In December of 2003, BSE shut down the US beef export markets and, after much convincing from John, Leann made the decision to join John at IMI Global so they could provide animal identification, traceability and verification solutions to the industry.  John’s first product was called Chuteside, a system allowing feedyards to tie individual animal data to an individual animal identifier.  While he was promoting this product in the market, Leann was working with major packers to create the first USDA QSA Programs for Japan and meet export verification instruction requirements.  It became evident quickly that the industry needed a way to ensure buyers through the beef supply chain that cattle met the source and age specified product requirements for Japan on live cattle.  John, Leann and the IMI Global team created an infrastructure to audit and verify these attributes for cow/calf producers, stocker operations and feedlots.  Developed as an “umbrella” program under the USDA Process Verified Program Standard, their third-party system allowed packers to buy “verified” cattle without the responsibility of auditing/verifying the locations themselves.  This revolutionized the way cattle are marketed for verified and value-added programs. 

In the beef industry today, IMI Global verifies cattle for a number of programs, standards and claims including, but certainly not limited to, source, traceability, age, Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC), Verified Natural Beef, WFCF CARE and more.  They also provide an infrastructure that authenticates the claims being made on packages at retail.