I really like eating steak. But eating the one I did the other night was really difficult. Fact is, I even lost some sleep on it and not because of indigestion…
You know, one really cool advantage to being in the beef business is that there is always beef to eat, and if you are a beef lover like me, looking forward to a good dinner at the end of a long day is really nice. Maybe it would be a steak or stir fry, with some fresh steamed garden veggies and a hearty salad with a glass of cab.
There is always beef at our house for the family to eat—vacuum packs are seal compromised, a ribeye that looks like a shoe, or the label is misprinted or stained. It is something that we can’t sell. The other reason we have the occasional steak to eat (like most folks, we can’t afford to eat them regularly) is that we are testing a recently finished beef for taste and tenderness standards before we add it to our shippable inventory.
We use no fancy shear testers or other devices to do these tests. But one steak from every beef we sell through our online store makes it to our kitchen. The protocol we use mirrors that which we believe most of our customers would—that frozen steak is dropped in a bowl of tap water to thaw, and an hour later is on the grill on medium heat. When that interior temperature probe reaches 139 degrees, the steak is off and on a plate for 5 minutes. Pepper and salted to taste, we then slice through the middle of the cut and Caryl and I each sample a ¾” strip. We then strip the rest for dinner (the kids love it too!) and set down to eat.
A couple of nights ago it didn’t go so well. We had five new beef come in from our packer for sale this week on the internet, and one failed the tenderness test. A ribeye from steer number 99 tasted wonderful, and was still by most folk’s definition tender, but it did not meet our standards. A ribeye should not eat chewy at all when cooked right. The knife passed through easy enough, but it was definitely a little chewy.
The other test steaks passed with flying colors, so I knew that it wasn’t feed or aging or handling, as they all were finished by the exact same protocol. We had this happen once before, and we chalked it up to a genetic fluke.
This happens every couple of years, so you wouldn’t think it is a big deal. I think the hardest thing for me is that we have been with this steer through its entire life caring for it to be the very best, and something like a genetic aberration writes off its quality from going top-notch.
The other big deal is the money. Here we have something around $2,000 tied up in this steer, only to find out at the end that it does not make the grade.
I’ve heard folks say that the internet is a wonderful marketing tool because there is no accountability. The customer base is infinite (as long as you can reach them), and even if folks only buy once, there will always be someone there to replace them. So satisfaction is not really important, the thought goes, because you don’t need them back.
It’s the same way in the commercial commodity cattle business. I’ve known people over the years who raised breeds of cattle known for their extremely rapid growth but also for their characteristic toughness. Once those calves leave the ranch for a distant feedlot, they’ll never see them again. Nor will they ever see or hear from the consumers of their beef.
Caryl knows me well enough to know that I don’t sleep at night knowing someone might have a bad experience with our beef. There is just no question—I can’t sell it if it isn’t right. That is why it took us so long to start really selling the grass fed beef that we produced in the first place. We both had to know that it was consistently, predictably good before we could be passionate about representing it. And therein lies the reason what we have not taken on partner producers (even though we get approached fairly regularly about that).
Maybe like the potential of too many cooks spoiling the broth.
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