We have one share of beef that is looking for a home—well, actually a freezer. It costs $700 for approximately 100 pounds. You can’t beat that with a stick. Have you seen the price of beef lately?
I had some long-term patrons bring friends today for a vineyard tour. I spent two delightful hours with them talking about viticulture strategies and growing without pesticides.
Our customers bought a share of beef from us last year, which led to some discussion on animal husbandry, regenerative agriculture, rotational grazing, nutrient density, and the cost of food.
B said he spent some time at stores, looking at the prices for beef raised on organic pasture and what his share cost. He also looked at the prices of various cuts, from ground beef to rib steaks. He did the math.
His conclusion was that he paid half as much as he would have bought in the market, both in stores and farmer markets.
Sounds right. No corporate middlepersons, no big meat company, no chain store. Direct to consumer without the considerable expense of going to a Farmer’s Market.
We wouldn’t have cattle if we had to go through “the system.” Farmers don’t make much money in the corporate food world. Wine or beef, it’s a losing game. The margins are small, and the risks are large. The profit is with the processing (small) and the sales and marketing. Selling beef by the pound locks you into that system. We sell a share of an animal. Not meat.
Farmers typically get less than 5% of your food dollar.
Our profit margin is a little better. We deal directly with very high-value food. Yes, wine is food.
But we are tiny. We don’t pay much income tax, but we do pay a lot of other taxes, including federal and state excise taxes on wine, property taxes, . . . .
If you do the research (I recommend reading “What Your Food Ate”), you might appreciate our approach to growing food. All food is NOT the same.
Soil Organic Material may be the single most significant factor. We are proud to be in the top 10%. In addition, we use no pesticides or factory nutrients. A farmer using methods that we call regenerative, and some pesticides, may be producing higher nutrient food than one certified USDA Organic. Certainly, better than those crappy USDA Organic hydroponic blueberries!
We are members of Real Organic. Most animal products labeled USDA Organic wouldn’t qualify as Real Organic, and an awful lot of blueberries and other crops wouldn’t either.
Did you know?
Real pasture-raised beef often has higher Omega-3s than salmon from the supermarket?
That some beef labeled “grass fed” spends up to 30% of its life, several months, in a feed lot eating corn and soybeans right before slaughter? Almost all cattle spend 70% of their life on pasture. Read the fine print.
Ours eat nothing but living plants in their last months. I’m pretty sure none have ever eaten a GMO soybean. They actually die in their pasture, amongst the herd, without stress and fear. The surviving herd gets a bit upset for 15-45 minutes.
Come. Meet the meat. We have a couple of nurse cows on R+R this summer who would appreciate a good massage. Most cattle have a comfort zone with about ten feet of calm strangers. Jonny and Cream Puff will take a tail scratch with great appreciation if you have a quiet spirit.
One-sixth of a cow costs $700 for approximately 100 pounds of various cuts of beef. We need to know whether you would like to buy part of a cow from us as soon as possible. If it seems too much for your family, perhaps you know of someone you could share with. Let us know (phone or text), and then we will get a $100 deposit from you. The cows were dispatched at the end of June, and the meat is ready now.
