Market steers with coarse, heavy front ends will likely have which impact on retail cuts?

Market steers with coarse, heavy front ends are typically associated with a lower yield of valued cuts. This is mainly due to the distribution of muscle and fat characteristics within the animal. A heavy front end, especially if it is coarse, often indicates that the animal has more undesirable fat and less desirable muscle in the shoulder and forequarter regions. Retail cuts, which are valued cuts, such as the ribeye steak and loin cuts, generally come from the back half of the animal where muscle is more desirable and fat content is more favorable.

As a result, when evaluating the overall marketability of such steers, one would expect the proportion of high-quality retail cuts to decrease. This can affect the financial returns for producers since valued cuts are often where the best profit margins are found. Therefore, the presence of coarse, heavy front ends can directly influence the economic viability of the carcass in terms of the expected retail cut yield.