Aging beef?

[greybeard]

Can provincial plant accept animals that have been slaughtered at home? Can you sell this meat thru a restaurant?
When there are no flies , home slaughtered is much less stressful and more tender.

[nerves]

Ok grassfarmer Well see how good my memory is on your questions. You can set what ever price you want 3 bucks a pound for hanging weight is high. A processor will cost about .50 cents a pound to do a basic cut wrap freeze and to age the beef. the more processing that has to be done the more it cost ie sausaged jerkie hamburger patties etc. There is also a kill fee and disposal fee each processor is differnt ours is about 60 bucks. We base what we charge by the animal and its quality. If it is a middle age cow we want a buck a pound hanging weight. so that on top of basic cut and wrap is 1.50. We add on .25 cents a pound for delivery because we then have to get permits for the vehicle that we use. We thought about a reefeer van but the health officals didn"t like the idea of selling out of it due to the doors being open alot a changing the temperatures in side. The box beef starts to get higher because the bone and trim is removed. Box beef also has to labeled and weighed on a metric scale Your processor should also be able to do this but it cost more. Cryovac is also another option as compared to wrapping that way the customer can see the meat they are getting. The price is a little more to do this but is comparable. Mobile butchers can kill beef for yourself, and if you sell a live animal to a customer and they get him to do killing it is ok. But you cannot get him to kill the animal take to the facility and then sell it to your customer. We also price calves higher than cows it all works out to about 2.50 a pound less than the stores for steaks and roasts. The hamburger is comparable in price to the stores for the low end hamburger and extra lean we can beat the stores by a buck a pound. With this in mind our cows are bringing 900 to 1300 dollars to us and the calves are bringing at least 1200 dollars. Is this worth the time it is up to you. It is a lot of work but what isn"t? Remember these cows live weights are around 1600 pounds and the calves are 1000 pounds right now.

[cakadu]

Greybeard - in a word the answers to your questions is no.

Legally, you cannot sell anything killed and processed on your farm - it is for your immediate family's consumption only. A mobile butcher can be used as has been stated, but again, the animal can only be slaughtered for your own use, so the animal has to be sold to the party that is getting the mobile butcher to process it before hand.

The liability issues around selling uninspected meat, I suspect, would be too much for yourself and whatever restaurant you were thinking of selling to, to contemplate doing it.

Even with wild meat that is taken by hunters, it cannot legally be sold either and it is usually stamped by the processor that it is "uninspected meat -not for resale".

There are many that would likely agree with you that to have the beef (or whatever livestock) dropped on your farm and processed there is a lot less stressful for the animal and you end up with a much nicer product.

[cakadu]

Greybeard - in a word the answers to your questions is no.

Legally, you cannot sell anything killed and processed on your farm - it is for your immediate family's consumption only. A mobile butcher can be used as has been stated, but again, the animal can only be slaughtered for your own use, so the animal has to be sold to the party that is getting the mobile butcher to process it before hand.

The liability issues around selling uninspected meat, I suspect, would be too much for yourself and whatever restaurant you were thinking of selling to, to contemplate doing it.

Even with wild meat that is taken by hunters, it cannot legally be sold either and it is usually stamped by the processor that it is "uninspected meat -not for resale".

There are many that would likely agree with you that to have the beef (or whatever livestock) dropped on your farm and processed there is a lot less stressful for the animal and you end up with a much nicer product.

[farmboy1]

Grassfarmer,
Shop around. Freezer beef is more financially rewarding, but it is a lot of work. I'm selling steers that are raised mostly on high quality forage (silage) with a little bit of by-pass protein-mineral-vit. E sel supplement. Grading AA and dressing out over 60% (Holstein steers). Dressing around 600 lbs. and retailing for $2.30/lb. This is cut, wrapped, frozen, and delivered. It costs me 35 cents/lb. to have it done at a provicially inspected plant and the kill charge is paid for by the hide. This is in eastern Canada. The cattle are not implanted and receive no feed additives other than the fore-mentioned ones. I guess it qualifies as natural beef (a broad term) but I don't yet push the concept. Be prepared to fully guarantee the product and do some satisfaction follow-up. I guarantee that most of the people out there don't know how good fresh hamburger is. They are used to the grocery store's ground-up leftovers (yuck!) Or, you can avoid the hassle and sell your fats for $1.18/lb. dressed. $708 vs. $1380. However, developing a customer base is a slow process and not for everyone. I did some advertising in the newspaper and received 0 orders from it. It works better for me by word of mouth. If you know and trust the person, I'll take 6 post-dated cheques for a side of beef. Possibly VISA, as well. A side of beef @ $750 is a big hit for most people at one time. There are a lot of poor people out there. One figure I got from my brother-in-law (an inspected packer)is that by-the-side beef costs the customer a little over half the showcase price. You just have to figure out how to get it to them. If you have good beef, they WILL NOT be disappointed!

[grassfarmer]

Thank you for all the information, I'm starting to get a clearer picture now. One query - when you quote the cut/wrap charge as 50c/lb is that per lb hanging weight or per lb saleable meat?
Also do non farming customers generally understand (or are happy with) the theory of paying x$/lb on a 720lb hanging carcase when they will only get maybe 500lbs of actual meat off it?

[nerves]

yes that is .50 cents per pound hanging weight. Yes we make sure to explain it to our customers because they also get the best steaks for the price of hamburger. We also are doing boxed beef for those who just want enough for a couple of meals but we also charge more there is alot more expence. News paper ads work real well when combined with a web page. When we ran them we got about 20 phone calls a day. Now we haven"t ran an ad for about a month and are still getting phone calls and e-mails.

[cakadu]

Grassfarmer, generally the cut and wrap is on the hanging meat. This is another cost that you have to figure into the price you are charging the customer.

As a rule, city folk don't understand the "hanging on the rail weight." They aren't interested in the train. ;-)

What they want to know is how much they have to pay you for the box(es) that you are delivering to them. We deal this way with our lamb - what they pay us for is what they end up getting. In order to assure the customer they are getting the weight they are paying for, our processor is very good and will scale the boxes for us before we take them for delivery. That way the weight given is on a "legal tender" scale. (I should point out that some customers will weigh the boxes at home, so this is one way to ensure them they are getting what they are paying for.)

I agree that it is a lot of work and takes time. Your time and effort must also be given consideration in your final cost to the customer.

This isn't the preferred way to go for a lot of folk because if you are delivering boxes, you aren't doing something else on the farm.

The up side is that you are giving a quality product to your customers - in the 10 years we've been doing this, we've not had a complaint and we are in as much control as possible from the pasture to someone's plate.

We've built a good rapport with the processor and he is easy to work with and fills our custom orders with no problem. The best part is that you get the "middle mans" share in your pocket, which is where it should be.

I wish you every success!

[grassfarmer]

Thank you - I look forward to trying out this new operation this year on a small number of animals.

[nerves]

I have read the above conversations and have noticed that I have also forgot to mention any storage facility must have a permit from your local health divison. so if the meat is transported from the processor to home the vehicle and the freezer at home must be certified. There is also a fee for this permit. If you ever plan to do farmers markets they will need to see this permit. The health divison has the ultamite power over all so make sure there is no grey areas. Most of the time it is the competition that will lay a complaint not the comsumer. The lady that did our permiting said they are going to start patroling alot more because there is more people doing it.