Small-Scale Shopping Makes a Difference

We live in a world of incredible abundance, where we can go into any major grocery store and expect to find the full array of meat products at any given time. It would be surprising to go to a large grocery and not find ground beef. But it would be just as surprising if we couldn't also choose between different fat contents of that ground beef. That abundance is what happens when the industry is commodified.

For small scale farms this level of choice may not be available. The reason is both interesting and also points to exactly why you shop with us in the first place: We are a small operation.

In our store, for instance, we sell ground beef that is either 15% fat and 20% fat. We try to have both available but this isn't always possible. The reason is scale and seasonality.

When we butcher cattle, we are taking 6 animals to slaughter. Each of them is an individual with different attributes depending on time of year and natural variability. This means we assess the animals and harvest from them differently depending on their attributes.

From those six animals we harvest various choice steaks and cuts and then turn the rest into ground meat. There will be at most 6 different animals in that portion of ground beef you are buying, and so the percentage of fat depends on a very small number of animals and on the time of year the animal was processed.  In the fall fat percentage is higher, while in the winter and spring it is lower.  For a Jersey cow it is higher and for our beef breeds it is lower. 

In comparison, what you purchase at a store will have 100, if not 1,000’s of individual animals that will go into your pound of ground, blended to precisely achieve the percentages of lean meat and fat consumers have become accustomed to.  On top of the large number of animals, those animals may have come from different countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico and then were blended with animals from the U.S.

“So instead of supporting a system which relies on mega-meat packers and international supply chains, which both have opaque practices at best, you can support your local farmer that lives right up the road,” said Christine Deck.

One of the ways the large meatpackers create that commodification is by obscuring the fact that much of the meat we are sold in grocery stores comes from other countries. The industry did this by getting Congress to repeal the Country-of-Origin Labeling requirements in 2015. This means the grocery store product they sell contains meat sourced from large scale U.S. operations, which have quality control and ethics issues because of their size, and from countries with less stringent safety regulations than ours. It is then being sold in the United States as a U.S. product.

From a November article on the beef industry:

"The repeal of Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) has amplified meatpackers’ power. With labeling transparency gone, packers can legally import cheap beef from Mexico, Brazil, or Argentina, blend it with U.S. product, and sell it under a domestic label. Consumers pay premium prices believing they’re buying American, while ranchers receive depressed bids for cattle amid increasing import competition. COOL’s repeal effectively legalized country of origin misrepresentation — enabling packers to conceal foreign sourcing and reap near-monopoly profits from deception and price fixing."

-Andrew Rechenberg, Coalition for a Prosperous America

By shopping with us instead of supporting the large meatpackers, you are stepping outside of their monopoly and voting with your dollars. Because of their market manipulation, the U.S. has a significantly declining domestic beef supply - the lowest since 1951 according to the USDA.

We are passionate about countering this. It is why we work as hard as we do. Farm-to-eater models like CSA and farmers markets allow farmers to sell directly to you. Every farm that does this helps create a stable, local food supply for our region. And it develops trust and transparency: You do not have to wonder where your food came from and whether the labels tell the whole story. And

“This is a good time to mention that we have an open gate policy every day but Sunday,” said Christine. Appointments from visitors are great so we can be sure to show you around, but if you drop it we will welcome you.

So, when you are shopping with us and you see that the product you intended to buy is not available, remember the reason for this and then try something new. It is similar to making the decision to shop seasonally in the produce aisle: If you don't buy tomatoes in winter, you'll find yourself trying a new squash or root vegetable and discovering new recipes. And in both cases, local and seasonal food is more nutritious and provides you with a wider array of nutrients throughout the year and strengthens our regional economy by keeping food local and sustaining the folks that produce that it.