The Sterling Solutions Program provides a system for source verification that instills TRUST throughout the entire beef supply chain from the time a calf is born until the final beef product is presented to the consumer. The trend toward marketing source verified beef is real and it is global. In fact, major trading partners for U.S. produced beef require both source and age verification. The Sterling Program not only allows for tracing age-verified cattle from the cattle pens at the packing plant, back through the feedlot to the ranch where the calf was born, it can also follow that source and age verified animal forward through the packing plant as a carcass and ultimately, as boxed primaland sub-primal cuts and beef trim. The program was audited and approved by the Japanese government prior to re-opening the Japanese market to U.S. beef in 2005 as well as by a Japanese food safety auditing firm in 2008.

The Sterling Program is a voluntary value-added marketing service with USDA approval for exporting U.S. beef as source and age verified product. While USDA approval is required in order to provide this service, Sterling Solutions is a closely and privately held Limited Liability Company with John Morse and John Nalivka as majority owners.

Can the Sterling Solutions Program meet the requirements for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) or the Country of Origin Labeling law? The answer is yes. Subscribers may choose to request a state issued premises registration and use an NAIS approved electronic tag. If so, they will be complying with NAIS requirements. With regard to COOL, compliance with Sterling Solutions Program protocol also means being compliant with COOL requirements. Is this the intent of the Sterling Solutions Program? The answer is no. Again, the intent of the Sterling Solutions Program is to provide cattle raisers with an opportunity for value-added, export marketing.

How the Sterling Solutions Program Began

With the goal of creating a system to meet this growing demand for animal identification and source verification, John Morse and John Nalivka began developing the Sterling Solutions Source Verification Program in late 2002. Upon completing the program in early 2003, they applied to USDA's Audit, Review, and Compliance Branch for approval as a Process Verified Program. The Sterling program was audited and approved in December 2003 and now holds the second longest held approval as a USDA Process Verified Program for providing identification and source and age verification services to the U.S. beef industry.

Two major premises guided development of the Sterling Solutions Source and Age Verification Program. First, those who need and receive the direct benefit of the process verified program should pay the associated costs. The principals felt that the cost should not be born bottom up by producers. Second, in order for a program to be embraced by the industry it must take into consideration critical point issues up and down the supply chain. Consideration of these critical point issues is necessary if a program is to be incorporated into the operating procedures on the ranch, at the auction market, in the feedlot, in the packing plant, and in the retail meat case and restaurant. A program must be cost effective while creating minimal disruption to operational activities.

There are many ideas with regard to the criterion involved with designing a workable source verification program. It seems as though many of these programs are created from the top down and are not necessarily concerned with keeping it as simple as possible. In fact, in the rush to create a system, the means can easily become the end. We firmly believe that source verification must be driven from both ends of the supply chain and work to accommodate everyone throughout that chain.