May 9, 2014

Cargill, Inc. and Branhaven LLC, entered a non-exclusive agreement to license BeefTek, Inc., their patented BeefGen genomics (DNA) tools that are intended to help beef and dairy cattle producers analyse bovine genetics to improve meat and milk production.

Cargill stated that the "BeefGen" patented diagnostics are based on molecular tools that may be of use to improving beef cattle carcass quality and production efficiency. 

Cargill believes that for beef cattle producers, these genetic tools help identify animals best suited to optimise weight gain, beef marbling, tenderness, red meat yield, rib eye quality and other important characteristics that could increase the value and yield from each animal harvested. Further, Cargill stated that it believes this technology may also assist in identifying genetically superior animals for breeding purposes, which in turn could produce higher quality calves.