UPDATED EXCERPT APRIL 2024

For the past 10 years we’ve been deceived….

The big packers can access cheap beef from countries from around the world and then label it from the USA. This is because we’ve had no honest country of origin labeling for beef for years.

Congress decided to appease the 4 largest meat packers Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef instead of the rest of us mere pheasants (you know the ones who are crushing small ranchers and farms). For the major meatpacking companies, buying low and selling high translates into much bigger profits.

Even worse, they allowed these packers to replace the packaging from a different country and replace it with a USA label when it wasn’t born, raised, and not even harvested in the USA. The meat could be already packaged (meaning it was already processed into ground beef packages) from a different country. Yep, that’s right. Back in the day in the grocery store, it used to be that a label would say where an animal was born, raised, and harvested.

Finally, the government has acknowledged this has been false and misleading labels. No kidding. It’s been reversed, but of course, it takes 2 years to get all the beef through the system to do this so you won’t see any changes until 2026.

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ORIGINAL BLOG JANUARY 3, 2022

We’ve dreamed of raising beef someday. While others may dream of vacations, careers, houses, etc., we dreamt of beef. I know, probably not as exciting as vacations. :-)

On this journey to raising beef, we wanted to know how other farms raise their cattle, and after digging in, we’ve found along the way there are many different ways of doing just that.

From Tom’s own experience being raised on a farm, working on different farms, and learning from other farmers as well, there doesn’t seem to be a one-size-fits-all for raising cattle.

It seems to be what works for each farmer, their land, their situation, and their goals.

There’s a story behind the food that doesn’t just start at the grocery store where it’s not actually raised, joking aside, it does seem like more and more people really think that if farms disappear, you can just get your food at the grocery store, which as we’ve seen in the past few years, any sort of hiccups, and you may not be able to.

But where in the world does your beef come if you get it in the local grocery store?

It could be from a ranch in the USA… or it might not be.

What I found fascinating through this research is that the meat we’re consuming may actually come from an entirely different country that may have different requirements.

First, did you know that there are different labeling requirements for chicken than for beef and pork?

As long as the requirements in that country are similar to the USA, which actually might be lower, retailers don’t have to disclose where that beef or pork came from.

Did you know that the beef or pork you’re getting in the grocery store can say “Product of U.S.A.” even if it’s not a product of the United States?

Millions of pounds of beef is brought into the United States from 20 countries where the production and processing standards may be lower. You got to wonder how long it took to get here.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s voluntary labeling policy allows beef that is not from the U.S. to be salted, cooked, cut or repackaged here and still be labeled as a product of the U.S.

In December 2015, Congress repealed the country-of-origin labeling regulations so they don’t have to tell you.

(see www.fooddive.com).

Did you know the beef you find in the grocery store is probably what you would call “mass-produced?”

It is usually raised in a factory-type setting than a traditional farm. And just like mass-produced sounds, the purpose of these meat factories is to produce as much meat as possible in the cheapest way possible in as little time as possible.

I know, all these labels are confusing because they don’t tell you the whole story.

Tom has worked on feedlots so he’s seen first-hand how at the least cattle were raised where he worked and how they’re fed (this is where he worked not saying it’s the same elsewhere), which he likens to fattening them up as fast as possible + when an animal has a foot problem for example, it’s not taken care of because there are just too many animals and it’s not worth dealing, which is their choice and it’s more economical for people to buy that way.

But he’s also been a dairy farmer. With that experience, he’s learned through the many years that balancing nutrition as well as making sure the cows are happy are imperative for production as well.

So just as milk production is important to dairy farming, having our cattle taken care of for meat quality is important to us as well.

Therefore, it’s always been our goal to raise our cattle on pastures as much as we can in short and sometimes difficult MN seasons. That’s of first and primary importance to us. We’re not perfect, but we’re always striving to improve.

Because of this, we’ve chosen a pasture-based model that includes feeding a diet of 95% grass and 5% supplemental grain. This means our cattle are out on pastures to forage on fresh grass as much as possible in MN (spring until fall depending on the weather) and given hay in winter months, while we supplement around 5% of their body weight in grain .

We not only do this for nutritional value, but to provide flavor, tenderness and marbling that people enjoy so we can make sure we give our customers a wonderful farm to table experience. We don’t give any growth hormones or steroids to grow them fast and we prefer to keep their energy up and growing during harsh winters.

Other farms are different and we’re different from other farms. We don’t like to be put in a box that we’re for or against raising animals a certain way as opposed to that way or this other way. This is just how we raise our animals and what we prefer to do.

And when you hear that your ground beef doesn’t taste like rubber from the grocery store or the best ground beef they’ve had, we like the way we’re doing things. :-)

You can also be reassured that your meat was cared for well and actually homegrown in the USA.

Shopping local is worth the extra cost because of the high-quality product your family can enjoy around the dinner table.

Warmly,

Tessa Strandquist

Cites:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/your-grass-fed-beef-may-have-not-have-come-from-a-cow-grazing-in-a-pasture-heres-why/2018/12/13/7e65ebb2-fc91-11e8-83c0-b06139e540e5_story.html

www.fooddive.com https://www.fooddive.com/news/lawmakers-try-to-resurrect-country-of-origin-labeling-for-beef-and-pork/566609/