Market for natural meats expands

By Doug Rich

When the U.S. Olympic ski team was ready for a good meal during the Winter Games this year, they had a choice of natural beef or free range chicken raised by family farmers, right here in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.

The All Natural Beef Producers Cooperative was selected to provide meat for the U.S. ski team. The cooperative has 18 members, in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, who grow their beef and chicken without growth promoting hormones, subtherapeutic antibiotics or animal by-products. That is what these super athletes want, and it is what many consumers want, as well.

In the Kansas City area, consumers can buy the same all-natural meat products from Hen House Markets, which began selling produce and meats grown by the All Natural Beef Producers Cooperative about five years ago. "It is a niche item for us," says Jon Wissman, meat director for Balls Food Stores, which owns Hen House Markets. "It is something that no one else in the Kansas City area carries. We like and agree with the way in which they raise their cattle or free range chickens. It is an all natural process. We have a lot of customers who want, need and depend on that type of product for their shopping needs.

"We are a family-owned company, as well, and we like to work with other family-owned businesses," says Wissman. "We think this is very important for the community and for the surrounding area."

"In niche marketing, the decisions have to be made so fast," says Diana Endicott, who is in charge of marketing for the All Natural Beef Producers Cooperative. "The only advantage we have as a small group is to respond in a short period of time to market conditions."

Responding to market conditions rapidly is a little easier now that the cooperative has all of its meat processed at the same plant, in Uniontown, KS. Endicott says, at first, they hauled their cattle to Adrian, MO, for processing, but that plant burned down, in 1999. After that, they had their meat processed at Steve's Meats, in Eudora, KS. "As the program grew and the specifications that the retail outlet was demanding increased, we decided we needed a stand alone program to be a able to address the quality control issue that Balls Foods Stores was concerned about," says Endicott. "Basically, it was specifications. The program was growing and we needed something more specific to that program."

Volume was another concern. It was getting close to deer season, and Steve's Meats processes a lot of deer and does a lot of ethnic processing. "It was hard to fit our volume in," says Endicott. The cooperative looked at various options before settling on a state inspected plant, in Uniontown, KS. Rainbow Organic Farms, owned by Endicott and her husband, purchased the building in 2000 and signed a uniform marketing and delivery agreement with the All Natural Beef Producers Cooperative.

The Uniontown locker plant had been a state inspected facility. To ship their products across the state line, they need to be processed in a federally inspected facility. "We started shipping under federal inspection in October, 2000," says Endicott. The slaughter facility, in Uniontown, only handles animals from the members of the cooperative.

Eugene Edelman, Sabetha, KS, a farmer and a member of the cooperative since it formed, slots all of the cattle for the slaughter process. Edelman sends out slotting forms to all the cooperative members who raise beef. "That tells me when the producers are wanting to market their cattle," says Edelman. "I am trying to get that on a yearly schedule." When he gets the forms back from the producers, Edelman schedules their cattle for processing and gets word back to the producers, so they can slow the feeding process down or speed it up to fit the schedule.

The key is to provide a steady supply all through the year. "It is easier now that we have more members," says Edelman. "It was a struggle, at first, when we had more demand than members with cattle."

Although most of the cattle in the program are Angus cross animals, that is not a requirement. "Rather than focus on the breed, we focus on the fact that it is high quality meat raised on small family farms," says Endicott. They are processing 18 to 20 head every week. Each producer taking part in the program gets back information on every animal he markets. The cut-out form includes information on primal cuts, trim and bone.

Endicott says they slaughter beef on Thursdays and Fridays, process the beef on Mondays and Tuesdays and ship the meat on Wednesdays. All of the beef is dry aged for 10 to 14 days and shipped fresh. "We do not market any frozen products," says Endicott. All of the meat is sold under the brand name of Good Natured Family Farms.

Beef is the anchor for their program and it has made it possible for the cooperative members to get other products on the market. In addition to beef, they sell fresh chicken, eggs, and buffalo meat, all through Hen House Markets. The chickens are processed at their facility, in Uniontown, making it one of the very few federally inspected multispecies processing plants in the Midwest. The buffalo are slaughtered and boxed at another plant, then brought to Uniontown for shipment to the Hen House Markets. Milk, bottled on the farm, may be the next product they offer.

Now that the cooperative has production and processing under control, Endicott is working hard on marketing. Last fall, she arranged a farm tour for all of the Balls Food Stores meat managers. The managers visited the farms where the beef and chicken are produced and visited with family members. Each person on the tour received a tour notebook. which included information about area agriculture, K-State publications and U.S. Department of Agriculture info.

"We wanted to educate the managers so they can answer questions about out products correctly," says Endicott. "I think it is real important that we do not misrepresent ourselves: That we sell what we say we are selling. An educated consumer is our best customer."

Education is one part of the Quality System Certification Program (QSCP) that Endicott and the Cooperative are trying to complete. QSCP focuses on Good Natured Family Farms quality policy and its system for maintaining product identification and traceability. "What we are saying is that we can trace our beef from the farm all the way through to the consumer."

USDA sets the standards for QSCP. "We complete the requirements and then they do an audit, from production to process to retail, to see if we meet those requirements," says Endicott. There are 13 requirements in the program, including documentation, quality control, traceability and education. "Developing a system like this will make it easier for us to grow."

It was an honor to be selected to provide meat for the U.S. ski team, but the family farmers that market their products under the Good Natured Family Farms label would like to expand their business a little closer to home. They are making plans to expand their processing facility. "Our goal is to be a small, stable, but profitable part of the food sector," says Endicott.

Date: 4/5/02

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