A little horse anyone?

[ALLFARMER]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/09/world/europe/uk-
horsemeat-probe/index.html?c=europe&page=1

Age verified? Country of origin verified?

I find it interesting the label on the lunch packs
that have sliced cheese, cracker and sliced meat.
The label on them says "may contain beef,
chicken or pork" so basically what ever walked
onto the kill floor that day. What the double
hockey sticks is in there????

[grassfarmer]

I don't know much about this most recent discovery
with Findus in France and Scandinavia but the original
story from the UK involving the retailer Tesco and
Irish beef supply ABP was not a shock. The Irish (Eire)
have a history of being the crooks and cheats of the
EU livestock and meat trade. Larry Goodman the
owner of ABP is the comeback kid of meat trade
scandals. He bought a plant in Poland in recent years
and surprise, surprise the horse flavoured beef
supplied to Tesco came from Poland.
Tesco too has a history of being less than honest so
not many producers will shed a tear for them. In a
previous scandal the NFU Scotland dna tested a
branded Scottish Angus steak from their store and
found it was off bos indicus cattle (ie south American
Brahma origin being passed off as Scottish.)

[ALLFARMER]

This should drive more people to buying direct
from the producer. Ex. Grassfarmer meats

The wife bumped into a lady at the grocery store
who works at the local butcher shop. She says
(out of the blue) the beef from our farm is always
very good. She goes on to say even our 4H
calves are very good. This kind of blows me
away, I didn't think we were doing much different
than anyone else? I guess it's the angus beef and
a mainly forage diet.

We had a steer here that was born and finished
here completely on grass....zero grain. Since I am
not interested in butchering myself almost
everybody (to date) has gone on the truck. We
bought at the store 95% of the beef we use here
at home. This one lucky steer got butchered this
fall with a brother in law helping shoot, gut,
remove hide and split. Butcher shop did the rest.
This is by far the best beef we have ever had. I
can see why people are buying direct and willing
to pay more. This stuff is at least 40 percent better
than store bought beef. Another producer I know
started selling a year or so ago and now sells out
their whole yearly production this way. I will talk
with her to check out how she does the sales.

So what is the easiest (legal) way of doing farm
direct sales? Whole beef? Half's, quarters?
Would avoid the presort, insurance, commission,
trucking, ABP, and a million other fees with ring
sales.

[smcgrath76]

This is a topic of great interest to me.
Currently we sell mixed quarters, and do
not really sell by the pound (rather a
whole $ number). We are growing this side
of the business and I suspect may need to
change our approach to do so. Any other
experiences to share would be appreciated.

[ALLFARMER]

Just read the Facebook page of a friend who
direct markets. She is charging 1.50$ per pound
live weight at the farm. She only sells a whole
beef or half beef. She will put you intouch with
others who only want 1/4's. She is sold out for
next year already. She charges 100$ deposit and
prepayment and beef is paid in full at pickup.
They feed a bit of grain 2 months prior to
butchering to add flavor.

[ALLFARMER]

e mail me Sean if you want I can send you some
screen shots of her Facebook page.

ricfarm.7@gmail.com

[grassfarmer]

Depends how your butcher charges Sean, mixed
quarters take up about 25% of our cattle and they are
a costly PIA. We get dinged a $100 surcharge per
animal for quartering versus halves. We are moving
away from selling on the hanging weight basis this
year as the butcher has installed a new system to
weigh the individual boxes as they are filled and I'll
be able to access these online. It will be fairer all
round charging on actual pounds delivered.
I would never get involved selling individual steaks
etc - ours is a simple all in - all out system with cattle
going to the plant each week through harvest season
and delivering 7 head a week straight from the plant
to the city.

Allfarmer the $1.50 lw price you quoted does that
include any of the processing costs? if it doesn't I
think its pretty steep for the amount of work they are
putting in.

[ALLFARMER]

Butchering is over and above the 1.50/lb charge.
They also charge a set rate to deliver to one of 4
butcher's in their area.

[perfecho]

We have been doing a few steers every year that we did with the kid's 4-H steers. We simply took four boxes and started filling, sometimes someone got shorted a piece because of the rotation, however everyone seemed happy. Charged $1600 per animal plus processing divided by 4...seemed to work. Customers liked the product, the 1/4 amount seemed to work and we were good with the price. May have to look at the price, as we have been getting this for a few years. Truly believe you can do well with this venture, however our seed stock sale are doing well so not about to change horses when I am darn near the other side of the stream ;-)
Just butchered our first Lowline ..impressed. Basically works out to half the meat...for about a 1/3 the cost......think this would be a real great venture for someone doing direct marketing for us old timers!

[rkaiser]

A little bit slow this Sunday morning at the store so I thought I would check in on you guys. To my delight --- LOL --- a conversation about honesty and trust... I think that every farmer should have a crack at looking consumers in the eye at the retail level. Either tell them how you are trying your best to keep a healthy, nutritious product in front of them, or


explain to them how glycophates (sp) and the three R's in the beef industry are good for them and their babies. Rumensin - all good - Ralgro - never hurt you - Ractopomine --- how will we ever feed the world without using these wonderful products --- Bull shit them right in the eye rather than hiding out on the ranch or feedlot...

Have a happy Sunday everyone.. Better go - more customers rollin up to the door....

[grassfarmer]

Allfarmer you had some interesting quotes in your
posts that I'd like to give my opinion on:

"....I guess it's the angus beef"
If you believe that you are victim of the biggest
marketing campaign in the history of the red meat
industry. The Angus breed is so generic that the
name in association with quality meat means nothing.
You might get a great Angus steak or you might get a
Charolais one seeing how most Angus breeder are
selecting for Charolais not Angus characteristics. Do
you notice that Angus with marbling characteristics
are the in demand thing now? When they lost
marbling in pursuit of Charolais growth
characteristics we are expected to believe that didn't
affect meat quality? Most of these Angus programs
are based on only hide color anyway with no genetic
ancestry correlation. So it depends more on how it
was raised than what the pedigree says - when there
is no longer a breed type associated with the breed
named on the said certificate.

"We had a steer here that was born and finished
here completely on grass....zero grain.
This stuff is at least 40 percent better
than store bought beef."
Thats quite a recommendation for grass-fed beef. I'm
happy you enjoyed it although I find its hard to be
subjective when comparing my own product to
others. I use an independent taste tester for
comparison purposes.

"They feed a bit of grain 2 months prior to
butchering to add flavor."
This comment you included about a fellow ranchers
product rather contradicts your own findings on
grass-fed. Grain adds flavour? really? I thought grain
taste was the taste of bland - the taste of store
bought chicken, pork or beef. Where good grass-fed
beef is different is that it does have taste reflecting a
diverse diet of different types of vegetation. Grain fed
beef is mono-culture barley and barley silage flavour.

Now some will say they don't like the taste of grass-
fed and find it gamey - that is maybe true of poorly
raised grass-fed of which there is plenty around but
it is not true of the good stuff. To produce a quality
grass-fed product the grass skills are more important
than the genetics in my opinion. My proof of that
would be a dairy farmer I know with exceptional grass
skills and knowledge. I've tasted beef off a 2 year
open holstein heifer he raised and it's about the
closest thing I've tasted to my own product.
Considerably better than some of the branded Angus
beef I've tasted over the years both here and abroad.
You have got to understand the lignification process
and the energy and protein content of forages and
how to manipulate them through grazing
management before you can produce good grass-fed
beef and these skills are severely lacking in AB in my
experience.

[Happytrails]

Ya GF we Albertans don't know sh** about grass. Guess we got 40% of the Canadian cow herd by accident.

Geez I'm grumpy tonight.

[grassfarmer]

You said it - I guess that's why we aren't fattening
40% of the cattle on grass - in fact we aren't fattening
0.4% of the cattle on grass. Might be better off if we
did.

[smcgrath76]

I think based on our experiece there is a significant
difference between grass fed and grass finished
beef. And while I know many fanastic graziers in
Alberta, I would say that there are very few as a
percentage of the overall population.
The knowledge may be there, but very few are
willing to do the application (that does not
neccesarily mean high intensity rotations either). I
think there is easily potential to double production
from the same pasture base with just small
management changes.
I think the grass management side is huge in grass
finished beef.

[grassfarmer]

Difference how Sean? do you mean in the end product
and if so what is your definition of grass fed versus
grass finished?