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MRJ, Hows This for Home Grown?

Econ101

Well-known member
‘Extreme’ beef gets set for launch:
New Ranch Foods Direct product aims at stratospheric tenderness and flavor

Rare Japanese cattle genetics known for out-of-this-world beef quality and tenderness will arrive for the first time Monday at Ranch Foods Direct natural meat market in Colorado Springs.
“This will be a landmark event in the beef industry,” says owner Mike Callicrate. “Our goal has been to create the highest quality beef ever experienced. The Wagyu-Angus genetics combined with the Callicrate Beef protocols will set a new high standard.”
Wagyu is a Japanese breed of cattle known for exceptionally high levels of marbling, or intramuscular fat. The trademarked Ranch Foods Direct and Callicrate management protocol is already geared to producing the most tender, most consistent natural beef on the market by eliminating the use of growth implants and subtherapeutic antibiotics, processing cattle at a young age — roughly 12 to 14 months — before muscle and connective tissues becomes tough, plus achieving complete blood removal at processing and allowing the time necessary for proper aging.
“It’s more important to have tenderness than any other factor. Tenderness is what the consumer really focuses on and what they are impressed by,” Callicrate says. “So if we can get the same high level of tenderness we’ve already developed a reputation for, plus the heightened flavor that comes with Wagyu marbling, we should have something to really celebrate.”
Wagyu cattle produce less outer-body fat around the frame of the animal but deposit more within the muscle fibers.
“Marbling is where the flavor and juicyness comes from. What a customer really enjoys about the eating quality of a steak is that burst of flavor that comes out of the intramuscular fat,” he says. “The other thing about marbling is that it aids in digestion. We’ve been led to believe that low-fat diets are a good thing, when in fact the opposite has always been true: fat is very necessary in the diet, and the intramuscular fat in beef — particularly our beef, because of the diet our cattle are on — is very beneficial and very good for you.”
Cattle raised for Ranch Foods Direct are fed a natural supplement including linoleic acid, which boosts the highly nutritious conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, in the fat.
“You need a balance of saturated fats, along with unsaturated fats,” Callicrate continues. “You need your Omega 6s and your Omega 3s. Fat is critical to the diet and critical in aiding digestion. With Callicrate beef, people often say that they feel very good after the meal, or that it sets well in their stomachs. In other words, it’s easy to digest. Older people who have almost quit eating commodity beef have commented on how wonderful our meat is.”
The Japanese-inspired product will age two to three weeks before a sales campaign is launched. Plans are to feature the new beef line at Ranch Foods Direct markets and at the Ranch Steakhouse in mid-July. In addition, other popular restaurants that serve Ranch Foods steaks and burgers — such as Bistro de Pinto in Colorado Springs, Tabeguache Steak House and Martini Hut Steakhouse in Woodland Park and the Black Hat Cattle Co. in Evergreen — will have the option of adding this new form of extreme beef to their menus.
“It will bring a premium, but we don’t know how much yet,” Callicrate says.
In Japan, Wagyu genetics account for a third of the beef consumed, at prices as high as $200 per pound.
The Japanese refer to meat from Wagyu-bred cattle as Kobe beef, a term sometimes used in the U.S. for similar top-of-the-line products. Technically, however, Kobe beef only comes from animals born and raised in a traditional manner near the city of Kobe, expressing a tie to a certain geography, much as real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese only comes from a particular town in Italy.
U.S. importation of real Kobe beef has been banned since 2001.
“It isn’t really Kobe beef here in the U.S. for the same reason you can’t get Vidalia onions from California,” Callicrate says.
The base genetics for Callicrate’s American version were imported from Japan by Gerry Pittenger, of Ellensburg, Wash., a rancher with one of the oldest and largest herds of Wagyu cattle in the U.S. “Of all the beef I’ve eaten over the 33 years I’ve ranched, I’ve never eaten better beef than Wagyu,” Pittenger says. “It has tremendous merit.”
The progeny of his herd bulls now going into the Ranch Foods Direct program were born and raised at Callicrate’s ranch in Northwest Kansas.
“One of the real wonderful benefits of Wagyu on a ranch is that they work very well on first-calf heifers,” he says. “Unlike many of the attempts in the past to find an easy-calving breed, like a Jersey or a Longhorn, often times you’re almost sacrificing the first calf to low performance and quality. With a Waygu, you get an easy-calving experience for your heifer that will make her a more productive cow long-term, but you’ve also got a calf with a very high meat value.”
David Rosengarten, who publishes The Rosengarten Report, has described Kobe beef as “literally melting in your mouth, accompanied by wonderful waves of sweet beef and butter flavor” and “so intensely marbled with fat it looks like it’s been gang-injected with cream cheese.” He says American Wagyu is typically “wonderfully buttery and silky, just not as crazy-buttery as Kobe.”
“Wagyu beef is the highest quality meat in the world,” adds Jerry Reeves, an animal scientist at Washington State University. “Only about two percent of all U.S. beef today is graded prime, which is the highest grade. With Wagyu, 90 percent of it is prime or greater.”
Callicrate says he is excited to evaluate the carcasses on Monday and to begin taste-tests on the product next month.

For more information on this or other topics, contact Ranch Foods Direct at (719) 473-2306 or come by the store at 2901 N. El Paso. The Ranch Steakhouse and Market is located at 575 Garden of the Gods Road and can be contacted by calling (719) 593-1955. Out-of-town? Call toll-free 1-866-866-6328. Or visit the company website: www.ranchfoodsdirect.com



Mike Callicrate

P.O. Box 748

St. Francis, KS 67756

785-332-3344

[email protected]

www.nobull.net

www.ranchfoodsdirect.com
 

Murgen

Well-known member
This is a great example of voluntary COOL, and producer marketing.

It can be done, and producers do not need it legislated by government to make it happen.

Great example of one of many branded beef programs. Hopefully more producer groups with their record prices from 2005 will start-up more of these products.
 

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