Local New Zealand Beef??
OK… Let’s get into it! The issue at hand is Victorian Farmstead Meat Company carrying beef raised in New Zealand. Offhand, this seems insane to me. I mean, we built this company on the premise that we would either raise or source the highest quality, locally and humanely raised animals we could get our hands on. So why are we even considering beef from New Zealand???
Well, it starts with Bill Niman. As many of you know, Bill left Niman Ranch when it no longer stood up to his stringent standards to form BN Ranch in Bolinas, CA in 2007. Since then, he has gone back to his roots, raising some of the highest quality meat around. Locally, he has always used a pastoralist strategy in raising beef. That is, moving the animals to the best forage available at a given time of year. That means that beef spend the summer and fall on coastal and delta pastures and winter in the foothills. Even this seems like a lot of movement for locally raised beef. But if you accept the premise-and I do-that the nutritional value of pasture changes with the seasons, then all this is perfectly logical. But Bill has taken this concept MUCH further.
His position is that if you insist on only harvesting animals at their peak condition, then you can only fatten them when the grasses “harden” or become concentrated by drying out. We all love the pictures of cattle grazing on lush green grass but the truth is that pretty green grass has far less energy in it than the brown grasses of the summer. Energy equates to fat and as we all know… FAT IS FLAVOR! So what do you do if you can only harvest a few months out of the year? You turn the pastoralist strategy upside down…literally.
It makes perfect sense that while our California cows are sustaining on lush winter grasses, cattle raised in the Southern Hemisphere are getting fat and happy, as the seasons are opposite. I believe this is a true statement. I believe that cattle harvested during our winter in New Zealand are being harvested in their prime. But is it worth the carbon footprint just to have beef here in California that are harvested in their prime? I guess that’s the million dollar question.
I’ve raised my own, but I really rely on Loren Poncia for the majority of my beef. Year in and year out, he produces the most consistent beef I have found. He moves his beef to different pastures with the seasons, but they stay pretty local. Stemple Creek beef changes flavors with the seasons as well. I’m not sure I prefer one over the other, but I eat enough of it that I can notice some subtle changes as the beef get harvested in the winter. I have never considered an alternative as there really wasn’t one until now. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not looking for a replacement for Stemple Creek beef. I believe it to be the best I have ever had and it will remain our flagship beef as long as Loren keeps allowing us to sell it. But if beef is harvested in its prime after being raised the same way we would do it here (grass fed and finished, no antibiotics, hormones or GMOs) half way around the world by a trusted rancher why wouldn’t we check it out? Oh yeah, and it costs a little less also!
You would think that the shipping costs alone would make this ridiculously expensive. Not so, I’m told. . . it will actually be a little less expensive. This has to do with cost of doing business down under and modern, efficient transportation and packaging. So, what do we do with all this information?
You tell me. I’m certainly going to try it for myself. As with everything we do, it doesn’t much matter how well or where it is raised if it doesn’t taste amazing. But at the end of the day, it will be up to our customers to decide what is most important to them. I have wondered out loud many times what would happen if we couldn’t get enough Stemple Creek beef to satisfy demand. Do we go with the next best beef within our 30 mile radius or do we go with the very best beef we can find and increase our radius to fit it? I never thought the first time I would have to answer that question would be a jump of 6,600 miles!
My initial plan is to trust my rancher, Bill Niman, and roll with the New Zealand beef. It fits 90% of the protocols we have for our meat. If you decide that it is not for you, I will completely respect that. I think there are enough customers out there that will find the minimal cost savings and flavor are worth the compromise in travel time. And if that’s not the case I will, as always, adjust accordingly. Let the discussion begin!
How do you think your NZ offering differs from Costco offerings specifically with respect to quality?
Great question, Richard! It will differ the same way our California meat differs. The country of origin is not the issue in this case. The difference is in how the animals are raised and what they are fed. You can go to Costco and get organic NZ lamb. It will taste gamey and greasy compared to our California grass fed lamb because they are finished on organic grain. They can be called organic just because they are fed organic, but it doesn’t say anything about how the animals are raised or cared for. You can get organic eggs but the hens have probably never seen the sky. To be certified organic they need to be feed an organic feed, have 3/4 of a square foot of space per bird in a cage free barn and that’s it. There is no requirement that the birds get to be outside. So when you are comparing any of our offerings to what is available in any mega mart, including Costco, price will tell you how it is raised. You can’t raise pastured eggs for $3/dzn, you cant raise pastured chicken for $1.99/lb and you can’t get grass fed and finished ground beef for $4/lb.
So in short, BN Ranch’s NZ beef will be of infinitely higher quality than the best that you can find in Costco. I put my reputation on that!
Hi Adam,
I just want to say how very much we enjoyed our BN Ranch Heritage Turkey.
I have always been impressed with Bill Niman’s commitment to raise the very best meat, while simultaneously
encouraging others to do the same.
Enter Nicolette Hahn Niman and the publication of “Righteous Pork Chop” and the story just gets better. My honey is from North Carolina and we dearly love little tasty piggies and the environment. I am grateful for her exposure of yet another f#%~ up by corporate Ag.
This is my way of saying I completely support you carrying BN Ranch meat and I can’t wait to try it.
And as long as I’m here, I do what I can to let others know that “Niman Ranch” in the stores isn’t! Isn’t Bill’s. Enough said.
When you get the opportunity, please convey my deepest apologies to Bill and Nicolette for the free for all trash fest that passed as “letters to the editor” of the Bohemian in response to the article about Nicolette’s second book and article on well raised beef. You go girl!!!
And as far as I’m concerned, what she eats or doesn’t is nobody’s damn business. And I can’t wait to read her new book. Thanks, Adam.
Kjohl Rose
Glad you liked the bird and thanks for your support! I will pass your kind words on to Bill and Nicolette. Happy Holidays!
I second Kjohl Rose’s comments. I, too, tell everyone that Niman Ranch is not Bill Niman and why!
I support you bringing in BN beef/lamb and what ever else he provides! I’m a staunch supporter of BN!
I think creating and sustaining a more sustainable food system will take thinking outside the box (what box?). I so appreciate everyone at BN and Victorian Farmstead in their transparency and drive for clean food. I for one love Stemple too, but I am happy to try the beef from down under.
Does this mean we should consider beef a seasonal food? eat less of it in the winter/early spring? How can we eat meat seasonally, assuming we have some freezer space? Maybe the discussion needs to also have that component. How did our ancestors eat meat in the winter, would it be raised animals or hunting game? Or would it be salt beef and smoked hams all winter long?
If we eat veggies and fruit (and crab!) seasonally, what about meat?
RE- is beef seasonal?
This is an interesting thought and one that I had considered as well. Chicken is much the same way, as are eggs. I think if you approach this from a strict Locavore perspective, the answer is to freeze or otherwise preserve meat for the winter and hope it gets you through to spring, is it not? That said, I’m not the strictest locavore (I said I’d give up avocados once they stopped coming from California, but alas, they are too tasty.) We all have our priorities when it comes to food and I tend to care most about how my meat animals lived, so I’ll be interested to see how New Zealand’s happy cows compare to California’s ;)
Adam, I am more concerned with the carbon footprint of bringing food in from around the world, than I am with worried about the quality of the NZ beef. Having been there I can say it is one of the few places that can rival CA in natural beauty, and is definitely a place I associate with quality. So on that end I have zero problem with you putting NZ beef on my plate. As long as the focus stays on building a strong infrastructure of local organic grass fed and finished meats, I don’t have a problem with adding in some Kiwi beef now and then. If it helps you to thrive, and strengthen your position as a local distributor, thus helping ranchers like Stemple Creek get their meat to market, then I am all for it.
Hello, I admit that I am not one of your buyer/subscribers, and I may have never had your meat before, but I would offer these comments about importing NZ beef.
Agriculture is not a regular business. Agriculture is viable only when it works with nature and the seasons. Many Northern CA farms with CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes are viable for only 10 months of the year, because they “work” WITH the natural seasons, and they are only stocked with products growing on their farm. That is how life is,..seasonal. Most all produce (fruits and vegetables) has a season, as do chickens that have a laying season.
For example, Full Belly Farm is a 350-acre farm in Guinda, supplying more than 1,100 members with weekly CSA boxes. Full Belly has been certified organic since 1985. The farm’s mission statement to create an “ecological sanctuary” is demonstrated through their commitment to sustainable agricultural practices. In 2014, Full Belly was honored with the Leopold Conservation Award for their achievements as exemplary land stewards. The farm’s CSA program was started in 1992, and runs from JANUARY to NOVEMBER (10 months). It is a single-farm CSA, ensuring consumers that all of the fruit, nuts, produce, and flowers found in the weekly shares are grown at Full Belly.
Sure, other types of CSAs offer products from “outside” sources for a year-round product offering, but that is mostly the business talking, not sustainable agriculture. Sustainable works with life,.. with the seasons. Businesses can try to bend life, but usually fails. Consumers need to get with it, and eat what is grown around them, instead of falling prey to the national grocery chain model of offering everything year-round. Sustainable business would teach their buyers to “do without” and find a local alternative, when the product is “out of season”. Dragging food thousands of miles is really out of order, and not sustainable. So, if you’re a coffee drinker, or a banana consumer, you won’t like my philosophy.
While I don’t dislike your philosophy, James, I think it is a little myopic. In a perfect world, your thoughts would be spot on. Unfortunately, that is not reality. The reality is that we have to be a sustainable farm/purveyor AND a sustainable business. Check out this weeks blog for a lot more detail!
Thanks for the comment!