Farm Tidbits: Quality

How we achieve consistent top quality is something we should explain in more detail.

When we started out, I raised the cattle, selected which ones to harvest each week, sorted all the steaks and then delivered these same steaks to all our early chef customers. These chefs explained to me what they wanted, fine lines of marbling, tender beefy flavor and consistent cuts.

Looking back, we had many quality issues stemming from genetics or feed issues. Over the last 20 years, we have improved our genetics and developed a consistent feed program to achieve consistent top quality.

The big 4 beef packers can’t control genetics, feed program or even the age of the animals harvested. They rely on a 3 second evaluation of the ribeye to determine grade and now that most of the graders are company employees, there is lots of “grade inflation” as many of you have seen.

We evaluate every ribeye by comparing it to a standard grading sheet with 10 levels of marbling. We also weigh the ribeye and note any color variance. The color of the meat is the first indicator of quality, the deep rosy, red color is best, and a lighter pink always results in tougher meat as well as too dark of meat.

Our pork quality took a similar route with getting weekly feedback and continuing to improve the genetics. All of our hogs come from our neighbors, The Gutgsells, who started with high marbling genetics from Iowa State University and have continued to improve the marbling with Duroc boars. Our pork has consistent marbling and is not “the other white meat” type of pork that is lean and so common these days.

We always appreciate your feedback on our march to get the absolute best quality each and every time. 
Thank you for all of your guidance over the years.
Dave