Read the Labels When You Buy Ground Beef!

A woman contacted me today about our ad for pasture-raised, Black Angus ground beef. She said that my prices were too high and that she found the same product in Ingles for much cheaper. I found that hard to believe so I got the details from her and last night I paid a visit to my local Ingles. What I found was a large selection of "high-end" ground beef in one pound vacuum-sealed packages with fancy labels. Prices ranged from $5.48 to $9.98 per pound. Upon closer examination, however, I found there were big differences. The least expensive ground beef for $5.48 was corn-fed Black Angus. The most expensive ground beef for $9.98 was local grass-fed beef; a good product from a well known local name, but the steers are raised on a number of farms so you don't know the breed or which farm the meat actually came from. For some of our customers, those last two points are important. Our beef is all Black Angus. The steers were raised only on our farm. They ate grass in our pasture which was supplemented in the winter with locally grown hay. We say our steers were "pasture raised" not "grass-fed" because once in awhile we gave them a handful of sweet feed to keep them trained to come running to the sound of us shaking a bucket with feed in it (just in case they got out of the pasture somehow; like when the tree fell during a storm and broke down the fence). So, at $7.25 per pound, I think we are offering our ground beef at a very fair price for the customer that allows us to also make a small profit. For information on how you can get Our Tiny Farm beef, visit this page