I had lunch yesterday with our butcher. We were discussing expanding our marketing through his retail location. What a great lunch, I asked him questions that he never thought of and he asked me questions that I never thought of. So often when you are in the middle of something you have trouble seeing what is outside. This was apparent yesterday. We talked about such things as where is our market going, what do the people want and where do we want to take this?
We agreed on most points, except what do people want. With our market focusing on a healthy alternative to commercially raised corn fed beef his market has been customers who are more concerned about the lowest price possible. This is regardless of how it was raised. Where we spend all of our time researching how to grow the best tasting beef possible without feeding our cattle unhealthy grains, growth hormones, steroids or anti-biotics his customers for the most part aren't interested in our just don't know about the dangers of grain fed beef. We go as far as to replace corn syrup in our value added meat products with brown sugar to be as natural and organic as possible. When it comes to "cheap" beef, we just cannot compete with chemical laden corn fed beef. Where it takes them 14 months to raise a 1300 lb steer, the best we can do at this time is 1000 lbs after 24 months. Just as your are seeing in the youth today, corn and corn by-products put on the fat FAST!
With high unemployment and people having to watch every nickle one can understand where he is coming from. We look at the long term health risks of eating a diet of grain fed beef that is high in Omega 6 fatty acids.
We will continue our quest to provide not only the best quality healthy beef alternative, but the education of our customers current and future.
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