Agriculture--Beef--Genetics--Quality Control--McDonald's supplier expanding cattle operation

This is interesting. The company that supplies beef to McDonald's is expanding its cattle ranch operations here some place close to Kiev.

I must say that the beef available here in most stores is better now than it was when I first got here. But that is not to say that it can't be improved. It still can and by a lot. That may have to do with other types of operations that might need to be created more from the round up like feedlots and the like. But one of the big problems in the past has been that the beef has come from played-out dairy cattle. That must be changing now to some extent because the quality has become better. But better is a relative thing.

The other problem has been genetics. That has been true particularly in the dairy industry and I can't see that other industries would not have the same problem. (It has been true of agriculture generally. A lot of the plant and grain varieties have not been the best genetic stock. That is changing slowly.) Better genetics would be a good thing.

This is a way for them to further control quality too which is a must here. We buy cheese at our place because we like it. But we can buy the same cheese from the same factory and it will taste like anything from mozzarella to Swiss to cheddar. Not good quality control. And that is true for other products also. Quality management doesn't seem to be a high priority right now.

Ukraine has been a producer oriented market. That is changing to some extent but it is slow. Ukrainians have traditionally taken what they were given and not done much about it. Some are demanding better quality and are voting with their money but more need to. And if they had the quality in the first place, maybe they would understand just what they were missing.

Some companies do have a high quality but they are in the minority right now. That will change as consumers get more sophisticated and more and more sectors open up to competition from foreign companies.