The Growing Demand for Grass-fed Beef

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Perceived health benefits, taste, the local food movement and environmental concerns are all driving interest in what one producer calls 'the Cadillac' of alternative meat products. But labelling issues and the lack of national standards are among the problems growers face

by MIKE MULHERN & DON STONEMAN

Mike Beretta will be watching the triathlon at the Summer Olympics in London, England, this month very closely. There's no question who he will be cheering for.

Canadian Simon Whitfield will attempt to repeat his gold medal performance from 2000 and better his 2008 silver performance in the swimming, cycling and running race. Whitfield is one of Beretta Organic Farms' customers for grass-fed beef. Beretta says other members of the triathlon team eat his beef as well, as do a number of professional NHL players.

"Athletes are interested in the omega ratios and conjugated linoleic acids. They are very big on grass-fed because of what they perceive as the benefits of improved performance," says Beretta, who has been farming organic crops and livestock at King City, north of Toronto, for nearly 20 years.

Beretta describes his farm's grass-fed product as "the Cadillac" in the lineup of alternative meat products that also includes organic grain-fed cattle and a "free from" antibiotic and growth hormone beef. The "free-from" product cattle eat conventionally grown feed.

A host of factors are driving demand for grass-fed beef in North America, say producers. One is the perceived health benefit of grass-fed meat, especially higher ratios of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids. Another is a preference for local food and concerns about the environment. On top of that is its taste, which some consumers prefer over grain-fed beef from stores.

While the Ontario Cattlemen's Association (OCA) and the Canadian Cattlemen's Association (CCA) don't have statistics on grass-fed volumes in Canada, they are aware of interest from consumers and producers. The OCA and the CCA's Beef Cattle Research Council are jointly funding a research project at the University of Guelph headed by associate professor Ira Mandell. He is looking into both cattle performance factors such as gains, feed intake and feed efficiency, as well as eating qualities and both fatty acid and vitamin composition of the meat. (See bottom of this page.)

There is no question that grass-fed demand is growing south of the border. Joey Jones handles marketing for The Grassfed Exchange, a U.S. national group dedicated to producer education. He says American grass-fed producers saw their receipts grow by 20 per cent last year. Researchers for The Pasture Project, conducted by the Wallace Center, part of Winrock International, a nonprofit based in Little Rock, Ark., found that, in 1998, there were just 100 "serious" grass-fed producers in the United States. By 2010, that number had swollen to more than 2,000.

The local food movement, clearly, is not the main driver of grass-fed beef consumption. The Wallace Center found that retail sales of domestic, grass-fed beef in the United States in 2010 amounted to about US$350 million but, with imports added, grass-fed sales reached $1 billion. Researchers predicted 2011 sales at US$1.5 billion and 2012 sales at more than $2 billion with the bulk of the product coming from Australia, New Zealand and South America.

Jones, who lives near Waco, Tex., says the Exchange defines "grass-fed" as "no grain feeding; pasture finished." He says the trick for producers is to provide good pasture land, choose breeds that finish well on grass and slaughter at 20 to 24 months. There is a learning curve for new producers.

"People are trying to slaughter them too early," Jones says. "The difficulty is they are converting to grass-fed and still trying to slaughter on a conventional timetable."

The American Grassfed Association (AGA), with 2,500 members nationwide, is the largest grass-fed organization in the United States. Marilyn Noble, AGA's communications director, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) "looks at grass-fed as a niche market, so nobody really tracks those numbers." But anecdotal evidence points to rapid growth in the United States. "You see a whole lot more grass-fed meat at places like farmers' markets and on restaurant menus. We see a lot of people joining the organization who are new farmers."

One of the issues the AGA identifies is labelling. Members must submit to third-party audits but the USDA, which has its own grass-fed standard of a sort, doesn't bother.

"The USDA developed a standard for grass-fed-market claims and just about anybody can put grass-fed on the label," Noble says. "It is a very broad standard and it doesn't address issues like antibiotic use or confinement. It simply says animals must be fed grass from weaning to harvest and that's about it."

Noble says the AGA worked with the USDA to develop a standard that would have more meaning, but the USDA "just kind of ignored that." In response, AGA, which was formed in 2003, developed its own standard and began third-party certification of its members in 2007. Only members who pass are allowed to fix the AGA label to their beef products.

The AGA doesn't tell its members which breeds to raise. Many prefer Angus genetics, while some raise Spanish-descended breeds such as Pineywoods. Noble says barriers to production growth include the high cost of land and the longer time to market for grass-fed beef.

Canada needs standards
A national grass-fed association is not yet established in Canada, although the first Canadian farm was certified to the equivalency of AGA standards this spring.

Canada needs a grass-fed standard, says Colleen Biggs, who runs the 9,200 acre TK Ranch near Hanna, Alta., with her husband Dylan. She says many producers claim their products are grass-fed when they are, in fact, grain-finished.  "People are buying a product and they are not actually getting the real thing," Biggs says.  

The Biggs approached the AGA to see whether they could adopt their standards. At first, the AGA said they could join their organization but later recanted. That's not surprising because AGA rules say animals must be born and raised in the United States and tracked from birth to harvest.

So the Biggs approached American Welfare Approved, the third-party auditor for the AGA, and made arrangements to meet the standards of both organizations. In effect, there is now a Canadian standard based on the American model.

Their grass-fed product nets the Biggs a 40 per cent premium when their Angus animals go to market between 24 and 30 months of age. Some go as early as 20 months if Dylan thinks they're ready. "My husband has a pretty good eye for looking for fat deposits around the brisket and tail head and making sure these animals are well finished before they go to slaughter," Colleen Biggs says.

Mike Beretta agrees that "there probably is" a need for a national certification standard for grass-fed beef. Beretta Farms is vertically integrated, so "anybody growing for us has to follow our standard." Beretta owns 80 to 90 per cent of the all the grass-fed cattle it produces.

In turn, the Beretta operation is audited by Global Animal Partnership, on behalf of its client, Whole Foods stores, on welfare issues. Beretta says Whole Foods and Loblaws are his biggest clients. There is no farm store. There is a processing facility in Etobicoke where 60 employees work. A catering division serves meals to gyms where NHL players work out.

Beretta Farms sold its slaughter plant. A federal plant is necessary in order to "export" beef to other provinces. Having their own plant "was spreading us too thin and the headaches of inspection and everything else."

"There has been a lot of interest over the years in doing a natural grass-fed from producers. We just shied away from it," Mike Beretta says. He thinks it might "dilute" the value of his organic grass-fed product.

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, use of the claim "grass-fed," is covered under the Food and Drugs Act and also the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, "which prohibits claims that are false, misleading, deceptive or likely to create an erroneous perception." Claims are evaluated on a case by case basis, says CFIA information officer Lisa Gauthier.

"The CFIA would not object to a 'grass-fed' claim if it is truthful and not misleading. The CFIA could request that an explanation of what is meant by 'grass-fed' appears along with the claim on the label so that consumers are not misled by the claim.

When there is a complaint "or non-compliance is identified . . . the Agency takes appropriate enforcement action to correct it in a reasonable period of time.  This can range from a warning letter up to prosecution."

Consumer awareness
Clearly, there are lots of ways to produce grass-fed beef in Canada. Wayne McDonald of Cartwright, Man., is one of 10-12 members of the Manitoba Grass-fed Beef Association. In addition to pasture and stored hay, members feed oilseeds such as canola, flax and hemp, which he doesn't count as grain.

"It's the cereal grains – barley, oats, wheat – that affect the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3," McDonald says. "You can feed oilseeds and that doesn't affect any of these ratios."

He sees expanding markets driven by consumer awareness about the health benefits of grass-fed beef.  "There's also been more interest in local food in general and we've kind of piggybacked on that," McDonald says.

At Cobden, an hour north-west of Ottawa, Bob Dobson says there is no doubt that articles in such publications as Time, Maclean's Magazine, The New York Times and The Globe and Mail have had a big effect on his business. Dobson says customers read about research, mostly in the United States, that shows grass-fed beef contains higher amounts of vitamins and Omega-3 fatty acids, than does beef from cattle that were fed grain. "It's about eating healthily. People are attracted to that first and then there are the side issues," which include the environment, wildlife and water quality.

Moreover, Dobson says he is converting back people who have been vegetarian for a decade or more. Typical customers are female and in their late 20s. "They want to start eating beef," Dobson says. "Things have changed in their lives." The product they are buying "has to resolve the issues they had when they stopped eating beef. By producing and selling grass-fed beef we are solving the dilemma for them," Dobson says.

Dobson allows that there is no lack of well-heeled, financially stable customers in Ottawa. He says his returns are better now from 50 cows and another 60 purchased calves than when he was calving 200 cows and selling stockers. Dobson says he used to spend one day a year marketing his calves at a sales barn. Now he spends fully 50 per cent of his time marketing beef from his farm, via mail order, at the farmers' market at Carp, in season, and in downtown Ottawa at Lansdowne Park. He figures his work hours are perhaps a bit longer than before, but his market risk is much less.

In the Cochrane/Timiskaming area, the eight farmers who constitute the Golden Beef co-operative net a 20 per cent premium over the beef from grocery stores, says the group's president Jason Desrochers. The market is driven by the local food movement, taste and, to some degree, health concerns.

Desrochers, who lives near Iroquois Falls, describes the taste of Golden Beef as "a cross between moose and beef." He says the meat is both lean and tender. "It has a beef taste. It does not taste like veal," a shot at the commodity product.

Desrochers and his father raise Charolais/Simmental animals and send them to slaughter at less than 14 months, a tender age for cattle raised for the grass-fed movement. Their animals dress out at around 450 pounds, about the same weight as smaller breeds achieve at 20 to 24 months.

His group raises no specific breed of cattle. "Under 14 months," he says, "there's not much breed characteristics; not much difference."

Desrochers says they started selling their beef locally. After a little promotion at sportsmen shows, they now sell in Timmins, Sudbury and North Bay and are poised to sell beef in the Toronto area. They sell online and through retailers, mostly butcher shops and co-operatives.

Herd size in the Golden Beef co-operative range from just a few cows to larger cow-calf operations. Desrochers combines his 100 head with 100 more owned by his father for a 200-head operation.
Tough sell

Not everyone who has tried grass-fed has been successful. "We were in it too early and the market wasn't there," says Bob Kerr of Chatham. He was one of the partners in Kerr Farms, which began selling grass-fed beef in 2006 and "wrapped up" the business in 2009.

"I believe the market is developing," Kerr says. He says marketing a premium-priced product in southwestern Ontario, where manufacturing jobs are being lost or are in jeopardy, was a tough sell. "The health benefits aren't known and appreciated yet," he notes. (See story below.)

If he was back at it, Kerr would break his pastures into paddocks to maintain forage quality and try to get rapid gains in the summer and fall.

Jack Kyle, grazier specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, won't argue with that. The payoff for rotation, Kyle says, is that you'll get about 30 per cent more productivity from your pasture.

"Rotation is a huge part of maintaining quality in the pasture," Kyle says. If animals have access to the whole pasture, he says, they eat what they prefer and leave the rest to get mature, lose quality and reproduce.  "The plants the animals think are poor tasting and don't like thrive and, over time, take over the pasture."

Not everybody thinks grass-fed is such a great idea environmentally. Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach's dream of a large, grass-fed cattle operation in Florida may hinge on a water application currently before the St. Johns River Water Management District. Repeated attempts by Better Farming to get current information from Stronach's project manager have met with silence.

However, according to a story in the March 8 issue of Maclean's, the Canadian billionaire has spent $80 million acquiring 70,000 acres of land in Florida for a massive grass-fed beef operation, Adena Springs Ranch, combined with a slaughter facility and biomass power plant in Marion County, northwest of Orlando.

In December 2011, the ranch applied to withdraw millions of gallons of water per day "for agriculture, commercial, industrial and livestock uses." Prior to submitting the application, Adena met with St. Johns River Water Management District staff and discussed withdrawing 27 million gallons per day, but reduced that amount to 13.267 million when they made their application.

Hank Largin, a spokesperson for the St. Johns River Water Management District, says an Aug. 26 deadline to answer planners' questions could also be extended if Adena asks for an additional 120 days. Once the application has been received, it will be reviewed by staff and they will send it to their board for a final decision.

A local newspaper said the Adena project has become "a lightning rod for environmental groups charging the area's aquifer, springs and rivers are already too depleted and the additional withdrawal would make matters only worse."

Robert Knight, an adjunct professor at the University of Florida and director of the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute, says recent history favours approval of the project.

"Politics are almost 100 per cent based on what's the right thing for the economy," Knight says. Historically, he says, very few permits are denied, but he adds that it is a public process. BF

Setting the record straight about eating quality and nutrient composition

by MIKE MULHERN

University of Guelph meat scientist Ira Mandell is comparing animals fed on pasture and conserved forages. He is also comparing forage finishing and grain finishing, partly to test for taste and texture differences between the two.

Mandell says he is in the second year of a three-year study using Angus and Hereford animals. He hopes his research, funded by the Ontario Cattlemen's Association, will help set the record straight about the eating quality and nutrient composition of grass-fed beef.

"In the first year of our study, the animals fed hay didn't do very well (in terms of gain) versus the pasture-fed animals," Mandell says. That reversed in the second year because they had much better alfalfa hay. Taste was a different story.

"The first year, the taste panel found a trend for the grain-fed beef to be tenderer than the alfalfa-finished beef. There wasn't a difference between the grain-fed beef and the grass-fed beef and we're not seeing that difference in the second year of the study," Mandell says.

He says "beef flavour stands out more in a grain-finished beef than a forage-finished beef and we find more grassy flavour and more off-flavour (unpleasant flavour) with the forage-finished beef."

As far as fatty acid measurements go, Mandell says Omega-3 is higher in animals finished on grass than it is in animals finished on alfalfa, which is not as high in linoleic fatty acid. He has not been measuring the Omega-3 and Omega-6 ratios. BF

Modern diet must pass more than the taste test

by MIKE MULHERN

Consumers can't help but wonder what it is that they are supposed to eat.

A recent study out of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) linked red meat consumption with an increased risk of early death. At the same time, some high-profile authors and bloggers say Omega-3 and a free fatty acid called Conjugated Linoleic Acid is plentiful in meat from pasture-raised animals and both are good for us.

Two advocates for the consumption of red meat, especially if it's grass-fed, are California-based blogger (and medical doctor) Peter Attia and author Gary Taubes. (See Winners and losers in the dietary wars, Better Farming cover story August, 2011.)

Attia's blog - The War on Insulin and the defense of fat (http://waroninsulin.com/) - in its first four months drew 150,000 unique visitors. Attia says the Harvard red meat study's conclusion "should be completely disregarded."

Attia says the researchers followed "a cohort of several tens of thousands of people – nurses, health care professionals, American Association of Retired Persons members, etc.  – and
they ask them what they eat with a food frequency questionnaire that is known to be almost fatally flawed in terms of its ability to accurately acquire data about what people really eat."

Attia, through his blog, hopes to convince consumers to reduce sugar and starch intake.
Heather Travis is the director of public relations at Canada Beef Inc., "an independent national organization representing the research, marketing and promotion of the Canadian cattle and beef industry worldwide." Travis says they don't track the impacts of any particular study but keep an eye on "consumer attitudes and their behaviours around Canadian beef.

"Our data have shown, over the past number of years, consumption has remained steady." She does note what she calls "the vague unease" that could be coming from studies or social media or a combination.

"Every year," Travis says, "the little thing that's niggling at people changes. One year it might be healthful benefits and the next year health benefits drop down a little bit in terms of their concern and environmental sustainability might rise to the top."

Linda Aldoory, an associate professor in behavioural and community health at the School of Public Health, University of Maryland, and director of the Herschel S. Horowitz Center for Health Literacy, has done a number of studies that show people don't easily change their eating habits.

"I think it speaks to human nature," she says. "We do appreciate receiving scientific reports, but then we are going to negotiate those reports with the way we want to live our lives."

The bottom line, Aldoory says, is that a positive report is easier to accept than a negative one.

"The general research has basically shown that, if the public reporting of a study reveals something positive, people are more willing to accept that behaviour in their lives than if the reporting suggests something negative." BF

Producers are cautious about health claims

by DON STONEMAN

Both Mike Beretta of King City and Bob Dobson, west of Ottawa, are careful about health claims for their products. "We've shied away from making too many health claims, other than the ones that are really obvious," says Beretta. "That way we stay clear" of troubles with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Dobson's literature "guarantees" that his grass-fed beef has been produced without hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, grain or corn supplementation "and no GMOs." Other literature he distributes includes excerpts from an article in the 2010 Stockman Grass Farmer publication, touting the benefits of Omega-3 in improving the I.Q. of children.

The CFIA is specific about what can be put on food labels. According to Agency information officer Lisa Gauthier, "the diet of an animal does not determine whether nutrient content claims can be made; this is determined by the nutrient content of the food itself.

"In order for beef to make any statement related to the Omega-3 or Omega-6 fatty acid content, the product must contain the minimum level of the fatty acid prescribed and meet the conditions of use described in the Food and Drug Regulations. Moreover, a full disclosure of the monounsaturated, Omega-3 and Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid content must appear in the Nutrition Facts table.

She adds that "nutrient content claims are not permitted for linoleic acid. If a quantitative statement is made about linoleic acid, the full disclosure of the monounsaturated, Omega-3 and Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid content must appear in the Nutrition Facts table."

Further information on this subject is available in section 7.19.1 of the Guide to Food Labelling and Advertising and can be viewed on the Agency's website at: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/labeti/guide/ch7be.shtml BF