CCA president Greg Brown said a study of 1271 grocery buyers from across Australia indicated shoppers were mostly satisfied with the quality of beef they bought.

Price (78 per cent) was the most widely mentioned factor influencing consumer purchasing decisions for lower income earners, highlighting the damaging proposition put forward in NSW to label all budget beef as “low quality”.

“The proponents of this move, including a prominent NSW beef processor, argue that introducing a 'low quality' label for some beef sold on the domestic market will shift price-conscious shoppers to pay more for higher quality product,” Mr Brown said.

“This is clearly an absurd suggestion, as the likelihood is that the only winners from such a move would be our competitors as price-conscious consumers choose cheaper proteins such as chicken and pork which won’t carry labels that will scare them off.”

Nicholas Cameron from Galaxy Research said that the majority of grocery buyers have no difficulty in selecting the quality of beef they require.

“Nine in 10 grocery buyers find the quality of beef they purchase meets their expectations with only 5pc not confident of purchasing the quality they require,” Mr Cameron said.

“They rate the consistency of beef well (81pc) and this compares favourably against other categories such as fruit (74pc), vegetables (78pc) and seafood (65pc).”

Trust in beef retailers is also high, with nine in ten buyers having a high or moderate level of trust in their retailers to provide a high quality product.

CCA says the consumer satisfaction results are testament to the improvements that the industry has made over the past decade to beef quality, including raising retail standards, feeding regimes designed to optimise eating quality, and the adoption of the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) program and science.

“Assuring eating quality for the consumer is something that the Cattle Council and industry has worked long and hard for. We now have a meat grading system (MSA) that is underpinned by science and in sync with what consumers want,” Mr Brown said.

“The last thing we need is more ‘red tape’. Beef producers, not Government, should be setting the standards for the way our product is marketed.”

MSA is now grading in excess of 1 million head per year and is the world’s only consumer-based cut-by-cook grading program based on over 75,000 consumers providing scores on 650,000 beef samples.