COVID Restaurant Closings

You can buy direct, processed steaks and cuts, via the internet or at many farmer's markets. You can find it at places like Whole Foods or Central Market. I've never done it other than for family and friends, but I've sold quarter/half/whole steers, I haul it to the locker plant, I pay them to butcher and package, and then you pay me once it's ready to be picked up.

I'm not sure of the cost to buy breeding animals, I haven't gotten serious enough about this to actually run the numbers. It would be a smallish operation, since you did smartly bring up the question of grass. I have fields, coastal bermuda grass, that I use for hay. I could stop making extra hay and use those for grazing in addition to the native pasture grass. Plus I could overseed all the fields with winter wheat/oats/rye and let them fatten up on that (which is a pretty standard practice regardless of the breed of cattle).

I'd have to contract out with someone to do the processing and packaging and wholesale/retail work, so I'm just not sure if it's worth it. There is a massive, and I mean massive, bottleneck at the processing level. Some small, independent local plants (I use these guys, they do great work and have great retail product: https://www.facebook.com/HarvestHouseFarms/) are looking at a backlog of a year or so, it's ridiculous. There's money to be made, as food gets more localized and moves away from the Big 4 meatpackers (Cargill, Tyson, JBS, National Beef), who are currently in the middle of a federal antitrust investigation

 

I had heard about a rush on freezers in recent months so people could reduce time spent in stores. Probably some other factors for the push to buy freezers, but will save that discussion for a different thread.

I didn't realize that the local processing plants were that swamped with business. The system of selling wrapped meat directly to the consumer makes sense.

I looked at a few web sites for prices on heifers and bulls ready to work. Prices varied quite a bit, but one will need to have some serious money to bankroll a plunge into a Wagyu cattle operation.

On the American raised Wagyu, is grass fed used in advertising/labeling to get a better price or just the "Wagyu" designation is enough
to get the price needed to make the numbers work? Do you somewhat know somebody raising Wagyu that could give you an idea of the financial numbers involved?


I had a year of Ag in high school and my parents had cattle, so quite a bit of this topic fits me well. They started out years ago with mostly Hereford even when I told them that wasn't the way to go. They eventually transitioned to Charolais and various crosses with Brahaman. Finally moved to mostly Angus and a few crosses with Brahaman. About an hour West /Southwest of Houston, so a decent mix for the climate/weather.

What breed are you raising in Central Texas?

 

Don't you have to jack the cow off and feed it beer and massage it? Seems up your alley fasho.

 

Nah, pretty sure that's just date night in College Station.

 

A cow?

 

From what I've read about wagyu (authentic wagyu), the fats are way healthier than in American cattle. A lot of the fat in Kobe is supposedly unsaturated and high in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

The problem with American wagyu is that, and I don't know if it's still true, but I remember reading that a lot of the "wagyu" raised in the U.S. is crossed with angus cattle so they could really be only 50% wagyu in the bloodlines and still be called wagyu. You can see this in terms like "purebred" and "fullblood" where fullblood means it's 100% wagyu while purebred means there's at least some crossbreeding involved. There are very few fullblood wagyu in the states from what I've read. Also the conditions they're raised in, what they're fed, etc. play a factor.

Japanese take their wagyu seriously. I used to think they were about seafood until I read the lengths to which they go to trace ancestry/heritage in their wagyu cattle. lol. It's an interesting industry, and there's a reason why that beef is so pricey.

 

This is all true.

I will say that a wagyu cross steer is still incredibly good beef, as long as you're not paying 100% wagyu prices.

 

I drive by it multiple times a day but never got around to trying it. Looked like a nice spot.

 

I walk by there daily. That place is in an unfortunate location - lots of dead days pre-covid. It used to be a Benjy's. The pizza place next door has been closed for a while too.