Why Alderspring?
For 26+ years, we have been honing our craft to create the very best beef available today. We are unwaveringly dedicated to quality and unquestionable integrity.
Alderspring beef is:
- 100% grass fed and finished. No feedlots or grain, ever.
- Certified organic
- Raised on one family ranch (no middleman or corporation).
- Raised with complete transparency (ask us anything, anytime).
- Free of hormones, antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, and chemicals.
- Raised without GMOs.
- Regenerative, with a focus on restoring wild landscapes and sequestering more carbon than we emit.
On this page, you can have an in-depth look at the “how” and the “why” of those points above. Because we know how important it is to know your food source, and we want to provide you with that information.
So here’s what makes Alderspring different.
100% Grass Fed & Finished on Wild Mountain Pastures
We’ve been growing grass fed for over 26 years and were actually some of the first to do so. We were grass fed before it was cool because we believed it was the right thing to do.
Our cattle consume nothing but green grass and grass/alfalfa hay from our certified organic pastures. They never see a feedlot. They remain on pasture even in the winter, when they are supplemented with hay. We are truly 100% grass-fed and grass-finished.
We believe we live in the best grass fed organic beef producing area in the country. The cold summer nights and high soil mineral levels of our mountain pastures produces what the old-timers called “hard grass,” because of the rapid and healthy growth of the animals grazing it. Our mountain pasture grass produces a uniquely flavorful beef, and the diversity of our pastures results in nutrient density for you.
What does this mean for you?
When compared to conventional feedlot beef, grass fed beef has been shown to be:
- Lower in saturated fat.
- Higher in omega-3 fatty acids, a heart healthy fat.
- Higher in Vitamin E.
- Higher in conjugated linoleic acid, a type of fat that has been shown to reduce cancer and heart disease risk.
- Higher in beta-carotene, the natural precursor to vitamin A.
- Higher in calcium, magnesium, and potassium.
- Higher in the B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin.
In addition, you reap further benefits from our grass fed beef, which we believe is far beyond the typical grass fed. Why? Because of our high mountain pastures and the plant diversity on both our home ranch and our rangeland (grazed during the summer). The grass on our mountain pastures produces better flavor. Additionally, our plant species diversity allows our beeves to select from a variety plants for their own nutrition, which in turn results in better nutrition and flavor on your plate.
What does this mean for the animals?
Our animals never live in a feedlot but spend their entire lives with freedom to roam on green pastures. This is more humane for them, and also healthier—we rarely have a sick animal and we have none of the insect or infection problems common in a feedlot environment.
To learn more about the humane benefits our cattle experience, read here.
What does this mean for the land?
Raising our beef grass fed is also better for our land. Through planned grazing, regenerative protocols, and nutrient cycling, we’ve been able to triple our soil organic matter in 10 years (this kind of increase is practically unheard of). It used to be a respectable 2.5%, now it’s at 7%, which is considered very high. The exciting thing about soil organic matter is that the higher it is, the more carbon is being captured in the soil, the healthier the soil is, and the more growth potential the soil has.
Certified Organic
Our entire ranch, included over 46,000 acres of rangeland, is certified organic. We are one of the largest single family organic producers in the country. We use no chemicals of any kind, relying on natural holistic processes to enhance fertility, and the sweat of our brow to control weeds.
What does this mean for you?
It simply means that you can eat our beef without worrying about chemicals. We use no insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or any other “cides.” Our pastures are free of GMOs. We use no hormones or antibiotics (except in the rare case when we must treat a sick animal, but we don’t sell that beef on our webstore).
What does this mean for the land?
The organic certification requires certain standards of sustainable practices. We take these further to be truly regenerative organic, which you can read more about below.
Focused on Regenerative Initiatives & Conservation Work
Your purchase of Alderspring Ranch Grass Fed Beef allows us to continue to improve the ecological condition of Alderspring Ranch and our 46,000 acre certified organic range land. We’re excited about some of the things we are doing, and invite you to learn more. Here’s a summary of what we’ve been up to:
- Completed conservation easements with The Nature Conservancy on our 845 acre Pahsimeroi Ranch and 770 acre Little Hat Creek Ranch.
- Protected 1.5-miles of the Pahsimeroi River that supports an average of 40% of the Chinook salmon spawning activity in the Pahsimeroi watershed.
- Protected approximately 50 acres of riparian habitat along the Pahsimeroi River and Big Springs Creek for fish and wildlife.
- Provided perpetual protection from habitat fragmentation on 1,550 acres of existing agricultural lands in the Pahsimeroi and Hat Creek watersheds and created compatible agricultural practices adjacent to river corridors.
- Opened up approximately 6 miles of habitat for anadromous fish on the Pahsimeroi River.
- Implemented conservation-oriented ranch management techniques focusing on improving land health through innovative and alternative practices including:
- Management intensive grazing, which reduced weed problems, reduces “hummocking” on wet soils, and increases plant density and diversity.
- Winter forage stockpiling (to partially replace hay): By resting (not grazing) selected pasture during the summer, we grow tall grass pastures that store nutrients and can be grazed even into the winter. These pastures have the added benefit of protecting soil moisture during the hottest parts of the summer and creating more efficient water use!
- Weed management through natural processes, such as selective grazing, biological controls, and hand grubbing (aka, manually removing weeds with a grub hoe).
- Innovative approaches to public lands grazing: we have an organic certification on 46,000 acres of federal (U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management) range land. We use our “inherding” paradigm to protect and restore fish and wildlife habitats, coexist with predators, and manage weeds on this mountain landscape.
What does this mean for you?
Our regenerative and conservation initiatves here at Alderspring have two benefits for you: first, because we use only natural processes to produce beef, you can be confident your beef is coming from a clean source. Second, our processes sequester more carbon than we release, which means you can eat your steak without any underlying guilt about contributing to climate change.
What does this mean for the land?
Our goal is not just to protect the land and maintain it in its current state. We seek to regenerate our land, which means mimicking natural processes to return our land to what it was pre-settlement. This is why we work so hard to create and protect fish habitat, restore native grasslands, and why we practice “inherding” (more detail on that below).
The Only Practitioner of the “Inherding” Paradigm
Here at Alderspring, we have pioneered a regenerative herding paradigm called “inherding.” With inherding, every summer, we take our cattle into the wild mountains of Idaho and graze them on our unfenced wild ranges. Using crews of riders on horseback, we monitor the cattle and prevent overgrazing or damage to endangered species habitats. At the same time, the human presence of our riders eliminates all interactions with wolves and enables us to coexist with them peacefully on our wild range (the year before we began this program, we lost 14 head to wolf predation, equivalent to around 30,000). We literally live with our cattle 24/7 over 72 square miles of wild mountains.
In the below picture, Melanie, one of our seven daughters, herds the beeves down towards camp for the evening.
What does this mean for you?
For you, this means incomparable wild protein. Because a cow can select from over three hundred wild native plant species in a single day, the resulting beef is higher in both flavor complexity and nutritional benefits.
What does this mean for the land?
Using inherding, we’ve successfully regenerated over 50 miles of previously severely damaged riparian areas (wet areas such as creeks, ponds, springs, etc). An example of the changes can be seen in the below picture. These wet areas are key wildlife habitat for birds, fish, elk, deer, wolves, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, and beavers. These species are all thriving on our rangeland. Beavers had actually completely disappeared and have now returned. That is a particularly exciting development, because a thriving beaver population creates ponds and enlarges wet areas, which means more growth, more wildlife habitat, and more sequestered carbon.
Raised on One Family Ranch
When you order from us, you can be confident that your beef is coming from a real family ranch…no fake “family farm” marketing gimmicks, we’re the real deal. Your beef is raised by our hardworking family, Glenn and Caryl Elzinga and our seven daughters, right here on our ranch.
What does this mean for you?
You can be confident you’re partnering with a real rancher with complete integrity and transparency. We believe our food system has become depressingly impersonal. Today it’s hard for you to know where your food is coming from or have a personal connection with your producer. We want to change that. Many of our partners have become dear friends and supporters of what we do, sharing in our values and the fruits of our land.
What does this mean for the land and animals?
We believe that we have a responsibility of stewardship towards the land and animals we have been given. This duty of care is not something we take lightly. Because we are one family ranch, this mission is something we all share.
To learn more about the benefits of supporting a family ranch, read here.
Complete Transparancy & Traceability.
We know each animal’s history. Each cut, including each package of ground beef, is labeled and traceable to a single beef. We personally guarantee the purity and quality of our grass fed organic beef.
We also want to be responsible and accountable to you to produce the best, purest protein we can. So, please, ask any questions you want. We want to get to know you. And if you want to build that relationship, you can subscribe below to our newsletter, which shares news from the ranch and more details about our practices here.
What does this mean for you?
Our transparency and traceability means you don’t have to wonder where your food is coming from. You can be confident that it was raised 100% grass fed right here on our ranch, by our family, using only regenerative organic practices.
Dry-Aged
Dry-aged beef is rare, available only in the very best restaurants and from gourmet butcher shops. Why rare? Because dry-aging is very expensive when compared to the alternative, wet-aging. Why desired? Because dry-aging produces unparalleled flavor and tenderness. We go a step further by selecting the perfect number of days for dry aging for each beef, taking into account individual differences.
What does this mean for you?
For you, this means much better flavor and tenderness in the beef you buy from us, comparable to what you’d find at a fancy butcher or a restaurant.
So what makes Alderspring different? Our family’s dedication to the very best grass fed, certified organic beef available today. No compromises, ever.
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