Meat & Poultry

Chuck just got a new name. New cuts of steak and even some of the older, traditional cuts have been given fancier names — Vegas strip, flat iron, coulotte, Denver and tri-tip — to make them sound like the next big thing. In fact, the Vegas strip steak is so exclusive that there's a patent pending on the cut's fabrication and butchers will need to pay a licensing fee to cut it, said Daren Williams of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. …

Kari Underly is proving, however, that even meat cutters can be innovative. A third-generation butcher, Ms. Underly, 44, along with others, was recruited by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association to develop new ways to carve up a carcass to boost sales and profits. The result was the flatiron steak, introduced to the market in 2002. …

Sara Lee Corp. announced that it chose Hillshire Brands Company as the new name for its North American business. Hillshire Brands will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “HSH.” …

It is very disconcerting that retailers, in making decisions about sourcing pork products, continue to succumb to the pressure of activist groups such as the Humane Society of the United States without any consideration of the impact on American farm families, who produce the safe and affordable pork that they sell to consumers. These unilateral and impulsive announcements are made without any recognition that nearly all of the pork products produced in the United States today come from facilities built for the validated practice of gestation stalls. …

The food sector, both retail and service, is increasingly exercising its might on the animal-welfare file. With the list growing daily of companies serving notice, it's virtually impossible to think sow-gestation stalls have a future in hog-production systems. Ditto for traditional tightly packed battery cages used in the egg industry. …