There is an air of certainty among ranchers selling beef direct to customers.
They are confident they are selling healthy food that is of higher quality than their clients can buy anywhere else. They are also selling service.
“There is a huge growing movement of consumers who want … that direct ranch-raised product and the experience of taking their children to a ranch,” said Faye Street. She has been selling beef and chicken from her ranch in southeastern B.C. for 20 years.
Another key is a good location. She sells to customers in the East Kootenays where there is a growing, well-to-do population. Street offers sides of premium beef from youthful animals while the cull cows go for lean hamburger, sausage and jerky.
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She estimates a cull cow can earn $1,000 when extra value is added. Taking it to the auction might bring $300.
Pricing comes from a home-developed formula. Street calls local meat retailers, calculates an average price and adds 20 cents a pound. Their customers are happy with the product and Street makes money.
However her efforts could be shut down by the fall of 2007 when new provincial legislation states all meat must come from an inspected facility. Most ranchers in British Columbia butcher on farm and get it cut and wrapped at a meat market.
Producers in Saskatchewan can also butcher on farm, said Gordon Gustafson of Imperial, Sask. He sells three to four steers per year using a Hereford label for the last several years.
He delivers frozen packages of 50 pounds each to 25 customers per year with select cuts like ribs, steaks, roasts, stew meat and burgers. He also sells lean ground beef patties from cull cows to local rinks and sports arenas.
BSE was the impetus to sell on his own.
“With BSE we couldn’t move cull cows. They were worthless at the auction market,” he said. “I’m glad I’m doing it now. It’s really helped.”
Gustafson uses butcher shop pricing for individual cuts and he has received no complaints about the price because he is offering a quality product.
“It’s tender and it’s good to eat. It’s a health food,” he said.
Michael Mutton has taken direct marketing to a higher level. The 26-year-old rancher from Lethbridge intends to sell all the family production direct through the label Benchmark Premium Angus Beef.
No meat can be sold in Alberta unless it comes from a federally or provincially inspected facility, so he relies on an approved processor in Lethbridge.
With his volume of 400-500 animals per year, he does not have trouble getting kill space, but he is thinking about starting his own processing facility because he prefers to offer meat with an inspected label.
BSE also gave Mutton the push he needed to go into business. Three years ago he returned to the farm after graduating from Oklahoma University with an animal science degree and a major in livestock merchandising. That summer fat cattle were selling for less than 47 cents a lb.
“We had a cash flow problem,” he said.
A Lethbridge restaurant owner who was a friend agreed to take ground beef. He was pleased and asked for more and Mutton’s business was born.
The family raises purebred Angus and sells about 150 bulls per year. Mutton buys back the calves for the meat market. Everything raised on their ranch is now sold direct and about 95 percent of it is sold fresh.
“We want to be completely self contained. Everything will go through Benchmark Beef,” he said.
When he started, sales were difficult. It took six weeks to sell an entire steer so he had to find other ways to market all the cuts.
He started making calls and now supplies Benchmark labelled beef to 12 local restaurants and three small town grocers. He offers complete traceback and the product is hormone free.
It requires tenacity to sell the entire beef.
“Anybody can go into a restaurant and sell a steak. To find markets for your off cuts is not quite as easy,” Mutton said.
“It is a complicated process. The biggest thing I’d tell people is you are basically taking on another full-time job.”
While he only sells a few family freezer packages, he has learned people are willing to pay a fair price for quality.
“I don’t think that we have even scratched the surface as far as what people will pay when marketing beef direct into the house,” he said.
Mutton’s main customers are restaurants and grocery stores, which have specific requirements. Restaurants want beef aged 28 days while grocery stores do not request aging.
The store’s butcher cuts and wraps the product and the Benchmark label appears on the bar code from the store.
“We’re in the infant stages of what Benchmark Beef could become,” he said.
Allyn and Rita Nelson have been selling their Dexter-Piedmontese cross calves on their own since 1990. They sell service and high quality meat with a guarantee.
Their primary market is Fort McMurray, 31/2 hours from their Athabasca, Alta., farm. They also sell pasture-raised pork. They sell about 50 head a year and have the meat processed at
Ardrossan two hours away.
They make the trip north once a month, along with a friend who markets poultry, to deliver orders to homes. Clients were gained by attending trade shows and through word-of-mouth advertising.
“Our people are quite thrilled to be able to eat real farm foods,” she said.
The beef is sold as a natural product containing no growth hormones. It is more expensive than what is found at the grocery store but they will not go cheaper. Prices are based on their cost of production, processing and wages for themselves.
“The days are past when farmers can stay in business and give people deals,” Rita said.
“Farmers are as entitled to a profit and a salary as anyone else.”
Part of the business is selling service. Many of the Fort McMurray customers are in apartments and do not have deep freezes, so they take smaller amounts to fit into freezers in refrigerators.
Over the years the Nelsons have developed friendships with customers who have visited their farm.
Everything is sold by the end of the year and they plan to continue marketing this way. They are also proud of their product.
“They feel like they can depend on us to produce a quality, clean and safe product,” Rita said.
