A Massachusetts beef company is working to expand the market for grass-fed beef through supply agreements with regional farmers and a major food distributor.
The goal of Hartwick-based Big Picture Beef is to produce animals of consistent quality in the large volume required by wholesale customers like grocery stores.
To get that regularity in production, the company requires supplier farmers to follow exacting guidelines for grass-fed animals.
Calves must stay on their mother’s milk for at least 5 months, preferably 9 or 10.
Cattle must be rotationally grazed on pastures of grasses, legumes and forbs. No pesticides, antibiotics, GMOs — and of course no grain.
Big Picture Beef aggregates cattle from more than 100 farmers, finishing the animals on an 1,800-acre farm in Vermont. The cattle are slaughtered at Cargill’s plant in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
Big Picture Beef recently contracted with Performance Food Group, a major distributor, to move the finished product. The company is handling about 4,000 cattle a week.
The idea, according to Big Picture CEO Ridge Shinn, is to scale up the grass-fed distribution system within the Northeast.
Many of the calves born in the region are trucked to Midwestern feedlots for finishing, only to have much of the meat shipped back to the major markets of the East for consumption, Shinn said.
Grass-fed beef is a $4 billion market, which isn’t as big as it sounds. It’s just 4% of the U.S. beef industry, and only $1 billion is sold under a grass-fed label.
The other $3 billion is used in the conventional beef supply chain, often in ground beef blends with trim from fattier cattle, according to a 2017 report published by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.
Still, supporters think the production practice is poised for growth thanks to consumers who see grass-fed beef as eco-friendly.
“Grass-fed beef is the future of the beef business,” said Steve Sands, vice president for protein at Performance Food Group.
Shinn also sees grass-fed as a way to revitalize the region’s ag economy.
“Struggling dairy farmers could integrate beef into their operations by finishing cattle on cover crops in the spring, etc. They have the land, equipment and know-how,” he said.
Big Picture accepts yearlings for grass finishing and finished cattle for processing. At the moment, farmers get $2.60 per pound hot carcass weight for finished cattle and about $1.30 per pound live weight for feeder cattle, Shinn said.
