Calf Mania

Today has been fairly exciting for all of us around here.  I am currently sitting beside an orphan calf.  His momma had twins and chose to accept her little heifer.  This little guy is about 30-35 lbs, really small.  We found him just an hour or so after birth, but his mother was tending to his sister and not to him.  His mom had twins last year too, and she rejected her first born that time too.  We have decided to name him Atticus. 

We had four other calves born today, which is the most we have had in one day, yet.  We expect to have several days of 5-10 calves born. 

Lately, the ranch has been grappling with its beef market.  Whether to continue direct marketing to local customers, continue with the fresh meat market, or enter the frozen beef market.  We cannot do all three.  There are not enough hours in the day to support three separate markets.  I am interested in researching the issues surrounding the fresh meat market.  Number one issue I see at the forefront, is the lack of customer awareness concerning meat seasonality.  We have developed a food system that offers consumers year-round fresh produce and meat.  Some understand that they will pay more for a tomato in January than in July, but the consumer has yet to understand that pasture raised meats finish at a particular point in the year across the US.  The producer has to put extra dollars and pasture resources into an animal that was ready to go months before so that it can be butchered in the off season, BUT the consumer does not want to pay for the producer's expense.  This is how feedlots came to be.  The feedlot can more cheaply keep the animals on the hoof in a central location and stuff it full of formulated feed and keep it on the gain, so that the feedlot can provide fresh meat to grocery stores across the country. 

As a small producer it is hard to keep up with the year-round fresh meat market when your cattle finish in the fall not July.  Why not frozen product? Keep it in a freezer till it is needed. 

Our grocery stores and meat cutters have grown up in a fresh meat market, and some believe there is a taste difference.  Personally, I do not taste a difference, unless, it is over a year old.  

Educate consumers? Change the status quo? 

I hope to delve into this topic a little more in the coming weeks.

What do you prefer frozen or fresh? Is it really fresh?