transporting cattle

Yesterday's post took a look at Thousand Hills Cattle Company and the advantages of grass fed beef.

There are purists who will argue that you can’t have pastured, grass-fed cattle in Minnesota all year round. These people have a point. Snow covers much of the ground in Minnesota for what seems like 6 - 8 months of the year. Thousand Hills Cattle Company, the largest producer of grass fed beef in the Midwest, deals with this harsh reality via a system of enormous hay bails, rolled up in the warmer months and rolled out across the snow during the winter.

Thousand Hills Cattle Company, a leading producer of grass fed beef in the Midwest, has its work cut out for it.

First of all, there’s the cost of their product. Although their cattle are relatively inexpensive to raise, according to founder Todd Churchill (they just eat grass, right?), the cost of transporting, processing, packaging, and shipping 24 grass-fed cattle each week is enormous - there’s just not much economy of scale. By the time it gets to the grocery store or co-op, Thousand Hills beef costs more than its corn fed (non-organic) counterparts, nearly every time.