And there you go. Along comes Sandra from our principle meat supplier Hamilton Meats (I've actually known Sandra for about four years now through Slow Food San Diego) with more samples of Tallgrass (brand) beef and their brochure today.
Their brochure sure looks good. And their website. Almost too good. It's got a lot of polish.
Gotta admit though, the beef tastes fantastic (as I already mentioned in the Ethics of Eating Meat post last week).
That website of theirs sure is slick though. So I thought I'd better look deeper and read some of the articles. Chef brought me this one today from TIME magazine. The Tallgrass site referred to this New York Times article, and this Chicago Sun-Times article.
Glad it looks good on paper, because it sure tastes great on the plate!
Have a great Thanksgiving and don't forget...cranberries and pumpkins don't come from cans!
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2 comments:
We grow organic grass fed/finished beef on our ranch in Idaho. We are small, just our family and our own place. We sell to local customers (few in this sparsely populated part of Idaho), some independent co-ops, and on the internet.
We're doing OK (not getting rich, mind you, but paying the bills). And for a bit of time the past few years, I began to have hope that American agriculture was returning to our roots of farmers and ranchers producing food directly for people. Farmers might actually be able to make a decent living again growing food for people. The Slow Food movement and the Local Food movement also gave me hope.
My hopes, however, are beginning to fade.
A few years ago, the only producers of grass fed beef were small, like us. We knew it was better for the animals and the land; we also knew the beef was better. We developed relationships with the people who bought our beef. It was fun.
As more consumers started looking for grass fed beef, however, large existing companies and bankrolled startups began producing grass fed beef to meet the demand. They could produce it more cheaply than the small producer, and also ramp up production more quickly.
If you look closely at the growing protocols of most of these large companies, however, cattle spend a significant amount of time in a feedlot. It's the only way a large company can produce a consistently good product.
If you also look at the pricing structure of most of these companies, the rancher selling to them is not making much more money than he does over the commercial market. Why then do they do it? Ranching is such a hard way to make a living that another 10 cents a pound sounds pretty good.
The only hope is when people ask questions, and it sounds like you are!
Here's some for you: Do cattle spend any time in a feedlot? How long? Do calves get to stay with their mothers for at least 4 months? Have these animals been treated with antibiotics, ever? If so, what percentage (we treat about 1% of the animals in our organic operation each year, mostly as calves; these animals can no longer be sold as organic and we don't even sell them as "natural"). How much over the commercial market do your suppliers get?
The best option would be to find a local supplier. You could personally verify the growing protocols. Your customers would love a good story about where their food comes from, and you would be doing your part to support local agriculture, open space, small farms, local foodshed and all that other good stuff.
Caryl,
Thanks for your thoughts and insights. Indeed, when a specialty segment becomes popular, there are entities that jump in that game strictly as an opportunity, rather than because they believe in it. In the craft brewing industry, that certainly exists...core companies that believe passionately in what they do, and bandwagon jumpers that use some smoke and mirror techniques to make their brand appear as being 'core' when the reality is far from it.
In the arena of food, we've been doing our best to learn as much as we can. We will continue to strive to improve, improve and improve on the ethos of meeting the highest possibilities our local foodshed has to offer, and outside of that when necessary.
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