How to Buy a Side of Beef
Published on - December 13th, 2006 (Modified on - June 4th, 2011) (by J.D. Roth) Kris and I grow our own berries. We harvest walnuts from a tree in the yard, and glean hazelnuts from a friend’s orchard. We keep fruit trees and a vegetable garden. For city folk, we try to grow as much of our own food as possible. But one thing we cannot grow is our own meat. We’ve discovered the next best thing, though: we buy beef in bulk from a local rancher. Every year, we pool our money with three other couples to purchase an animal when it’s ready to be slaughtered. In early December, we bring home about one hundred pounds of meat.
Buying beef in bulk can be an excellent deal, but not for everyone. Buying a side of beef is a good choice if you like to cook, you eat a lot of meat, you have storage space, and quality is important to you.
The advantages of buying in bulk include:
- Superior quality meat — Grocery-store meat is aged 5-7 days. Meat purchased from a local source is generally aged 14-21 days. (Note that not everyone prefers the taste of aged meat.)
- Uniformity of product — Commercial ground beef is often produced using meat from dozens of animals. When you buy a side, the ground beef is produced from a single animal, which minimizes the risk of contamination.
- Support of local business — I like the fact that buying beef from a local rancher allows me to support him, and to support the meat packer that processes the animal.
- Constant costing — Because you’re buying your meat all at once, it’s easy to budget your costs for an extended period.
- Fewer trips to the grocery store — Plus you no longer have to plan your meals around what’s on sale.
- Meat is packed for freezing — If you buy large quantities at the grocery store, you need to repack the meat to freeze it. When purchase a side of beef, this is done for you.
- Excellent pricing — Buying a side of beef can help you keep more money in your savings account by spending less money vs. regular grocery store prices. However, it is possible to save more at the grocery store by watching for sales.
The advantages of buying beef at the supermarket are:
- Less storage space required — When you buy your meat in small quantities, as you need it, you don’t need a spare freezer.
- You can obtain the best possible pricing — If you stock up on your favorite cuts during sales, you can obtain the best possible pricing.
- You can pick your cuts of meat — If you only use certain cuts of meat, a grocery store is your best option because you can select the cuts you like. When you buy in bulk, you receive a variety of cuts, some of which you may not use.
- Smaller investment — Purchasing even a quarter of an animal costs about $300. You can go to the grocery store and pick up a pound of hamburger for $2.50 on special.
- Less work — To buy meat at your grocery store, you simply select it from the refrigerator case. To buy a side of beef, you need to find a source, perhaps find other beef-lovers to split the cost, transport the meat, and find storage space.
The advantages of purchasing a side of beef outweigh the disadvantages for me. You may disagree.
How do you find a source for bulk beef? Ask around. Mention to friends that you’re looking. Talk to your local butcher. Contact nearby cattle farms. It shouldn’t be difficult to find a good source.
Most places allow customers to purchase meat in a variety of ways. You can buy a whole cow. You can buy a side (which is half a cow). You can buy a quarter. Or you can simply purchase wholesale cuts. Around here, it is common for several families to pool resources to purchase a single animal. For example, we divide the costs with three other couples, and when the beef is ready, we each get a quarter of the meat.
This year, our cow was slaughtered on October 18th. It hung for two weeks, and then was cut and wrapped. The cow dressed out at 560 pounds, or 140 pounds per couple. The meat cost $1.65/lb. The cut and wrap charge was $0.40/lb, and there was a $40 kill fee. (All costs apply to hanging weight, which is different than the actual weight of the meat you take home.) Basically, we paid $300 for our share of the meat, which amounted to roughly 83 pounds divided as follows:
- 21 packages of ground beef totaling 47 pounds, 14.3 ounces of meat
- 5 roasts totaling 12 pounds, 4.1 ounces of meat
- 15 packages of steak totaling 18 pounds, 14.8 ounces of meat
- 2 miscellaneous cuts totaling 3 pounds, 15.3 ounces of meat
Our net cost was $3.61 per pound. Compare that to the prices listed in this week’s circulars:
Safeway
- London Broil $2.49/lb (regularly $4.59/lb)
- Sirloin Steak $4.49/lb
- Chuck Cross Rib Roast $3.99/lb
- Tri-Tip Roast $5.99/lb
- Extra Lean (7% fat) Ground Beef $3.49/lb (regularly $3.99/lb)
- Boneless Rib Roast $8.99/lb (regularly $9.99/lb)
Albertson’s
- Sirloin Steak $2.99/lb (or $4.99/lb for the high-quality stuff)
- Bone-In Rib Roast $5.99/lb (or $7.99/lb for the high-quality stuff)
In this case, shopping at the supermarket would be more expensive, but not by much. If you watch for sales, supermarket beef will cost even less. Buying in bulk gives you better quality meat, though. It also comforts me to believe that the beef I eat is not mass-produced feedlot stuff. For more information, consult these resources:
- Oklahoma Extension Service: Buying beef for home freezers and Buying beef in large quantities [PDFs] (these are excellent short guides to the subject)
- Minnesota Extension Service: Aging Beef (for information on how and why beef is aged)
- Michael Pollan: The New York Times Magazine: Power Steer (in which the author purchases a steer and follows it as it’s raised and then butchered)
- The Dollar Stretcher: Side of beef savings (commenters note that buying a side isn’t necessarily cheaper than buying at the grocery store)
- Conscious Choice: Grass-fed animal products: Good for animals, people, and the planet (an argument for grass-fed beef)
- Ask the Meatman: Yield on beef caracasses — an excellent run-down of the yield of various cuts from a typical animal.
Finally, a short cautionary tale. Some friends bought a side of beef in late July. They loaded it into the upright freezer in their garage, but accidentally left the door ajar. When they returned to the garage, they were alarmed to find the beef thawing in the heat. I think they were able to salvage most of it. It’s a scary thing, though, to think you’ve just lost hundreds of dollars of meat!
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Mary, from a few lines up, you have just revealed your ignorance on the subject as most of the beef consumed in the US comes from Holsteins (a dairy cow). You don’t get the milk cow at the end of her life you get a fattened steer. And Jersey is excellent meat, when fed properly.
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Hey Guys, don’t forget the theme was saving money, not attacking others. My rancher knows what cows are good for meat…so does my butcher. I don’t depend on pictures for that.
On that same note, ask your butcher who kills and cleans the animials if he or she knows a good source of other meats. If your butcher can also smoke meats, he or she can be a good source of other meats, such as pork. Fresh, and smoked cuts work great together to fill out that freezer when beef is not always plentiful.
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[...] you’re looking for another perspective on why and how to buy local meat in bulk, Get Rich Slowly wrote a terrific post on the [...]
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What no one seems to know, is when you buy beef from the grocery store, the age is not really known, mostly we go by the color and the date on the package. I read recently that the FDA allows butchers to subject the meat to carbon monoxide to make the “red” color stand out more in beef. Also, most meat from the grocery store is previously frozen, it is not fresh. So the argument about “frozen meat lacks something in taste” isn’t a guaranteed sell either. I just talked to a farmer whom I will be buying a quarter of a cow from, who feeds strictly corn, no hormones, and no chemicals, selling Angus beef at 2.25 a pound, then to butcher and wrap the cuts you want (exactly size, shape and type you want) is another .47 cents a pound. When you hold all this next to buying meat from the store, which is only a good deal when it’s old and they are trying to get rid of it, buying bulk is definately the way to go.
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Buying a side of beef is not only economic but more healthy.
The economics of it are clear. You cut out the middle man – store. Even though you need to have your beef butchered and packaged, this is still a small price. If you have a freezer, the cost is still small. With the freezer packed the electricity used is very small. No need to run the compressor to cool air. When your freezer runs empty you can store water in the freezer for a variety of uses.
Buying your beef allows you to pick how the beef was raised and what drugs if any are used.
The main downside is the size of the family. A single person or couple do not make it very economical. Also, if you only like certain types of beef then you have a problem.
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Oh dear. While I am completely in favor of buying meat from local farmers and ranchers, as a Nebraska farm girl, I must point out that the photo you posted is of a dairy cow, not a beef cow. If you bought a Jersey or Brown Swiss steer, it certainly won’t taste as good as a Hereferd-Angus mix.
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[...] on the subject of local meat, read this article about buying beef local and in bulk. I suspect the facts can vary quite a bit from location to [...]
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Hi all I grew up butchering on a farm in Louisiana. We recently bought a small place in SC. Between the economy and food scares both here and from China we have recently started raising our own free range organic chickens, goat, lamb and hogs. I will also return to my roots as a hunter which will provide venison, turkey, duck and rabbit. We are debating adding a cow for slaughter as well. We also grown our own organic fruits and veggies. My husband is “city folk” so for the cow I am looking for a local rancher that slaughters. I can buy a cow on the hoof(live) from my hay guy but he does not butcher anymore. There is nothing like “home grown” be it from your local rancher/farmer or on your own place. As with anything there are start up costs, but over time they pay for themselves and you have the piece of mind knowing that you are not ingesting preservatives, steriods, antibiotics or any other additives.
Dawn
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My neighbor is a cattle farmer who has offered to sell me a steer for $900. The local butcher says it will cost .29/lb for processing. Is this a good deal? I have never done this before, but it sounds like a good idea. I have my husband, myself, and 6 kids to feed. Also, the butcher says that I can’t make the processing appointment, the farmer has to. Why is that? It would be easier if I paid the farmer for the cow and then took the cow to the butcher and paid them. Is there some sort of regulation about this? Thanks for any info!
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It’s probably because the farmer will be the one to bring the cow to the butcher, not you, so it’s easier to work it out with the farmer instead of going through a middle person, such as yourself
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What great reading material. I just arranged with a friend for her to finish a steer up for me. My daughter and I have a number of food and antibiotic allergies, and this allows us to know what the animal was fed before it was slaughtered. I’ll get him in late February. It should be enough time for anything we don’t want to work its way out of his system. Now I just need to know how to give the butcher instructions on how to pack it. The last time I purchased beef, they butcher had already packed it, and the customer had backed out, so I got it right away.
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I’ve been considering splitting a cow with someone. But I’d be in it more for the quality steaks. The prices you quoted for safeway and albertsons are for usda select grade beef. I just bought usda choice grade steak on sale for $6.99 a pound regular $11.99 a pound. I’m going to do some research on what grade non feedlot cows would grade out at.
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What most of the posters are NOT understanding that if we are buying grass fed, free ranged beef, they are free of antibiotics and growth hormones, so even if slightly more expensive than feed lot, loaded with additive beef it’s worth it for me. The rest of our meat including goat, lamb, pork and chicken we raise here on our little farm and of course we grow all our own veggies also. So short of beef we are pretty self sufficent food wise and as a result we eat all organic, free ranged. The difference in taste right down to the brown eggs would amaze you. I would NOT have it any other way.
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Dang vegitarians, stop eating all our cows food!
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I would really like to do this. I have been considering it. But I don’t have a freezer yet and I am in the process of moving to NY from Ga, so it wouldn’t be in my best interest at this time. However, it may not be “less expensive” but, I’d take the quality of free range grain fed fresh beef over mistreated malnourished hormone filled cows any day. We used to eat organic beef from a restaurant in NY and the beef was unbelievably superior! Cant wait for the opportunity to buy some for my own freezer. For a family of 5 what would one suggest as the best amount to buy? I try to stick to 4-6 ounces per serving for myself to be healthy. My husband is 6’6 220 pounds of lean muscle but he can eat like a horse. I have three sons (12,6,and 3 years)Growing boys can eat! So, if I were thinking of getting beef and other meats, like goat and pork for example.. just how much meat would I need. And is it supposed to last approximately a year in a good deep freezer?
Thanks for any help!!
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Cost wise, you may or may not save money. Yet cost shouldn’t be your only consideration. Before purchasing bulk meats ask questions. Ask what the animals are being fed. Ask about antibiotics, hormones and any other chemicals that may be used. What goes in the animals goes into the meat and goes into you. Local (North Florida) all natural bulk beef sells for approximately $2.78 a pound ready for the freezer. This includes custom cuts. A good webpage to help find local farms is http://www.localharvest.org/
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P McCann–I live in Tallahassee and am interested in purchasing bulk beef. I have friends going to Atlanta to purchase a quarter cow, but was interested in finding something closer. Local Harvest has a list of farms and none include beef. Do you know of any place in the panhandle I can look up?
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We have purchased a whole cow from a friend who has a connection to a family owned cattle farm. This has been the BEST, HIGH quality meat ever. It is also much easier to purchase all at once and never have to worry about purchasing beef in the stores. We are close to running out of our meat and have moved to another state. Do you have any suggestions on more details to find private cattle farms that raise FRESH meat?
Thank you
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If you are looking for local ranches, one good way to find them is to use a search engine to find a ranch nearby using the location, beef, and ranch.
There are also many listings of ranches like at Cattletoday.com and WorkingRanches.com If you click on ranch listings you can contact the ranchers by email or phone.
Ranchers, including myself, love to sell and promote their beef because we all have something in common. We all have the best beef (in our humble opinions). I myself am proud of the taste, tenderness, and greaseless packages of hamburger meat from our cattle and the local butcher. At the grocery store you pay for grease!
Even if you just need a side of beef, most ranchers will work with you and find other people to go in with you.
If any of you need any more help finding a local ranch, just go to my site and email me, and I will do my best to find you a local ranch.
You can even order some beef from our ranch if you’re out of the area….as long as you are willing to pay for the shipping from North Dakota.
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I recently baught 2 baby jersey bull calves for $25 a piece. I will raise them til they are old enought to butcher.I believe it is better this way and cheeper because they will be feeding off my land. I heard that jersey meat is the most tender, flavorful, and sweetest meet to eat.
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My husband and I just bought half a cow. The butcher gave us a paper to choose the cuts, thickness, pounds, # in pack, etc. Our problem is that we’ve never done this before and don’t know what to select!
We know we want T-bone steaks, sirloins, ribeyes, and ground beef. I think we want short ribs – aren’t those just the ribs?
We don’t know about an arm roast vs. a chuck roast. As far as the hind quarter goes… what’s a round steak vs. top round and bottom round? Do we want that stuff? Should we get it cubed? If we don’t select those cuts does it become ground beef?
I guess we don’t want the liver, heart and tongue… I have no idea what I’d do with them!
HELP!
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@Stephanie (#71)
One book that has helped us is Confessions of a Butcher (which I reviewed here). It contains a lot of info on the different cuts of beef.
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Do all of you vegans out there realize that there is simply not enough land to sustain a vegan/organic lifestyle for the general population? Im not saying its a bad idea, but im saying that its not sustainable as a solution to feed the world.
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An advantage we have of raising our own beef is the quality control. I tell the butcher that I want it to be hung for 28 days, which yields fresher meat. It comes to be hard frozen, wrapped in white paper. I then bag up a week or two worth of meat in vaccuum sealer bags. Cheaper to make a few really big bags than to bag everything separately.
We harvest a hog at the same time we harvest beef, and lamb, so I make mixed bags which hold a variety of cuts. This forces me to use all of the meat effectively — keeps me from “cherry picking” the steaks and being left with a lot of round steak.
If you don’t know what to do with all of the “odd” cuts, get an antique cook book. I have found some wonderful ways to make brisket, round steaks, etc.
As for the heart, tongue and liver — I love liver. Heart and tongue get cooked slowly in the oven and sliced for my dogs. They have their own bags of bits in the fridge.
I raise the animals myself, and want to make sure that I don’t waste any of it. I care for my animals respectfully and with great care, but I also understand what they are here for. My sheep wouldn’t get 7 – 9 months of playing around on clover-filled pasture if they weren’t intended for the freezer.
The animals are born to be harvested for meat. I give them a good quality of life while they are here, ensure that they are harvested in as humane a way as possiblle, and use everything I can from the animal.
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Kristen, that thing you have about cooking the tongue and giving it to the dogs — that just made me smile. Tip tongue is just about the best meat in a cow. There is a reason why a pack of wolves that chances to hunt down several buffalo or deer at once (by driving them off a cliff or whatever), usually eats the liver and the tongue first — because those are the most delicious.
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I need a little help with pricing. is it cheaper to pay $1 a pound on the hoof or $1.50 a pound hanging weight? I know the difference between the two, but picked up a cow today that we paid $1.50 for 875 pounds hanging weight, but it seems like we paid an awful lot with .45 a pound processing, $40 kill, and .50 a pound for getting hamburger patties made. any help clearing up the confusion would be appreciated. it filled our 18 cu ft upright freezer, but it just seemed to be over priced per pound. there’s another farmer who sells his for $1.50 on the hoof weight, but that includes processing and delivery.
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Another thing no one seems to be mentioning is that if you already have a freezer, you’re already paying for the electricity. But, if your freezer is half full of meat, a very dense item, your freezer’s compressor will run less, making your freezer more energy efficient due to the mass of frozen meat in it. Also helps if you live in an area prone to power outages, the more frozen stuff in the freezer the longer it will stay frozen without power.
So, buying the meat as a side or quarter saves you money, then your freezer costs less to operate, plus you don’t have to run to the store just because you have a need to have a steak for dinner tonight.
I have bought a quarter several times, the price does flucuate due to the current market value of the cow, but I have always ended up paying a bit less then the price of hamburger at my grocery store, and for that price I get ground meat, steaks, roasts, ribs, stew meat, etc. Ends up saving me quite a bit on my grocery cost annually.
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I agree with Tom’s (October 15th, 2007 at 12:14 pm) comment on cows – I’ve had multiple broken bones from them, just being dim – not violent, when I was a kid. I’ve only known 2 cows that I truly liked. The rest were as dumb as a post & then some. They are not pleasant creatures to be around even if you raise them nicely.
My brother got me a deep freeze @ an auction. As soon as we get rid of some furniture the freezer is taking it’s place & will be filled with half a organic cow from my Dad’s home town. What I’ve noticed in the 5+ years I’ve been occasionally buying organic meat is that it tends to last longer in the fridge. The vet tech in me thinks it’s might be the lack of drugs but who knows??
I like it when I can make a big batch of something yummy for lunch for the week & have it taste as good on Friday as it did on Monday (unless I eat it all by Wednesday like last week).
I can respect a persons decision to go veggie but, I think the human body does need meat on occasion. That said, I do think the American diet is too meat heavy but that’s another topic. I can rack up the veggie protein till it comes out my ears & I’ll still go anemic if I don’t have a burger every week or so.
BTW – if anyone wants to share some recipes out of antique cook books let me know. Those cook books are hard to find – probably because they fell apart from use. The best one I’ve found is a green one from 1934. “Joy of Housekeeping” I think is the title.
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We raise pastured beef and my customers rave about all of the advantages of having beef in the freezer, cost and convienence both. For you vegans that responded on here, try pastured beef. Less fat than chicken when tested!!!
Raising cattle is not the safest thing a person can do, but I disagree with cattle being dumb. Cattle are no different than any other animal. You treat them kindly and with respect for their size, they will follow you anywhere and fear you just enough so as not to hurt you. I can walk amongst my herd with no reservations…I guess you can say I know the rules and so do my cattle.
Great article!!! Wish I would have saw it when it first came out.
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I really enjoyed reading your post about buying beef. The only thing I would have liked to see if where you live. We pay about $.90 per pound for cut up here in California.
I sell beef. It is so much better than what you can buy in the store. I’ve purchased store bought, and it is nothing at all like the Angus we harvest for ourselves and others. The flavor, tenderness and quality is so much better.
Buying from the store means you might get beef grown in Chile or any other country that the US buys from. I don’t like that thought. I want to buy US.
Buying from the store means that you have no control over what your animal has been fed or how it has been raised. And yes, it makes a huge difference if the animal is scared.
I prefer as close to organic as I can, and we raise Angus. Angus produce far better meat than just buying from the store. There is absolutely NO comparison. I will never go back to the store if I can avoid it. Did you know that most of the meat you get from the store is Holstein steers? Those are the black and white spotted cows that produce all the milk. The bulls don’t produce milk, so they are sent as steers to feedlots. I can’t seem to find the quality of steak in the stores that I can raise.
This last summer, we ran out of beef for a few weeks. I purchased some beef from a well known store tha advertises how great their beef is. When I cooked it, my husband said, “This is store bought isn’t it?” I told him it was. He said, “Sure makes a difference doesn’t it?” The steaks were frankly tough, and they did not have the flavor that our home raised calves do. The last one we sold, the buyers told us, “I can cut it with a fork.” You can’t beat that!
We advertise regularly on craigslist.com in Sacramento. We eat meat because we like it. I can’t go vegan. First my husband would leave me, and second I wouldn’t know how to make the food taste good. Besides, the vegan sell fake hamburger–I never do! I love beef! It’s what’s for dinner!
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Ok, the opportunity came for me to buy a side of beef for the first time. I was lucky that the other side was being bought by a friend who knows what to look for in beef, what order at the butcher, etc., so the whole process was very painless…except the check for $650.00! Hang weight was 343 pounds for my side, of which half was made into burger (150 lbs.) and the rest was T-bones(Porterhouse), Ribeyes, Sirloins, Shortribs and a couple of Sirloin roasts. Cube steaks as well. Checked retail prices at our local grocery (Festival) and the botom line is that we’ll save almost half of what we would’ve paid. Although there may be something to the arguement about long term frozen storage, this sure makes sense for my family as we go through a lot of beef!
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Absolutely buy from a proven source and understand that the grading system today isn’t the same as back in the 70′s. Choice today wouldn’t have made select back then, and even the Certified Angus Beef brand at your grocer isn’t breed specific- it’s hide color specific of 51% or greater- meaning the 20+ breeds of animal allowed into the CAB program aren’t angus specific genotype. The standards have been lowered so as long as they meet 51% or greater black hide are less than 30mos old and grade at the right level they qualify for the CAB program.
Breed, region specific and Non-distressed animals make a huge diference. There’s a new standard that’s been developed called “Certified Humane”. If you buy from a grocer take a look at Meyer Natural Angus for the best national angus program that’s both natural and certified humane. Their anmals and primals are smaller because they don’t use steroids or antibiotics. A typical Meyer animal is 300lbs lighter than comparable animals that are “pumped”.
No one mentioned bone weight of their take home side of beef? If 40-50% of your total is ground beef and it costs you $3/lb blended, you’re really paying over $4/lb for ground beef. I agree with the comment on “family packs”. Buy what you want in moderate quatities, freeze what you don’t use and temper it through your refrgerator several days in advance.
It’s a game and almost any type of animal can be graded prime if fed the right way. Cows can be 20+ years old when processed so don’t fall for some of the tricks out there.
One last thought: The previous post stating $650 cost for 150 lbs of ground beef- plus approx. 50lbs of steaks and cubed beef- can be broken down. You can probably buy 150lbs of gr 80/20 ground beef from a reputable wholesaler for abour $2/lb.. This leaves $350 for the 50lbs of steaks/cube for a $7/lb. average cost. Keep in mind that the source selling you that animal needs to process the whole animal. You can probably knock $.30-$.40 off the hanging weight price if you negotiate some more. Poor trim standards and bone weight will raise your price per lb in a hurry, so beware of what sounds like a low price per pound. The weighted average price of WHAT you’re buying is more important than a low price per pound figure. I recommend paying more for the right animal instead of whatever sounds cheap and comes in bulk.
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I looking to either buy a half cow or a whole considereing what works ouy the better del. I see that by your we site it will be wrapped and ready to put in the freexer. Thanks Marty
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Marty: What website are you looking at? I would like to see it also.
Where are you located? I am in CA.
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I bought into a side of beef with a friend from a farmer that I found on Craigslist. The farmer told me that he would buy cattle that were problem steers (meaning fence kickers) and other mean animals.
We burned through that quarter so quickly and the net price was about $3.20/lb finished. I knew I needed to find a better deal. So I found a farmer who wanted to get rid of a steer that kept knocking down his fences but he was pasture raised and grass fed. I found him on Craigslist.
Here is the trick, if you can find a live animal and do all of the coordinating yourself then you bypass the food brokers. Anyhow, I bought a nearly 1,100 pound (live weight) angus cross hereford steer for $700 plus $75 for the kill fee plus $0.55/lb processing. In all, I will spend $1,229.85 for nearly 620 pounds of finished weight, or about $1.98 per pound (end product).
Point being, spend the time to investigate live animals and run the project yourself. if someone is selling it, they are making money off of you. So if you can go around them and do it yourself then what was there profit stays in your pocket and I believe that is the spirit of this website. How to save money, right?
So here is my challenge to you. Can you put a whole steer in your freezer and do better than $1.98 per pound (finished weight)? everyone here is saying they are paying nearly $3.25/lb (like I did). Regardless of what the savings is compared to the restaurants and grocery stores, what is the savings compared to other beef buys?
$3.25-1.98 = $1.30/lb savings
X 620 weight = $806 savings
40% Savings
There is your challenge!!!
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I enjoyed your discussion here.
We raise cattle specifically to sell as freezer beef’s. We raise and market our cattle as hormone free and antibiotic free. We take pride in knowing that our product is high quality and a good safe food source. We eat it as well. Our cattle are essentially raised organically, I just have not gone through the formal paper work to be designated as such.
It was curious to me how most of the above discussions seemed to view grocery store beef as comparable to buying a whole half or quarter from a farm. My customers and my family simply detest eating store bought meat. The store bought meat doesn’t taste as good, you do not know where it came from, you do not know how long it has been laying around, repackaged, etc.
Seriously think about the ground beef that you buy from a grocery. What is in it? Not only is it meat from potentially hundreds of different animals many imported from Mexico, Central and South America, but they also add fat. When we brown our ground beef (like for tacos or spaghetti sauce, etc.) there is virtually no fat to drain off.
We all know that the large feedlots use hormones and antibiotics. That is fine, it is legal, we just don’t really want it in our food. Our customers are the same way.
Our customers know they are paying more to buy from us. They also know that they are getting a much better product.
We thought those might be some valid and interesting points to consider in your discussion.
Beef, it whats for dinner.
Have a good one.
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Daniel: I very much appreciate what you’ve said about doing it yourself. Your idea, IMHO, would be great if you are able to raise the calf on grain for a while–6-8 weeks at least. But if you cannot, at least for me, I do not like straight pasture grass fed beef. It has a strong, off taste to me, and I won’t ever buy another (having purchased three–each time being convinced that the beef “will be good this time.”) I don’t like grass fed beef.
Don’t get me wrong. I have had “grass” fed beef that was great. But there are a few ideas that many folks don’t understand about the term “grass” fed.
Corn is a grass. Barley is a grass. Rice is a grass. Whether or not I feed my animals “grass” or grass with the grain–it all means it is grass fed. Many folks do not understand this. So if you feed it pasture, it is also grass. And to me, pasture fed beef has an off taste while the other three feeds give the meat a wonderful taste.
If a bovine gets only grass (as in pasture grass) it has a very off flavor. If you like that kind of taste (and some don’t mind it), then you can save money buying this way. But if you buy $1300 worth of meat and it tastes off, then you have a year to eat it. That’s been too much for me.
Another caveat emptor: If you buy a beef by yourself, do you know enough about a healthy or sick one? Can you tell when a beef is not healthy, has not been fed right, is thin or too fat? Do you know if the animal just came off antibiotics and just recovered from being sick? If you cannot tell these things (or if your seller isn’t honest), then you could be wasting your money or getting a lesser quality product. I doubt you’d buy a sick animal that could infect your family–mostly I have not heard private farms doing that. But you do want to know the animal is either healthy or raised with other animals so you can see if they are healthy or just this one is sick (it doesn’t look or act like the rest).
Some animals are so thin or old that you get meat that doesn’t eat well. Those animals, raised by professionals, are ground entirely into hamburger, mixed with hamburger or fat from animals that were mostly steak type animals, and sold as hamburger entirely. Do you know how to judge the age of a beef animal? Some animals are so fat that they have 60 pounds of fat cut off and thrown away. Those animals cost you a lot more because so much is waste.
I am not trying to discourage you or anyone else from purchasing your own beef. I am saying Buyer Beware. If you don’t know animals and cannot judge their health, you might want to trust a professional that cares about his/her reputation. I’d ask you: Do you want to pay $1300 for a beef that you have to eat and eat and eat over the next year that tastes off, or would it make more sense to buy from a professional for $1800 and get beef that you look forward to eating every time you eat it? Sometimes you get what you pay for–and I would rather pay 1/3 more and get quality.
I will be curious to know how your meat tastes. It is interesting to me to see how folks do when they head out on their own to save money.
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These comparisons should really include pricing of ORGANIC beef… we’re talking $5.99/lb just for ground beef here! So is this a deal? Um, yeah, that’s a no-brainer! And you know what you’re getting. Love that the contamination factor is so much lower coming from just one animal. Have any of you watched FOOD, Inc.? Just saw that and I don’t think I’ll ever buy anything other than organic & local meat ever again.
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Nic- I just watched Food Inc…. its the reason I’m on this site. I feel the same way about buying organic and local.
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So I am one of those butchers that does local Whole beef sides and split sides, so to be honest I am only reading this to get an idea of what people think. I work in a plant where the owner works side by side with his 2 employees. So to clarify with one point it is highly unlikely that a butcher is going to wash up between each beef. The processing order is usually cooked(ham bacon sausage) then Beef lamb pork then custom not for sale(Venison wild hog or other animals not killed under inspection) On another point the photo no breed of bovine is going to taste “bad” based just on breed, age and condition is really the question. Some breeds just produce more in certain areas maximizing profits… Jersey Holstein in milk Hereford and Angus in meat. That’s not to say that breeds don’t taste different.
So about frozen and fresh…to be honest your not gonna notice if you go to a restaurant and your steak or burger was frozen as long as it isn’t old or freezer burnt what’s the issue, if it was my shop i would Vac seal, but my boss first wraps in plastic then paper which does well at preventing freezer burn. Our freezer is -20 degrees and does a great job preventing ice crystals from piercing cell walls.
There are three things that you should consider when buying beef. The past-the treatment of the animal(nobody likes a farmer that treats his animals like pigs, even pigs) Present-Slaughter and butchery(I know of a butcher who has mold on his carcasses and is too lazy to get caught up with the count he is slaughtering) and last but not least the future how is it going to affect you is the beef tainted by chemicals hormones or bacteria.
If your just going to eat ground beef you can do so on a whole beef and get a distinct flavor instead of the McDonald beef that is being spit out by the one world order in the beef world, granted your local butcher probably made his retail stock from these factory farm beef.
On another note, hogs… don’t trust them. To be honest they all need to be caged up and fed through a tube. Little bastards bite each others tails and just make for bad hams, I’m sure there are great hog farmers out there that have great colonies and low “trauma” I just haven’t seen any do it on a natural, organic and free range platform. I have killed skinned and gutted alot of pigs and have been seriously turned off of porcine meat.
So to sum it all up yes walmart is going to be more consistent feeding you the same beef day after day but if you shop around with your local or at least regional ranchers and find one that is humane and puts out a good animal and a good knowledgeable butcher that cuts it how you want, you wil have a voyage of a great rural tradition.
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about 2years or so ago we brought how our first side of beef it was so much beef we filled our garage freezer. We have 3 kids and the meat lasted over a year. We got our meat from Dunbar Meats in Milan Mi. ….I am telling you that was the best meat we ever had this year as soon as we get our income tax check we will be getting a side I regret not doing so last year…. I have tried all the places I could think of to try to get the same kind of beef…but with no luck… I cant wait just a few more weeks. If you live close to mi it would be well worth the drive there is nothing like aged beef..we got to see inside Dunbar and it is a class act….my 2 cents.
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There is no question you need boat insurance for a boat, I’ve seen too many terrible things happen to boats
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My wife and I live in Vermont on a small 10 acre farm and raise all our personal beef as well as hogs and chickens. We slaughter and cut it all up ourselves so there is a big savings. What we enjoy over store bought meat is a far superior taste and we don’t end up with a pan full of water when cooking.
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Our family ranch has been raising cattle since 1852. We raise only all natural, 100% grass fed beef that is humanely treated. We sell whole beefs, and recommend that it be split with four of your friends for a 1/4 each. Because we also believe that local is important, we only sell in a 75 mile radius of Austin, TX and we will deliver to your door in that area.
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Just curious if you could write a follow-up on the prices? I lot has changed since 2006 and I was wondering if it’s still worth it.
Thanks!
Pete
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I am running a small meat wholesaler in Leicester. We buy beef from our farms in New Zealand and Australia.
The beef is entirely grass fed and free range 365 days a year.
Because the beef comes from our own farms, we are able to show transparency throughout the process, I am even able to supply a photograph of the cow before slaughter should you want.
If anyone would like to discuss the purchase of whole carcasses, quarters or even half sides, please feel free to contact me: Paulccm86@gmail.com
I am also able to supply Halal Certified beef as the abattoir used has the facilities in which to do so.
Please let me know if you are interested.
Paul Martin
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J. D. Roth, if your growing that much food for yourself, you could probably grow rabbits or chickens if they are allowed. Rabbits usually are. And you can feed them left over produce, green branches, leaves, use ‘trailers’ to let them cut your lawn and eat weeds.
You do need to feed them rabbit food, which can be purchased cheaply from feed stores, and hay. The rabbit pellets make excellent fertilizer, the dirty hay makes good ground mulch for the garden to keep weeds down.
I made a 4×8 foot raised bed, used two rabbits leavings and leafs which I composted on the bed over winter. Spring and summer I grew half tomatoes, halve basil. I had enough fresh basil for three years, plus I gave away a lot, plus enough dried basil for three years. And I use a LOT of basil.
I fill a large commercial food processor with basil and chop it fine, adding either butter or olive oil. Then I pack it into muffin tins and freeze it. I had about thirty pounds of basil total. I feed the stems to the rabbits.
I usually get about six crops, cutting the top half of the plant off. Half way through the season I add more rabbit manure and a small mount of composted soil.
The tomatoes did well too, they grew so well that I had to seriously thin them out to prevent mold.
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