• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

WHAT'S A GOOD BULL WORTH

HAY MAKER

Well-known member
Updated October 3, 2006 9:24 AM
Meat eaters embrace designer beef trend

By DON BABWIN
Associated Press


CHICAGO - This city once known for its stockyards is at the center of a hip food trend: designer beef.

Today, diners at a handful of restaurants can select a steak that in its cow days ate nothing but sweet, tall grass. They can order a steak that comes from cattle that shared the same father. Or they can enjoy a piece of beef that is exactly like one designer Ralph Lauren dines on at his Colorado ranch.

Enlarge photo

AP Photo
David Burke is surrounded by thousands of pounds of quality beef which is served to customers at his Primehouse restaurant in Chicago. Burke spent a quarter-million dollars last year for a black Angus bull to produce offspring that become the restaurant's steaks.
Today, more than 30 years after the last major slaughterhouse closed, this city's romance with beef remains. Steakhouses are almost literally around every corner. Last year the USDA found the per capita consumption of beef in Chicago was at least 7 pounds (3 kilograms) more a year than any other part of the country.

Jason Miller, the executive chef at David Burke's Primehouse, only has to look outside to see he's in a place where people know and appreciate beef. "There aren't very many small people walking around Chicago," he said.

That Chicagoans know and love their beef made it easier for Primehouse owner Burke to spend a quarter-million dollars last year for a prize black Angus bull, named Prime 207L or simply "Prime," to produce offspring that become the restaurant's steaks.

The purchase made perfect business sense, he said, because by breeding the same bull, the restaurant guarantees its steaks are of the highest quality.

"We bought his genes, basically," said Burke, whose customers tell him his steaks are the best they've ever eaten.

Tallgrass Beef Company, which opened last October, touts the nutritional benefits of its grass-fed Kansas beef. It is sold in a handful of Chicago-area restaurants, upscale markets and even a school.

Bill Kurtis, the owner of Tallgrass and a longtime Chicago news anchor who now hosts A&E's "American Justice" and "Cold Case Files," says his company's beef is lower in cholesterol, higher in omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin E and free of growth hormones and other chemicals found in most commercial beef.

Customers get it for about the same price as corn-fed beef, said Grant DePorter, president of Harry Caray's restaurant, which has been serving Tallgrass' beef since November.

DePorter wouldn't be surprised if the handful of restaurants serving Tallgrass' beef grows substantially, judging by the competitors he said he's spotted coming into the restaurant to sample it and the way they've praised it, not knowing that his wait staff was within earshot.

Enlarge photo

Special to the Post
Chicago restaurant owner David Burke stands next to the black Angus bull Prime 207L, or simply "Prime," on a Kentucky farm. He paid a quarter-million dollars for the bull.
None of the accolades surprise Ted Slanker, who owns Slanker's Grass-Fed Meats in Texas with his wife. What does surprise him, though, is that Tallgrass has made inroads in the restaurant market.

It's one thing, he said, to sell to health-conscious consumers on the Internet, as he does. But it's another to get people to spend a lot of money in a steakhouse on a steak that doesn't look, taste or feel quite like the kind of steak they're used to.

"It's like being forced to eat kale and collards to people who are used to eating iceberg lettuce," he said.

The recent boom in fine steaks is been felt coast to coast, from trendy bistros serving Kobe beef and lovingly marbled meat, to expanding chains like Morton's and Ruth's Chris Steak Houses, which each have dozens of restaurants.
 

High Plains

Well-known member
Let's get serious for a minute. This article claims that this restaurant called "Primehouse" owns a $250K bull coincidentally named "Prime" for purposes of producing steaks through the bull's offspring for the restaurant. Can you say "MARKETING PLOY!"? C'mon. Maybe the restaurant owner has a share in the bull or maybe he owns the entire critter. Doesn't matter. Are all patrons at this restaurant consuming product through this sire's offspring? Nope. :roll:

Hey, if it sells more of that good ol' high-priced restaurant beef, I can get excited about it. Let's not base our value of seedstock on this example.

According to Gardiner's sale earlier in the week, 273 Angus bulls are worth an average of $4,658. Doubt I could get the same money for the same bulls if I were doing the selling. :lol: Then again, maybe I don't particularly care for their kind of bulls anyway. :wink:

HP
 
Top