consistency. Additionally, the sectors that sell beef products indicated that improvements were needed in tenderness, palatability and a reduction in excess trimmable fat.

Many consumers are familiar with quality grades and may make purchasing decisions based on quality grades at retail. But, within the consumer atmosphere the term "quality" can be confusing. Consumers and even producers often find it difficult to distinguish between the various and different ways to define "quality" with regard to beef. We can better understand "quality" if we dissect the various contexts in which we consider quality. Click the links below to learn more about each aspect of "quality".