Category: Articles

MC: Why does your ground beef taste so much better than ground beef from some larger grocery chains?

Butch: The big grocery chains get their ground beef already partially ground from a distributor, so the in-store butchers are not able to mix the beef as we do.
We put only chuck and ground round from cows in our ground beef. Most distributors ground beef is normally one-third bull meat from Australia or Argentina, one-third trimmings, and one-third dairy cow meat. They use the bull meat for its red color, and also because it holds as much as 67% water from the cooling ice baths during slaughtering. If you grill that kind of beef, you will notice a lot of water separating from the fat in the pan.
For the last 20 years, our ground beef is a mix from the most flavorful beef, the round cut, with a bit of chuck to hold it together. The ground round is also more lean.

MC: I have noticed that Charlie Roy's cafe (The Ravenous Child Cafe at RSE) uses your meat. Is it organic?

Butch: A butcher has to go through many hoops to get a certified rating of organic beef nowadays. The price of certified organic feed is astronomical. The only organic beef shop in the state is The Meat Shop in Tacoma, and they got their certification in the 70s when things were not nearly as stringent.

The grass my herd grazes on and the hay we grow has absolutely no pesticides. The only fertilizer used is our own cow manure! I have done business with Charlie for almost 15 years, and he always gets beef from my own herd only. Our homegrown beef is always USDA certified. We raise it in these two counties (Pierce and Thurston), and then ship it to Oregon for slaughter in a USDA-approved facility. We have 150 cows in four fields that total over 500 acres.

MC: Where do you get your pork and chicken?

Butch: We get all of our pork locally, at Kapowsin Meats in Graham. We get natural and free-range chickens from Mt. Vernon in Western Washington. The chicken in our case is not free range, but it is raised naturally, with no antibiotics or hormones. The free-range is in the freezer (just ask) and is also hormone-free and free of preservatives and antibiotics.
I always eat the free-range chicken because it tastes better. The chickens are fed a vegetarian diet all grain, with no by-products whatsoever.

MC Readers:: Any large orders of a quarter cow or more are from Butch's own cows; to be sure to get meat from his own cattle when buying less quantity, be sure to ask for it, as it is kept in a separate freezer, as is the free-range chicken. Its a dollar more per pound, but worth it!