How Our Beef Gets to Your Table
Curious how our beef gets to your table? It's a nearly 2 year process to bring the retail-ready beef cuts into our Farm Store & ultimately, into your home.
Following a 9 month gestation the calf is born. We record the birth date and weight, which is usually around 70 lbs. On our farm, cows calve either in the “spring” (March thru May) or the “fall” (Sept thru Nov).
The calf grows "at the side" of the cow for 6 months receiving most of it's nutrition from nursing but soon starts imitating the mother's grazing. During that time, each calf is tagged, vaccinated and the males are castrated.
At 6 months, the calf is weaned and begins the period of growth to reach harvest weight. This growing period can last 10 months or more. During this time the calves are grazing in the pasture and eating a corn ration from a feed bunk. Every month the group is gathered and weighed, allowing us to monitor and project the date each animal will finish.
Our beef animals are "finished" and ready for harvest when they weigh around 1200 lbs and are 16-24 months old. At this point they have grown big enough to give a good yield & have enough fat cover to yield nice marbling for a juicy steak.
Each animal is harvested by appointment at a local butcher shop with an on-site USDA inspector that oversees all aspects of slaughter, sanitation, cutting and packaging. We make appointments several months in advance.
On the day of harvest, the live animals are loaded in the early morning on a trailer for transport to the butcher shop. After harvest is an initial dressing, and the carcass is split down the spine and “hung” - literally! - for 2 weeks to develop flavor and tenderness.
On day 14, employees begin the process of breaking down the carcass, first into primals, then into retail cuts. We provide specific cut instructions for each animal, outlining the cuts we want, size, thickness and other specifics. Retail cuts are hand cut, packaged, labelled, flash frozen and ready for us to pick up for transport back to the farm.
One to two days later we make the 170 mile round trip back to the Farm Store with the frozen product. Every package is quality checked and inventoried with data recorded on quantity and weight for each animal’s retail package yield. Pre-orders are packed first. The remaining inventory is stocked in the Farm Store or listed in the online store.
Keep in mind, this all happens within 60 miles of Springfield, Missouri! This is the true magic behind eating locally grown food.
Minimal hands touch each retail package. There's no languishing in cold storage or shuttling in and out of distributor warehouses, our products move out to customers in less than 4 weeks after slaughter. And then YOU put them on the dinner table...
We are obsessed with producing a premium product our neighbors can trust to serve their families!
