#57 - SXSW, Better Beef - Practically Ranching

Episode Transcript
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Microphone (Yeti Stereo (00:06):
Thanks for joining us for episode 57 of
practically ranching.
I'm your host, Matt Perrier asalways the podcast is sponsored
by a Dalebanks Angus nearEureka, Kansas.
This week's podcast had to takea back seat to the, uh, real
ranch work.
We're a few hours late releasingand instead of a guest, I have

(00:28):
three.
Actually, you're getting anaudio recording of a panel
discussion that I got toparticipate in last March.
For you loyal listeners, you'vealready got wind of this event
as Dr.
Temple Grandin.
And I referenced this in ourdiscussion a few episodes back.
This was a really funopportunity to talk to a group

(00:48):
of folks that I never thought Iwould be part of the very
diverse crowd at south bySouthwest.
Many of you are likely familiarwith south by it's an annual
festival that celebrates theconvergence of various fields
and genres in Austin, eachMarch.
Music film, educationalspeakers, fashion, technology,

(01:12):
comedy....
it truly is as diverse of agroup of people and interests
and languages and politicalperspectives.
As I have ever witnessed.
Ever witnessed.
So to stick a cowboy in themidst of this was a little
risky.
But thanks to chef TylerFlorence, and you've likely seen

(01:33):
his great food truck race, orthe dozens of other shows and
books that he's created andhosted on food network and
discovery and all else.
And also Harris Heckelman,chef's warehouse, and the folks
at certified Angus beef.
I got drug into the group as thetoken rancher.
And I loved every minute of itwas a little uncomfortable at

(01:54):
times, but I really, reallyappreciated the opportunity.
Now you can say what you wantabout the political leanings and
preferences of the folks inattendance of south by
Southwest.
But they're curious consumers,they are intelligent, they're
interested, and they are full ofquestions about everything that
goes on around them...

(02:16):
especially the food that theyeat.
And as you'll hear in the panel,the whole thing came about
thanks to chef Tyler.
And while he was our point guy.
Having Dr.
Temple Grandin on the paneltruly brought a lot of the crowd
that we had in this session.
Now, a word of caution.
There might be a fewcringe-worthy moments in the

(02:37):
next hour or so.
For once, not all of them weremine, though.
I'm sure several will be.
But as you've noticed in pastepisodes, I don't mind having
some discussions that some ofyou might oppose.
You don't have to agree witheverything that's said, but
hopefully it will expose all ofus to a discussion that's being

(02:58):
held on the other end of ourbeef supply chain just about
every day.
There may be some points thatmight not sound like our typical
beef narrative.
I sure didn't agree witheverything said by everyone.
But the fact is this, we got infront of a group of folks whom I
never drempt we'd have accessto.

(03:19):
And while it might not have beenthe exact narrative that our
industry leaders would havewritten.
I believe we built a lot oftrust with folks in that room
plus the many others who readarticles about, or listen to
this session online after thefact.
And sometimes that's what wehave to do.
We can't wait for the safe placeto deliver the perfect message.

(03:42):
We have to be out there.
We have to share our story andlet others share theirs.
And then work toward buildingbridges with consumers who are
interested about our productionpractices, our management
techniques, and basic overallreasons for being.
So I'd like to thank south bySouthwest for allowing me to use
this audio.

(04:02):
Tyler Florence, all of hiscolleagues for conceptualizing
and spearheading this effort.
Harris Heckelman and his teamchef's warehouse for
passionately delivering highquality beef to their food
service customers.
Even though sometimes it's notmaybe my, or my customer's beef.
Uh, I'd like to thank templeGrandin for all that she has

(04:22):
done and continues to do forimproving our animal welfare and
handling, and finally certifiedAngus beef for inviting me to
help share our ranchers story.
And as always, I want to thankyou.
Thanks for tuning in.
This thing keeps quietly growingthanks to your support.
Uh, we appreciate your rating,us and dropping comments into

(04:46):
your podcast platform.
Sharing us with your friends.
Uh, it, it helps.
I don't know how, but it helps alot keep us front and center on
these podcast platform searches.
This has been a fun ride so far,and I appreciate you for making
it so.
So here you go.
The better beef panel recordedlive last March at south by

(05:09):
Southwest in Austin, Texas.

Tyler Florence (05:13):
Good to see everybody.
Good morning.
Uh, I am absolutely thrilled.
Uh, my name is Tyler Florenceand I, uh, am very, very excited
to be here at South by Southwest2024, moderating a panel on
better beef, revising thenarrative on a changing
industry.
Now I have an amazing group ofpanelists up here today and
together we hope to shed somelight on why beef is back and

(05:36):
better than ever fromenvironmental considerations to
humane treatment of animals.
to better ranching and feedingpractices and management
techniques.
There has never been a greateremphasis on doing things the
right way, resulting in anincreased demand and some of the
highest quality production wehave ever seen.
In fact, the beef industry isproducing more high quality beef

(05:57):
than ever before.
With more than 80 percent ofbeef grading at the highest
available USDA quality grades ofprime or choice.
Consumers, and especially frommy perspective, uh, owning
restaurants with boots on theground in the kitchen, consumers
are realizing there is plenty ofgood in an industry that has
long been touted as, well, notso good, but that's in thanks to

(06:20):
a part of the, of people likethese three who are helping to
move the needle.
and a positive direction intheir respective fields.
And truthfully, there may noteven, I'm not even sure if there
would be a narrative if not forpeople like Dr.
Temple Grandin right here besideme today.
Will you guys give a warm roundof applause for Dr.
Temple Grandin?

(06:42):
Now if you have worked or passedthrough the industry at all, you
know her name.
She's an American academic.
She's a faculty member of AnimalSciences and the College of
Agricultural Sciences atColorado State University.
And she's an animal behavioristand she has long been a
prominent spokesperson for thehumane treatment of livestock

(07:02):
for slaughter and consults withthe industry.
She has written over 60scientific papers on animal
behavior, and she is the authorof several books, including
visual thinking.
And we were just talking aboutthat book this morning, and I'm
very excited to hear more aboutthat.
Uh, and Dr.
Grandin, uh, is also an.
Autism spokesperson, and she'sone of the first autistic people

(07:23):
to document her personalexperience.
And she believes that because ofher autism, she can see the
animal's reality from theirviewpoint, which allows her, uh,
to design better systems forthem.
And Dr.
Grandin has been, uh, such aninfluential presence in these
two worlds that in 2010, uh, uh,in a 2010 biographical drama was

(07:43):
released on HBO about her life.
Storying Claire Danes.
That's pretty exciting, right?
And ranchers who have eitherworked with her directly or
have, uh, reached, uh, uh, uh,or have researcher practices
have said that, that her help isinvaluable and she has helped
turn the tides, uh, on, on howthings are done.
And we are so honored to be withher today.

(08:04):
Please give one more round ofapplause for Dr.
Temple Grandin.
Now this very good lookinggentleman in the cowboy hat.
Uh, Matt Perrier is, is onerancher who has benefited from
Dr.
Grandin's wisdom, uh, nestled inthe Southern, uh, Flint Hills of
Kansas.
Matt's family ranch, DelbanksAngus, grazes cattle on some of

(08:25):
the last vestiges of native tallgrass prairie in North America.
If you can just imagine that,right?
Some of the last vestiges ofbeautiful natural grazing land.
It's land that can't really beused for anything else.
And the grazing cattle harkenback to the original American
Buffalo.
His family has been sustainablyfarming and ranching on this
land since the late 1860s.

(08:48):
Uh, farming and ranchingpractices have evolved since
then.
Uh, but each generation has beendedicated to raising the highest
quality of cattle while alwaysremaining dedicated to humane
animal care and climate friendlypractices.
Uh, are true boots on theground.
Or rather boots in the grassguy.
As a matter of fact, our firstphone call, um, uh, when we were
getting prepped up for this, uh,he took it on horseback in the

(09:10):
middle of the grasslands and youcould hear the cows moo around
him.
And I just knew this guy was thereal deal.
Uh, so please give a warm roundof applause for Matt Perry.
Now, cattle make several stopsfrom gate to plate and, uh, and
this is where, uh, a gentlemanlike Harris Haukman comes in,
um, our third panelist today.

(09:31):
Now, Harris's family founded,uh, two of the most successful
independent meat and seafoodcompanies in the country over
the course of the last 30 years.
So it's safe to say that he hasspent much of his life in the
industry and has seen changesfirsthand.
And, and Harris has built areputation as the leader in the
meat and seafood industry.
And is now the executive vicepresident of the chef's

(09:51):
warehouse overseeing all proteinacross the country.
And in the beef world, thisessentially means that he is the
liaison between family ranches,processing plants, and
discerning chefs like myself.
Looking for the most highquality product.
Um, he is entirely committed toconnecting the best ranching
partners with the best chefs inthe country, and I'm looking
forward to hear him talk aboutwhat he, what he looks for, uh,

(10:15):
and to make sure that he'shonoring the humane practices of
Dr.
Grandin and Matt look forward tothe final stages of the process.
So please give a warm round ofapplause for Harris Huckleman
from Chess Warehouse.
Hey guys.
Now, guys, many of you may knowme From television.
This is my 17th season.
I just wrapped up the great foodtruck race, which is the number
one show on the Food Networkevery year, and I've hosted

(10:37):
several of the shows along theway in the Food Network.
This is my 27th year on thenetwork, but the majority of my
time is not spent behind thecamera.
It's actually spent behind thestoves.
I'm a professional chef ofnearly four decades, and all of
my work through my career hasreally kind of led to led to me
where we are right now, andthat's the executive chef and
owner of five restaurants in thecity of San Francisco and six,

(10:59):
including Miller and LuxHualalai.
We just opened up a beautifulrestaurant on the Big Island in
Hawaii, and our restaurant,Miller and Lux, just got named
best steakhouse.
And the San Francisco bay areaby San Francisco magazine.
And we just got included in theMichelin guide this year.
Uh, so we're very, very excitedabout that.
Now, along the way from thechef's journey, occasionally

(11:20):
we'll have these light bulbmoments that really kind of
changed the direction and theoutlook of our life.
And about 10 years ago, uh, whenMiller and Lux was just still a
dream, uh, we're actuallyfilming the great food truck
race in Fort Worth, Texas.
And my very good friend, chefTim Love, uh, an amazing Texas
chef, uh, was our guest judgefor the day.
And, uh, during the break.

(11:40):
Um, he took me to, uh, the FortWorth meat packers where they
were in the middle of aprocessing session.
And if you've ever been a chefand seen that side of the
industry, it's, it's, it's, it'svery, very important.
It's very important to see that.
And I've, I've taken chefs andsous chefs, uh, to processing
facilities in NorthernCalifornia.
So they can see that andexperience it for, for, for

(12:01):
yourself firsthand.
Because when you see that, um,your commitment.
to, uh, managing the proteinitself and being a steward of
the protein is so incrediblyimportant.
And it just reiterates mycommitment as a chef to make
sure that we're following theabsolute best practices that we
Waste absolutely nothing.

(12:22):
And then we honor our craft bymaking the protein and honoring
the life of the animal by makingsure the protein tastes as
delicious as possible.
So that's our commitment tobeing a chef.
And I have loved beef.
I've loved steak houses eversince I was a kid.
It's my absolute favorite genreof restaurants.
And we're super excited to behere today.

(12:44):
And I'm looking forwarddiscussing the world of better
beef with my panelists.
And, uh, we're going to be, uh,uh, taking a Q and a at about
1215.
So if you guys have questionsfor our panelists, as we start
to go through this, uh, wherethere's a live microphone set
up, ready to go and, uh, andwithout further ado, I think
we're going to jump right intothis.
You guys ready to go.

(13:05):
South by Southwest, right?
So please give one more round ofapplause for our panelists
today.
I'm super excited about this.
So we've been, we've beenworking on this for about a
year.
Um, ever since we kind ofwrapped out of South by
Southwest last year, I got achance to hear a bunch of really
kind of interesting, fascinatingconversations about, um, The
food industry and, and, uh, youknow, uh, the, the next food

(13:25):
generation and the power of foodand what's coming up next.
And to me, like, I, I, I thinkthe reverse engineering and that
whole idea about thinkingthrough the most holistic
natural process possible.
Um, w the, the app, maybe it'sthe opposite of engineered
protein where you see, insteadof seeing a box that has 25

(13:45):
ingredients on the backside ofit, you see a product that has
one word and that's beef.
Right.
And I think to me, that's asholistic as you could possibly
get.
And so I immediately walked outof last year's South by
Southwest session, thinkingthrough, we need to reverse this
narrative.
That that beef is necessarilybad for the environment, bad for
people.
I think the opposite isabsolutely true.

(14:07):
Um, being a restaurateur and achef, especially opening up
restaurants in San Francisco.
Um, uh, taking a really bigrisk.
Cause San Francisco is one ofthe most progressive thinking
cities in the country that, thatI've taken the last three years.
And really educated myself onthe beef world.
And there are so many peoplelike our panelists today that
are doing things the absoluteright way.
And I'm so excited to jump inthis conversation today.

(14:28):
And Dr.
Granite, I'm going to, I'm goingto have the first question for
you.
There you go.

Temple Grandin (14:34):
Is

that

working?

There you go.
Okay.
Fantastic.
So, uh, so, uh, doctor, um, youhave consulted for the last 50
years in the industry.
She wrote her first scientificpaper in 1980.
Uh, you've consulted with manyranches and the processing
plants to help them work onbetter practices for more humane
treatment, including havingdeveloped equipment scoring
systems for, uh, assessinganimal welfare and visual

(14:58):
guides, uh, in the form ofconstruction plans.
Can you talk a bit about some ofthe things that you used to see
that you felt like neededchanging and how those things in
fact have changed over the yearsfor the better and often because
of some of the work that youhave done?

Well, back in the eighties, uh, cattle
handling was terrible, totallyterrible.
And in the seventies, I did someof my very first design work.
Now I'm gonna admit that one ofthe mistakes I made in the
seventies and even in theeighties, I thought it would be
possible to build aself-managing cattle handling
facility if I could just designit, right?
The technology, which would bethe layout and stuff of the

(15:35):
handling facility, solve all theproblems.
Well, that's definitely not thecase.
A lot of people still handledcattle badly, even when they had
state of the art facilities.
And then I worked on developinga very simple assessment tool
for evaluating a slaughterhouse.
Very, very simple.
You hang them up on the rail,they better be unconscious.

(15:56):
First shot with a captive boltstunner, got to be 95 percent
effective.
Uh, no more than three cattleout of 100 mooing and bellowing
during handling.
1 percent falling.
You got to get 75 percent ofthem through.
With no electric prod, wherebefore it was 500 percent got
zapped with an electric prod,plus no acts of abuse.
So in 1999, now this is a bigturning point, I was hired by

(16:19):
McDonald's, Burger King, andWendy's to teach their food
safety auditors how to do theslaughter plant audit.
And in six months I saw morechange than I'd seen in my whole
career prior to that, becausenow they were forced to manage
the equipment they had.
We did it.
I do lots and lots and lots ofrepairs on broken stuff.

(16:40):
Lots of training, lots ofsupervision.
And I'm very proud of the factthat out of 74 plants, only 3
had to buy expensive things.
I had expensive things to sellthem, but I'd been over
backwards to do reverse conflictof interest, make whatever they
had work and.
What I learned from that is whenbig corporations inspect things,

(17:02):
it can really work.
It was also very, veryinteresting watching the
reactions of high executives inthese companies.
When they first saw somethingbad, you got reactions just like
that show undercover boss,they'd gotten out and they'd
seen some things, but bigcorporations have the power to

(17:23):
fix things.
Now there was some other companyin Europe that forced a chicken
plant to put in a piece ofequipment that did not work.
That was very, very expensive.
That's an expensive mess.
I didn't make that mistake.
I forced them to manage andrepair the stuff they had most
of the time.
We've made some of the shabbyold dumps work.

(17:43):
I was kind of surprised.
Cattle don't like the dark, soyou put a light on their chute
entrance, they'll go right in.
And three plant managers wereremoved.
Call that a managerectomy.
And nothing changed until theplant managers were removed.
But that's one of the mostproudest things.
I'm proud of my equipment.
But the thing that probably madethe biggest difference was the,

(18:04):
uh, starting those audits fromthe major, um, major buyers.

Thank you, doctor.
I appreciate that.
Um, uh, it's absolutelyfascinating to hear about the,
uh, you know, what, what weperceive to know about the meat
industry.
And then to understand that alot of that information is
either 50, 20 or 10 years old,and it has very little to do
with what's actually happeningright now inside the industry.
I think it's absolutelyfascinating.
And Matt, my next question foryou, um, and your day to day,

(18:33):
you've also seen a lot ofchanges growing up in a multi
generational ranching family.
So your father was a rancher.
Your grandfather was a rancherdating back to the 1860s.
You guys have been ranching thesame, uh, beautiful piece of
land in Kansas.
Um, what, uh, what's differentabout your parents, grandparents
and even great grandparents,ranching practices, um, that,

(18:54):
um, you see have changed maybecoming full circle today.

Matt Perrier (18:58):
Yeah, it has changed a lot and in a lot of
ways it's almost the same andwe've Practically returned back
to some of the initial things wewere doing, which is fascinating
to me, not to go down thehistory lesson too much, but my
triple great grandparents whosettled our place in 1867 were
encouraged by society and thefederal government and everybody

(19:21):
else to rip up these grasslandsso they could tame mother nature
and actually produce somethingbecause it was just this barren
wasteland of grass for millenniawith bison and everything else.
And so they did just that.
And here 150 years later, I anda lot of my neighbors and others

(19:43):
are trying to reintroduce thebiodiversity and the
regenerative practices and putthose fields back into
grasslands because we realizehow much more productive, at
least in our area.
Now, there are certain parts ofthe nation that are way more
productive as farms and fields,but in our area.
That grassland was it's perfectsetting.

(20:05):
And so we're trying to throughregenerative ag and through
rotational grazing to try tomimic mother nature, animal
cattle handling things that wegot away from, frankly, as we
had technologies like the cattleprod and things like that in the
seventies and eighties, we'rereturning to a way my.
Triple great grandparents did itin a lot of ways.

(20:25):
Um, and, and yes, we usetechnology.
Yes.
We have to stay current andefficient and we have to grow
and all of these things that abusiness has to do.
But those practices, those timetested practices that my great,
great grandparents were, wereusing are actually coming back
into vogue and almost deja vuall over again.

And, and, and Dr.
Grandin, we were talking aboutthis earlier, uh, in one of our
initial conversations about someof the, um, uh, land in North
America.
The only thing it's really goodfor is grazing.

Well, that's right.
I've got a paper I did ongrazing.
It's called Grazing Cattle,Sheep and Goats is an important
part of a sustainableagricultural Future, it's a free
access, open access paper.
The reason why I wrote thispaper is I spent 50 years of my
career working with cattle thatI worked with an animal we ought
to get rid of.
People say they just wrecked theenvironment.
Well, the more I startedlearning about regenerative

(21:20):
grazing and doing it right.
Um, you can improve land.
It'll take three to five yearsto improve the soil health.
Also, grazing should be usedwith cover crops.
You can cut down on the amountof artificial fertilizer.
That's another thing that weought to be doing.
And we have lots and lots ofland where the only way to raise
food on that land is grazing.

(21:42):
In fact, we're getting more andmore land where we're draining
aquifers.
You won't be able to raise cropson that land, you're gonna have
to graze it.
And we have to do the grazingright.
I think the grazing animals arepart of the solution.
Let's look at the methane issue.
When the great herds of bisonwere all over the North America

(22:03):
before Europeans came there, themethane levels were 85 percent
of what they are now.
And I've got to thank ananonymous journal article
reviewer for that reference.
Leaking oil field equipment andcattle are about the same.
We haven't even measured.
Landfills, dumps, and wastewatertreatment plants as sources of
methane that needs to be put inperspective.

(22:25):
But the grazing animals is partof a sustainable future, but you
got to use them right.
You graze them fairly tightlybunched because you don't want
them cherry picking and eatingthe strawberries and leaving the
celery behind.
1, let it totally regenerate foryou.
Come back and graze it again.
And then the other session I wasjust at looking way in the

(22:47):
future.
Um, maybe we'll have to buildwater pipelines, like,
California's getting flooded,and you know what you can do?
Oil field equipment works justfine for that.
Two years ago, I got to see apump jack that was pumping
water.
And when I found that out, I hadto go up and commune with this
pump jack, an ordinary pumpjack.
You know, we can repurpose thatequipment.

(23:08):
Uh, there's a lot of stuff we'regonna have to do in the, in the
future.
Right now, grazing animals, useright.
Are definitely part of a verysustainable future.
And you were talking about fire

prevention

as well.
Well, yes.
That's the other big thing is,um, if you get too much woody,
uh, growth coming into thepastures, you're just got fire
getting waiting to happen.
Let's look what happened inHawaii.
I was over in Hawaii this past,um, fall dead grass, this tall,
maybe if that had been grazed,that town wouldn't have burnt

(23:41):
down.
Okay.
Now in Texas, they've had thosehorrible fires.
They had a very, very greenspring.
I flew into Emeril twice, neverseen it.
So green on final approach,that's going to be tall, a lot
of tall grass.
Yes.
They had cattle there and a lotof cattle died.
Maybe they needed more cattle.
Um, but fire mitigation isanother really important reason

(24:02):
for doing grazing.
We lost a thousand houses inDenver two years ago.
There was this big piece ofland.
They said, well, let's let it gowild.
Well, they had a gigantic fireand we lost a thousand houses.
So fire mitigation, firecontrol, that's another reason
for using grazing.
But I got to emphasize doing itright.
I've seen pastures overgrazedand ruined.
No, you've got to do it right.

Now, uh, we, uh, being in the beef industry, uh,
we talk a lot about animalwelfare.
It's obviously a big concern onour end.
Um, and, and the treatment ofanimals in a humane way.
And in an ideal world, whatexactly does that mean in the
context of cattle ranchingtoday?
Uh, just really talking aboutthe animal welfare and the

(24:45):
treatment of animals in a humaneway.

Well, you have to handle good handling, low
stress handling.
Uh, NCBA, the NationalCattleman's Beef Association, we
do a lot of workshops on lowstress handling.
Cattle handling has definitelyimproved.
That's one of the, the definite,Bright spots.
That's gotten better.
Now we're going to have to becareful about not over selecting
for things like marbling becausewe've been having some problems

(25:09):
with leg confirmation issues.
Heart failure.
I like to look at geneticselection sort of like a
national budget.
If I put everything into theeconomy.
I may shortchangeinfrastructure, bone, the heart,
reproduction.
I may also shortchange immunefunction.
So we have to look at what isthe optimal thing to do.

(25:30):
And fortunately, the breedassociations are trying to
address some of these issues.
But they're the kind of issuesthat can creep up very slowly
and you don't realize it.
Lameness, for example, likedairy cattle.
Bad becoming normal on that.
You get used to seeing it.
You don't see it.

And I always think cattle are absolutely
fascinating because they'reunique digestive system.
They are able to eat grass,which has very little value to
people.
And they convert that into highquality protein.
It's rich in vitamins andnutrients that we need.
And this means, uh, this meanscattle can be used to grain.
Uh, Grazeland, it'sunsustainable for other types of
farming and some of our earlierconversations, we talked about

(26:09):
that and we also talked aboutthe biodynamic relationship with
the American buffalo going backa million years.
And so, so our, our greatgrasslands and our plains and
our grasslands, we're, I, I, IJust, just designed for grazing,
uh, you know, uh, um, bovineanimals.
Right.
And

we've got to stop the woody encroachment of
cedars and junipers because, uh,you have a 10 foot high juniper
patch.
Uh, that's a fire waiting tohappen and a really hot fire.

Yeah.
And like you said, when, when weput.
Ruminants, which are fourcompartment stomach animals like
cattle and goats and sheep,bison, we mimic what mother
nature was doing because justlike you said, that forage isn't
digestible by humans, thatgrass, we can't do anything with

(26:59):
it, but that cow can turn itinto protein, meat, milk,
whatever the case may be and doit for us.
And, um, so we'll, we'll.
Re rotational grazing usingfences to just, as Dr.
Grand said, put cattle in afairly tight group.
And when I say tight group, Imean a hundred head on 250 acres

(27:20):
or even maybe 50 acres for ashort time.
Very short time.
Very short time.
Take.
Ranchers have a phrase that welike to use, and I don't know
that there's any, um.
Patent to it, but you take halfand you leave half.
So if the grass starts out thishigh, you graze it to here, and
then you move those cattle toanother pasture and you leave
that pasture to get back up toits full height.

(27:44):
It's a carbon sink.
It does photosynthesis.
It takes carbon dioxide out ofthe atmosphere.
And And in six months or a yearor however long that process
took, you come right back intothat pasture with cattle.
And that's what the bison didnaturally.
Through fires, and the NativeAmericans knew how to use fire
and rotate those bison.
We cattlemen are doing some ofthe same things.

(28:04):
And, and so, using thosemanagement practices, using
technology.
A barbed wire fence or a virtualfence in some cases,

you doing any virtual fence?
No, but

I want to, I cannot wait.
I just can't really, really

closely.
They're doing some experimentsfor service land to keep cattle
riparian stream beds.
And, uh, that technology isgoing to, uh, Cut fencing costs
down a whole lot.

And I think it'll revolutionize the way we are
able to use the naturalresources that we have, grass,
water, everything, becausecattle want to be cool and be
close to water.
And so what do they do?
They go right into the riparianareas and they overgraze.
If we as cattlemen don't.
Step in and make sure that weask them, move them, put them in

(28:50):
a fence, someplace where theycan still get to water.
They can still get to shade, butthey will go ahead and graze the
hillsides and things like that.
So I think that virtual fencing,when we get that into a, when
it's no longer cost prohibitive,I think it enables the ranching
industry to better utilize theland to do things.

(29:10):
Just like you said aboutmitigating fire, um, using
those.
Natural resources that we havein the best, most efficient way
possible.

Well, in the virtual fencing, you have to
take the time to train yourcattle to it, too.

Yes.

Not just buy an app and move cattle around.
No, you have to take the time totrain them.

Well, that's a perfect leeway into my next
question.
Uh, because specifically here atSouth by Southwest, this is a
very good question.
Tech technology driven focusconference.
And we're always talking aboutthe positives and the negatives
of technology.
And Matt, when you think about,um, uh, we have the image of
running a family farm andraising animals.
You don't necessarily thinkabout it being technology

(29:50):
driven.
Can you talk about whytechnology is actually essential
to creating efficiencies and howit helps do things effectively
and in a more humane way?

Yeah, it, there's no end to the way that we can
use technology, even insomething as tradition minded
as, as agriculture and as cattleranching.
Um, we got away from the oldfarmers almanac a long time ago
and we've replaced it.
With one of these, my screentime is close to that of my
kids, which I'm embarrassed tosay, but instead of tick tock

(30:24):
and Snapchat and everythingelse, I'm on a weather app or a
geo, you know, a satelliteimaging thing to see where we
can use fencing and things to dobetter.
I, you know, feed rationbalancing programs, you name it,
nearly everything I do inaddition to communicating with
customers and folks like you allon it.
24 7.

(30:44):
It seems we use it.
And I think that sometimestechnology gets a bad name,
especially for whatever reason,especially in food production.
It seems like folks have said,if you're using technology, if
you're growing and being asefficient as you can be, then
it's not like it used to be.
And I just, it can't be fartherfrom the truth.

(31:07):
We use technology as we aredoing the things that are going
to provide food and effectivelyand efficiently preserving the
resources and everything elseand and those technologies are
often enabling us to do a betterjob.

I want to make a comment on technology is you
need to make it easy to use.
One of the things that's aproblem right now is technology
from different vendors does nottalk to each other like in a
dairy for example you have allthis data you get off the
milking machine then you mighthave data you get off an
accelerometer you And none ofthe interfaces, uh, talk to each

(31:43):
other.
And this again gets back to thedifferent kinds of minds.
One of the reasons why theiPhone took over is, you didn't
have to learn how to use it.
Steve Jobs was an artist.
He was not a programmer, anartist.
And then the mathematicalprogrammers had to make that
phone work, you see, there needsto be a lot more emphasis off to
say right now I'm not registeredfor the meetings, I couldn't

(32:05):
figure out how to make the techfor registering for the meeting
work.
And so that's an example of areally terrible interface, I
shouldn't have to learn how touse it.
And so you need the visualthinker for the interface.
And you need the mathematicianto make the programming work,
you need to have both.

So one piece of technology that I am having to
learn to use because it's brandnew and we're still working the
bugs out, um, is a machinecalled the green feed machine
and this is cutting edge.
There's not a ton of researchthat is fleshed out on it, but I
am excited about this because weput this little trailer.

(32:47):
With a little bit of feed in itand a bunch of fans on it out in
a pasture, half section to 300acre pasture and it has a buzzer
on it and when cattle walk pastit, it'll buzz and drop a little
bit of feed into a trough andthose cattle walk in, they have
a Radio frequency ID, which justtells us what number they are.

(33:11):
They walk in and while they'reeating this little tiny bit of
feet, they're breathing andthey're expelling methane and
carbon dioxide like theynaturally do, and they're
intaking oxygen.
This machine is measuring howmuch methane and how much carbon
dioxide they're excreting andhow much oxygen they're taking
in while they're standing therejust eating away.

(33:32):
And it is saving all this dataand it is telling us.
Just how big of a carbonfootprint these cattle have.
And it's telling us, are theresome cows that emit less methane
and still gain the same or evengain more?
We have

those machines in the feed yard at the ag next
project at CSU.
And this is not published yet,but they're finding some cattle
put out more methane than othercattle.
And the other thing they've hada lot of problems with the
machines mechanically.

Well, that's why I brought it up.

One of the things that.
That Keith Stack, uh, KimStackhouse told me is that
they're not ready for thegeneral consumer yet.
They're very fiddly, finickydevices.

They are.

And, uh, you know, for that to become an
everyday thing, they got to geteasier to use.
And recently I just went by astoreroom that had some broken
parts from, in it.
Yep.
Um, they're complicated to use.
And I'm very excited about thedifferent methane coming out of
Angus cattle in the same pen,but we've got to make sure it's
not an artifact of measurement.

Right.

To make sure.

And I think with enough data, with enough time,
we'll get that.
We will.
It's exciting for me to see thatwe can select for those genetics
that are emitting a little lessand still effectively and
efficiently produce.
Make

sure we don't over select for that genetics
because traits are linked.
And I, okay, we're selecting forall this marbling.
And now I got.
Heart failure that used to justhappen at high altitude.
Um, we've got leg confirmationissues.
Traits are linked.
We have to start looking atwhat's the optimal.

Right.
Exactly.
So science and technology isstarting to mimic mother nature
in this collective way throughtechnology and started to think
through, you know, a hundred,you know, 200 year old
practices.
Um, just the way mother naturedesigned them to be are the best
way to ranch and preserve aheritage format when it comes to

(35:27):
ranching, but also thetechnology is starting to kind
of lead the way when it comes toidentifying what the problems
are and how to plan for thefuture.
Yeah.
Which is absolutely fascinating.
It's fascinating.
So like, so where we were 50years ago in the beef world is
not where we are today.
And I think that's so incrediblyinteresting.
So we're producing literally thehighest, purest form of protein.

(35:48):
Three ounces of, of protein, uh,produces 27 grams of, you know,
three ounces of, of protein.
of lean beef produces 27 gramsof protein, and you just can't
get that connection anywhereelse.
It's good for your mind.
It's good for your body.
And then the way that we'reranching this, uh, and, and
developing better practices, um,the beef industry is only
getting more interesting, onlygetting better all the time.

(36:08):
And, and, and now it comes fullcircle.
Um, so Harris, um, if Dr.
Grandin is developing, isdevoting her time to making sure
the industry is changing for thebetter.
to ensure humane treatment foranimals.
And Matt is living that on thedaily boots on the ground.
You're really the last piece ofthe puzzle.
Making sure that, uh, the bestbeef, uh, possible gets to the

(36:30):
processing plants and then intothe hands of the chefs.
What are the things that youlook for when working with
farmers and processingfacilities to make sure that
these are being done at thehighest standards?

Harris Heckelman (36:41):
Yeah, uh, Can you hear me?
Yeah.
So, uh, I mean, for us, it's allabout finding the small niche,
uh, processing facilities,right?
So, for us, uh, there are small,small ones in South Dakota,
Greater Omaha, Greater Omaha,and Omaha, Nebraska, and that's
really where we focus to grabthe product from, right?
Because the small, the smallpackers that are doing a

(37:03):
thousand, Head a day compared to5, 000 head a day.
They've got more time to runthose, run through those
animals, the overall care of theproduct, and ultimately it's for
what, what you want in yourrestaurant.
Right.
So, you know, what we've learnedis those smaller producers, you
know, that are, that are dealingwith small family farmers and
ranchers.
Ultimately, um, they're, they'rewithin a couple of hundred

(37:23):
miles, so there's less stress onthe animal and it produces a
higher quality product.
Cause you know, we have, we haveyou and Miller Lux.
We've got, we've got chef Samirat Nick and Sam's in Dallas.
We've got Mark Stern atShanahan's.
They want the highest qualityproduct every single day in
their, in their And

so your family has been in the meat business
for the last 30 years.
Can you talk a little bit aboutsome of the changes, uh, from
then and to now?
And what are the standardpractices that weren't even on
the radar then?

So the overall quality of beef is better,
right?
So when, when, when my familygot into the business third, I
mean, 50 years ago, but thenreally last 30 years, you saw a
shift of, uh, You know, USDAprime.
So when I first started in 2007,the USDA prime grade was about
2%.
And when you get into thesummertime, it could be less
than 1%.
Now, just last week, we're,we're almost 10%, which is

(38:13):
incredible.
That comes down to everythingthat Dr.
Temple Grandin has done, Mattand all the other.
family ranchers that the overallquality of beef is just better.
And, uh, that's, I think hasbeen the major shift is that
you've got a lot more betterquality coming into the, into
our facility, which lets us beable to sell better quality to
your restaurants and restaurantsacross the country.

And, and we just want to mention about the animal
welfare to keep the standardshigh on animal handling, you
have to keep measuring it.
It's just like traffic out onthe highway.
The police weren't out therewith the speed cameras and the
breathalyzers.
You'd have a drunken racetrackout there.
You have to keep measuring it.
Otherwise, you can slip intosome bad practices and you don't

(38:57):
realize it.
So the big companies have gotauditing programs.
There are now third partyprofessional auditor companies
that do a welfare audit alongwith food safety audit.
And there's been hugeimprovements in that over the
years.
And then they, um, Because thenthe plant does internal audits,
you know, compared to 20 yearsago, they're light years ahead,

(39:18):
but you always have to keepmonitoring to keep standardized
just like traffic.

I think one thing that we recognized after we
started doing those auditsthrough the last two or three
decades, as we improved ourhandling and as we improved the
docility and disposition ofthese cattle, it wasn't just the
right thing to do for animalcare.
It actually produced cattle thatwere grading prime and gaining

(39:45):
better because quiet, calmcattle that have been, had been
handled correctly by cowboyslike us also do better in the
feed yard, also do better at thepacking plant.
And guess what?
They make everybody a little bitmore money in the, in the way.
So it's a win win situation whenyou handle those and those are
going through facilities likethat.

Genetic selection for temperament.
My very first graduate studentback in the early 90s did the
very first study on temperamentof cattle and weight gain.
And basic hypothesis was verysimple.
cattle that go crazy and jumparound and squeeze you when you
handle them, have lower weightgain.
That was radical stuff over 25years ago.
Now it's common and accepted.

Uh, okay.
So, um, the, the modernpractices, uh, are getting
better in the United States andthey're also getting better, uh,
Around the world, uh, at Millerand Lux, we love Japanese A5
Wagyu.
We're also getting somefantastic steaks out of, out of
Australia.
Um, Harris, is there anythingthat's happening overseas in the
cattle industry that Americanranchers can learn and benefit
from?

Um, I think the, the, the, the pure
difference is the land, right?
So I was in Australia two yearsago, uh, with, with our partner
who we do a lot of businesswith.
And, uh, The sheer landmass.
So I've never been to Australiain my life.
I go, I find out that Australiais the same landmass of the
United States, right?
But when you think about thepopulation, it's just such a big
difference.

(41:06):
And this company owns 1 percentof the landmass.
It's 17 million acres.
And we flew on a plane to andthen five hours to this little
place called Brunette Downs.
And there was about 150, 000animals on, it was basically the
size of Rhode Island.

You got more land in Australia that can only
be grazed than you have in theUS.
I've been out to the heart ofthe outback.
You take, go up to Darwin in themiddle of Australia, go two
hours South.
On a small airplane and I lookout over that and I go grazing
is the only thing you can dowith that land,

especially with the, with the wildfires too.
Right.
And Australia,

it's a bigger, a bland mass that can only be
grazed than the U S has got.

Yeah, no, it's, it was unbelievable.
It was unbelievable.
See, like we would drive forfive miles and see two animals,
four animals, six, I mean, likeone single digit numbers.
And, but they had 150, 000, it'sjust so much land.
And then, you know, we weretalking about earlier about in
our conversation earlier abouthow you have to move, how you
move.
Move cattle, right?
So that you, so the land'sperfect and what they've, in all

(42:06):
that land, they still havefigured out with the troughs to
be able to move them on thewater to ensure that they got
what they need and, and theycontinue to graze.
So I, I would just say the pureland mass is what's different
between Australia to, to the US

and doctor.
Uh, we were talking aboutranching specifically in
Colorado, that some of the landis only only accessible for
ranching.
You can't really grow anything.
Well,

you take Eastern Colorado.
Okay, if you go into the Denverairport and then you get on I
70s, you go out maybe 75 or 100miles, the houses stop, as of
the commuting, and then you getinto another 100 miles of planes
that can only be grazed.
There's not enough water in theground.
There's not enough rain.
They tried to grow corn on itlast fall.

(42:50):
It was this high at harvest.
Little useless corn.
I drove by that just, you know,a few months ago.
Saddle of corn.
Yep.
No, you can graze that land andthat's about all you can do with
it.
Another thing we've got to becareful about is cow size.
Okay, the animal you may want inthe meat locker, that great big

(43:12):
gigantic steer, has a giganticsister that doesn't do very well
on, uh, on sparse grazing landin the winter time when you got
to feed her.
You need a much, you need a moremoderate sized cow on some of
this land.

Um, and so I'd like to address some of the
issues that feel like commonknowledge that people talk
about, um, with a level, levelof detail that I think is kind
of interesting, even likedefining, you know, You know,
what we consider what, whatbetter beef really is even like
50, 20, and even 10 years ago towhere we are now, beef standards

(43:48):
have never been higher.
New generations of ranchers areusing efficiencies that result
are resulting in, in better andfewer animals, right?
So we're actually, there's lesscarbon emissions.
We're, we're raising.
Producing more beef by usingfewer animals and producing less
carbon emissions through thatprocess, which I think is

(44:10):
absolutely fascinating.
As

you took your marketing at a younger age,
you're getting an animal as atwo year old rather than a three
year old.
Now that's really, really a goodthing.
But again, don't overdo it.

And greenhouse gas emissions, um, uh, from beef
production in the United Statesare decreasing.
Uh, compared to 50 years ago,we're now producing 20 percent
more meat by using, uh, 50, 15percent fewer cattle.
And U.
S.
beef's carbon footprint is, anddepending on where you're
looking, either 10 to 50 timesmore.
lower than other regions in theworld, uh, due to improved

(44:42):
practices, uh, and scientificand vet and advancements, um,
from better cattle genetics andalso better nutrition.
Can you guys talk aboutnutrition for a little bit?

Well, nutrition in different stages of that
animal's life is going to bedifferent.
Most of the time, evenconventional cattle that are fed
at a feed yard where they'reeating a little bit.
Better feed ration and a littlebit higher plane of nutrition
than they would if they werejust grazing grass out there.
Most of those cattle arespending the bulk of their time

(45:13):
eating what Mother Nature putthere.
Those grazing lands, whether itbe in eastern Colorado or
throughout Kansas or whereverthe case may be, that's what
they're doing until they'reEight to 12 or 13 months of age.
And then for the last little bitis when they actually get the
really good nutrition.
And that's what gives that primemarbling and that certified
Angus B flavor is feeding them alittle better diet than they can

(45:38):
find even out there on their ownin the, in the, uh, grazing
lands.

Some statistics in here.
Of course, one of that betterfeeds corn for a big part of it.
We're putting about 44 percentof our corn crop right now into
ethanol and about an equalamount into animal feed.
Now that's also includes pigs,which would be a very big part
of that.
And only about 10 percent intothings like Fritos and, and

(46:02):
corn, corn tortillas and cornchips.
But you take the whole biofuelthing, that's only sustainable
up to a point.
And then it gets unsustainablewhen you start exporting
ethanol.
That's no longer sustainable.

There's your optimum again, exactly.

And then of that 40 other 44 percent goes to
animal feed.
They haven't split it off intowhat's cattle feed pig feed.
The pig feeds probably a greaterpercentage.

I think, I think it's close to 50, 50 close to

50 video.
Okay.
But the ethanol then would bethe biggest thing.
If you were to split the pigsand the cattle

apart.
And when it comes to cattlefinishing and, and from a chef's
perspective, that's where you'regoing to get the intramuscular
fat development.
You're going to get themarbling, you're going to get
the flavor.
Let's talk about that finishingprocess when it goes from a
grass fed animal into a grainfed practice.
What are some of theadvancements in that last stage
of the, of the process?

Well, there've been a lot of them and I think
we've learned as we go.
I mean, that's one thing aboutfarmers and ranchers.
Uh, we, we have to, Adapt andflow and and and be ready to
make changes as we see changesin consumer demand and what it
is you all want in terms ofproduct as we see changes in
climate and and market dynamicsand things like that.

(47:19):
And one of those changes thatwe've seen is that that U.
S.
Grain fed beef flavor.
Is what people want, not just inthe U S but worldwide.
That's why you grain fed us beefis so valuable.
And so, yeah, we have figuredout ways to adapt that animal
and we'd have to do it slowlyand gradually as they come from

(47:40):
drinking mother's milk as a calfand eating a little bit of grass
off of the, the grazing lands,and then move into that.
Like I said, getting the gooddiet in a, in a feed yard for a
brief time.
Um, we start them on a slowtransition of that from the
ranch through what we callstalker operations until we get
to that, that pasture generallyare, or they're mimicking

(48:04):
pasture through a ground haylageand things like that.
And, and there are.
All kinds of technologies.
In fact, I was just talkingabout this with a veterinarian
and new technologies where wecan use natural yeast cultures
to put into as a feed additiveinto that animal's diet, to
allow them to make thattransition even better and even

(48:25):
easier.
I mean, even, even gut health,you can't listen to a podcast
anymore today without hearingsome kind of gut health that.
Humans can use to do a betterjob of, of digesting things and,
and keeping, making sure thatour immune system and everything
else is right.
We do the same thing withcattle, and those are
technologies that again, we havedeveloped.

(48:48):
Why?
Because we need to be able tomake that animal healthy.
Never have a bad day.
That is the goal of everyrancher, every feed yard, every
even processing facility.
If that animal is having a goodday, every day of its life, then
it is going to be moreproductive and produce better
beef for Allen brothers andanybody else that's buying it.

And it, Oh yeah, we're, it's, it's a 1215.
So if anybody wants to stand upin line, uh, for our Q and a
session, fantastic.
Love this.
Um, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll takeQ and a, uh, for the last like
15 minutes of this.
Are you guys having a good time?
This is fascinating, right?
It's, it's amazing.
Um, I, I, I love beef.
I love, uh, um, uh, it'ssteakhouse restaurants.

(49:30):
It's always been my absolutefavorite genre.
And once we start diving intothe process of where we are
today, um, when I, when I builtMiller and Lux restaurant in San
Francisco, I really taken thelast three years of my life and.
begin to educate myself on theprocess of raising cattle,
making really great connectionswith not only the distribution
companies, but the ranchers andthe science side behind this to,
to really kind of feel likethere's a whole new world and a

(49:52):
whole new generation of ranchersthat I can, I think are making a
big difference in this.
And it's just not as bad for theenvironment or even as bad for
you as once previously thought.
And I think this is the world ofbetter beef.
I think it's great.
I'm happy to take questions ifanybody's ready.
How are you?
Hi, if I haven't forgotten myquestion.
Yeah, go ahead.
Hi, I'm Sue Beckwith.

(50:13):
I work for the Texas Center forLocal Food.
We work on helping farmersdevelop and ranchers develop new
markets for their products.
And my question is about 100percent grass fed.
I hear a lot of changes andpositive changes around the
humane treatment of cattle.
And yet, I'm also hearing thatwe have to feed them in a way to

(50:34):
feed them out because theconsumer's demanding corn fed,
which is typically GMO corn fedcorn, grain, and we have to help
them adjust to that becausethey're not meant to eat it,
right?
I mean, to my understanding,they're Uh, the way that

(50:54):
ruminants work is if you, if youhave to gradually switch them to
this diet that's not, they'renot meant to eat so they don't
get sick.
So that doesn't turn intowhiskey in their belly.
And so I'm just confused aboutwhy we haven't focused on the
humane treatment of an animal.
In the, in this feed outprocess, you know, I get it that

(51:16):
we're trying to have them notget belly aches, but what's the
demand for 100 percent grassfed?
Why can't we plant sweetergrasses and feed them out, for
example, on sweet alfalfa fortheir last 30, 60 days?
I'm, Just curious about thatwhole situation.

Well, of course, alfalfa is a gigantic water pig
too.
Yeah.

And, and corn actually is a grass, believe it
or not.
It is a much sweeter grass thanwhat I have in my native
pastures.
Um, but we have to remember thatthat is food that cattle like to
eat as well.
Um, does it.
Get processed a littledifferently than what a forage

(51:58):
without that big seed, which isthe corn or the corn grain that
we feed them.
Uh, yeah, it is, but it's notinsurmountable.
The question about why are wedoing this?
Because consumers, um, wantgrass fed beef as well.
There are a, there is a lot ofdiversity.
In our consuming public and whatit is that they want.

(52:20):
And we have products within thebeef industry that will meet
nearly all of those demands.
There is grass fed.
There is a forage developed.
I mean, there's all thesedifferent names that we'll let
them.
The consumer decide what is itthat I like and what is it that
I want to buy and what can Iafford to buy.
And that's one thing we have toremember as we talk about trying

(52:44):
to produce better beef andenough better beef that
everybody gets what they canafford and what they can buy.
If we go to 100 percent grassfed beef.
We immediately dropped theproduction of what we can afford
to graze and what we can grazeperiod because of urban sprawl

(53:06):
and fewer acres in grasslandsand things like this.
Um, Allen Brothers quantity thatthey get to sell will drop and I
don't know if it's a half, ifit's 80%, how much, but, uh,
without, uh, These modern, uh,abilities to harvest a forage,
harvest a grain, a concentrate,and feed those cattle for the

(53:28):
last hundred and some days oftheir life, uh, we don't make as
much beef.
And we certainly don't makecertified Angus beef in prime.
So, I, I think the take home is,if there's demand for, and there
is demand for grass fed beef.
And 100 percent grass fed.
And 100%.
Not just a single gra blade ofgrass when they were a little
bit bigger.
Right,

(53:48):
right.
We can make that, um, but itwill be more expensive and it'll
definitely have a differentflavor profile.

Yeah, I mean, we have partners that are 100
percent grass fed beef, um, andwe do business with them.
The big challenge is the sizing,right?
So, when you go to a restaurant,You know, even if you feed them
on grass, you know, you stillwant that steak to look on the
plate.
You don't want to be paper thin.
So the people that want grassfed beef, we have it.
It's a great piece of business,but a lot of restauranteurs

(54:15):
might be using one steak toMatt's point.
It's about the consumer demand.
So we definitely have it.
And we're And we love grass fedbeef as well.
We love all of our children.

And for sure, I think there's a lot of people
that from an ethicalenvironmental standpoint really
make a decision on grass fedbeef from a commercially
competitive standpoint ofserving that in a restaurant.
I remember when we opened upWayfair Tavern, one of our
restaurants in San Francisco, in2010.
I was committed to fullyCalifornia.

(54:48):
California grass fed beef, andwe just got the steaks sent back
every single day.
Uh, and so it was just kind ofone of those things.
So then we started to kind ofdevelop, like, new processes of,
of, like, new partnerships.
And also the, the, the, the feedhas started to evolve in a way.
Um, it's not 100 percent corn,it's corn mixed with other
things like barley.
which has a lower glycemicindex, um, so it's healthier for

(55:09):
the cows, produces lessadmissions and also produces a
really fabulous mushroom flavormarbling, which I think is
really great.
So I think there's a lot ofadvancements and techniques in
that.
And I think ultimately the, youknow, the, the, the consumer
decides kind of like what theold ultimate output is, but
there's lots of choices outthere, which, which is, I

think another thing is on the grain feeding.
You've still got to feed themsome roughages.
You've still got to feed themsome hay mixed in with that.
And hay, maybe with fiber thatlong, not ground up like pig
feed.
And they're not pigs.
So they shouldn't be fed 100percent corn.
Some people have done that.
I think that's totally bad.

(55:46):
You've got to put some roughagein that feed and then that helps
their digestion.

Thank you for that.
Thank you for that question.
I appreciate it.
Thanks.
Thanks.
All
right.
Mine dovetails a little bit intowhat what she was asking because
there really isn't scalabilitywith grass fed or at least the
scale that we're needing.
The same goes with regenerative.
Uh, but it seems like this isthe next Buzzword in the

(56:11):
industry CPG clinging onto it.
I just I'd like to hear from youWhat would you think the
definition of regenerative trulymeans in what we as the industry
really should?
Understand it to be because Iknow there's a lot of governing
bodies that are auditing thislay in the market What is it?
Regenerative, certified,organic, regenified.

(56:34):
It seems like there's thesegoverning bodies that are coming
out to say that, Hey, we'regoing to dictate what this truly
means, but I'm hearing termslike this is regeneratively
packaged or just, you know,regeneratively made, uh, and it
just becomes this greenwashing.
Exactly.
That's what I was going to say.

That, that's the, that's the term is greenwashing
and, um, you know,sustainability was the First
buzzword that I heard 15 yearsago, and that got hijacked.
And now I don't think we couldanybody in here agree.
What does sustainability reallymean?
Uh, regenerative is, is asimilar term.
And to me, and you asked what itmeans to me, to me, it is

(57:16):
working in concert with mothernature.
And the resources that we have,natural resources, land, grass,
water, cattle, or whatever thecase may be, people, um, and
making sure that those are ableto generate themselves again,
regenerate for eternity and forperpetuity.

(57:38):
That doesn't necessarily mean westand back and do nothing and
let it all go.
All go back to the way it wasbefore any humans got to see it,
but it also doesn't mean theother extreme.
And that is run this land intothe ground just to make a profit
the next two or three years.
And so I think we can do that.
I think we can do that.
Um, with What we know today andthe knowledge and wisdom that

(58:01):
we've gained through the yearsand keeping our eyes open to
seeing how we can do it evenbetter in the future.
And, and to me, that's a, that'sa part of what we call
sustainability or regenerativeagriculture.
That is taking the land as wefound it and leaving it to our
next generation and even bettershape.
That's regenerative to me.
And I think we can do that witha concert of whether it be grain

(58:25):
finishing and grass fed.
I don't think it has to just beone or the other.

Thank you for that question.
That's great.
Thank you.
Hey

audience member 2 (58:33):
everyone.
Awesome panel.
Super insightful.
Um, Uh, I'm a digital marketerand communications guy.
Um, to speak to the reversingthe narrative, I'm super curious
as to, you know, what do you,how, not everyone can be in this
room right now, like hearingthis interesting stuff and like,
Changing minds.
How do you think we're gonnabetter tell this story and
actually, like, reverse thenarrative in terms of, like,

(58:55):
marketing or or storytelling orand where do you like brands
and, uh, and, um, or, you know,NGOs, what role can they play in
that?
I'm super, super curious.

Um, from my perspective, this is one of the
most fascinating parts of myjourney as a chef and being a
restaurateur is educating myselfin the last three and a half
years opening restaurants,specifically in the beef and the
steak space about howfascinating the story is, right?
I mean, on so many levels, uh,the, the, the small American

(59:27):
family farm.
First and foremost, and howimportant that is to keep that
heritage alive, the, the, thetechnology, because I, I, I love
animals, I really do, I, but,and, and so I also understand
the, the nutritional sustenancepurpose of, of what they provide
as well.
And I, and I've seen, I've seenthe life cycle, seen the full
life cycle.
And, and I, I think it'simportant to start telling these

(59:49):
stories on, on a really kind ofbeautiful, almost poetic level
that, that, um, that, that, youknow, has a common value with a
lot of people in America.
Right.
So I think if it doesn't reallymatter kind of where you stand
in the world, I think everybodywants other people to succeed.
And I think other, otherfamilies to thrive and, you
know, And we all love ourchildren the same way and kind
of what we do to support, uh,uh, the, you know, feeding this

(01:00:11):
large diverse nation.
And obviously beef is a big partof that.
Uh, and so I, I think it'samazing.
I think it starts here.
It starts here.
It starts having a really greatconversation like this.
Developing, uh, you know, reallygreat, um, fabulous panelists
like we have today.
And then take this out ontoother areas like the, uh, you
know, Aspen ideas summit and,and, uh, you know, take this to

(01:00:32):
Ted, Ted talks or whatever itis.
So we can really start to kindof push the, change the
narrative that, that beef is notthe same industry.
It was 10 years ago, 20 yearsago, certainly not 50 years ago.
And, and we're in a wholedifferent world now.
I think it starts now with agreat questions like yourself.
And whoever you're blogging to,this is where it's going to go.

Matt Perrier (01:00:51):
Yeah, I think it's, it's great that you're
even asking that question of usbecause until the last, I'm
going to say 10 years, 15 years,ranchers like myself didn't
realize that there was anarrative.
We, we, we didn't know we neededto reverse anything because we
thought everybody knew what wedid.
And we made that assumption andpeople who didn't, necessarily

(01:01:15):
want us to continue being in thebusiness that we're in of trying
to use ruminants to harvest thisvast wasteland that I live in
and turn it into somethingmeaningful and good for you.
Um, they told a differentnarrative.
We weren't where we needed tobe.
We weren't here at South bySouthwest 15 years ago to

(01:01:35):
realize that there was anarrative different than the
truth.
And so I'd ask the question backto you.
How can we tell that storybetter?
Because there aren't very many.
My wife, Amy back here spendscountless hours on, uh, social
media and things made up ofvolunteer ranchers and ranch
wives to try to tell that story.

(01:01:57):
But most of the time we'refeeding the cows.
We're caring for the cows.
We're caring for the land.
We're not good at this stuff.
We're not in Austin and we'renot in San Francisco and the
places that ranchers probablyneed to be to tell that
narrative.
So however you all can help us.
We're all ears.
Fantastic.
Thank you.

audience member 1 (01:02:17):
Um, so you guys have spent a lot of time
just talking about kind of yourideal visions for what the right
way to do farming is the rightway to have well raised beef and
things like that.
Um, you know, but I get thesense that it's not the
mainstream today.
If you were to kind of go 25 30years out and say this way of
farming has become themainstream, the 95 percent of
how we all Do beef in America,what would have to be true from

(01:02:41):
consumer demand and economics toshift in order to enable you
guys to be able to do that?

Well, first of all, I am pretty mainstream,
believe it or not.
Um, what we are told, let thehat fool you.
Yeah, well, this is mainstreamand it's, it's, it's one of many
tools that farmers and ranchersuse that have been time tested
through the generations.
I mean, I guess the hat looksgreat, but the hat has a
purpose.

(01:03:08):
Um, just like the rationbalancing and the management
that we do every day has apurpose and, and yeah, the
things that we're talking about.
Caring for the cattle correctly.
Making sure that the landregenerates itself and is
productive as it can be, notjust this year, but in 10 years,

Temple Grandin (01:03:27):
I want to bring a lot of people

doing it is

the amount of grazing land.
We have is not going to getless.
If anything, it's going to getmore because we're depleting
aquifers right now.
They've got land in Colorado.
They're probably going to takeout of farming.
What are you going to do withit?
Graze it.
The grazing land is not going togo away.
And we need to be good stewardsof it, improve the soil health.
That can be measured.
I like measurements.
We can measure soil health.

(01:03:51):
And it takes three to five yearsif the pasture has been
overgrazed and ruined to reallystart to see it.
The grazing land is not goingaway.
And we need to be raising foodoff of that land in a
responsible, sustainable way.
I'm going to try to avoid thebuzzwords because if anything,
50 years in the future, there'llbe more grazing land, not less

(01:04:14):
because we're using up ouraquifers or draining our
aquifers.

Tyler Florence (01:04:17):
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
And I think we got time.
And maybe

we'll have to pipe some water from, use the
oil field equipment, pipe somewater from California.
I

love that.
I think we have time for onelast question.
I just got the five, five minuteheads up.
So we'll see if we, maybe if wecan make it short, maybe we get
to.
Okay.
Yeah.
You guys are all leaders.
Thank you so, so much.
I really appreciated this.
I'm Angela Thayer.
I'm a physician from Seattle,Washington.
So what I see in patients is,um, A lot of them, you know,
shun, no, no red meat.

(01:04:44):
That's like been cut out oftheir diet completely.
They're only eating chicken anda lot of chicken.
Like, and I'm like, I don't knowthat that's better.
You know, um, what I heard fromyou on some of the earlier
questions, I'm obviously reallyvested in individual health,
health of my patients, health ofhumanity.
Um, and I know that raising morehumane cattle is going to lead
to a higher quality with morenutrients.

(01:05:06):
People need the protein.
What I heard from Tyler is thatthe grass fed.
100 percent you can't make ittaste good, right?
Can you make, I mean, cause thatwould be, even though you, it
would be way more expensive, itwould be maybe better for health
is what I've read.
If you could do grass the wholeway, but if you can't make it
taste good, it's not going tohave a consumer appeal.

(01:05:28):
I think it does to a certain, to a certain group
of folks, right?
I, there's definitely likereally amazing ranchers
specifically in NorthernCalifornia that are dedicated to
raising, you know, grass.
100 percent grass fed beef andit is super nutritious, lean
beef.
And, and, and I, I, I get it.
And, and yes, I, I can totallymake that delicious.
Is it, is it, of course I could,of course I could, but I can

(01:05:51):
cook on a car hood.
Yeah.
I can do anything that tastesgood, but, but is, but is it, is
it the, the, the, is thedifference between this being
delicious?
And it being sort ofcommercially competitive and
sort of the beef space, it'ssort of two different things.
Like, like I could totallyconsume like grass with beef at
home and have that sort ofhealth perspective.
But if you're going to come to arestaurant expecting that and

(01:06:12):
you cut into it and you, it hasa sort of a, you know, like it's
a very chewy.
You know, uh, it's, it's, it's,uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, wet, right?
There's like different thingsthat kind of come along with
grass fed beef that aren't thesame thing as well marbled dry
age, you know, like, likeexquisite beef.
So I think there's room foreverything, um, specifically
from a health perspective.

(01:06:33):
Um, and I, I, I think even justthe people having the
understanding of, cause I, I'm ahunter.
Right.
So I have, I have a deer fullof, uh, I have a freezer full
of, you know, uh, venison and,and like, so an elk is like
really super lean as well.
And very, very nutritious andreally good for you.
And those are the things that Iwould consume at home.
Yeah.
Right.
And I wouldn't necessarily, butI don't know if I could serve
that in a restaurant.
It just wouldn't, I don't thinkpeople would, they would buy it

(01:06:54):
cause it would sound reallyinteresting on a menu and then
they would, they wouldn't loveit.
They
wouldn't
love it.
So just one more quick questionthen tailing on that is if
you're going to give advice forgeneral consumers going into a
grocery store, How could aconsumer look for packaging?
What package would tell mypatient, my school teacher,

(01:07:14):
who's going in that this isbetter beef, like what's she
going to look for on the packagelabeling

certified Angus beef.
I mean, how does it, it's all usproduced and it's regenerative.
I mean, what are these like toknow it's been handled all these
best practices?
Yeah, there are a lot of choices and it depends on
the region and where you do yourshopping and what choices you
have in.
Small town Eureka, Kansas,population 2, 100 people.

(01:07:41):
You have one choice.
It's on a white tray with acellophane wrap around it and
buy it.
Um, but I think, do your, doyour research and ask trusted
sources.
From a humane handlingstandpoint, and I think Dr.
Grandin would agree with me,nearly every Every ounce of beef
that you're going to buy,regardless of whose brand is on

(01:08:01):
it, regardless of choice orprime or certified Angus beef or
what branded beef program you'rebuying, it has been handled in
the absolute best interest ofthat animal the entire time.
And the reason for that is,number one, We want these cattle
to, again, I just said itbefore, we want these cattle to

(01:08:23):
be as content and quiet and calmand safe and well cared for as
possible because that's how weget paid as a business.
It's also why I'm a sixthgeneration rancher because
that's my life is to take careof that cow.
And so that she raises that calfand he goes on and does his job

(01:08:44):
as well.
And so, yeah, from the, from thehandling standpoint and humane
standpoint, that product is allbasically the same.
Couldn't I say that Dr.
Grandin?
Pretty much so,

especially the larger plants.
And you're talking about Omahabeef.
You know, I'd call that a mediumsized plant.
That's all in the same kind ofsystem.
Creekstone to be anotherexample.
Um, you know, the Creekstone, Idesigned their system.
They, they, thing is you got tohave the management to go with
it.
But the USDA is also doing awhole bunch more oversight.

(01:09:15):
Now, when it comes to littlesmall local processors, you
know, for maybe the rancher thatwants to just sell beef, uh,
there's a real need for moredecent, real small processors,
you know, that might be doing 10head a week or 20 head a week.
Very, very small processors.
And I found the ones that stillleft there, some are really

(01:09:37):
nice, some are not so nice.
And you also have stateinspected on the very small.
I'm not talking about a thousandcattle a day, I'm talking about
ten cattle a day.
Very, very

small.
Which might be the wave of thefuture, actually.
Like, almost likemicroprocessing facilities to
produce real small farm animals,right?
So, for example, we have asteakhouse, Miller Lux, at the
Four Seasons Koala in Hawaii,and we're in conversations with
the hotel owners aboutdeveloping and, and, uh, opening
a USDA processing facility inthe state of Hawaii, right?

(01:10:08):
Where we can actually start toprocess that beef there on
property and create a whole newthing that's like actually
macadamia nut finished beef,which I think that sounds really
delicious to me.
So, uh, so guys, that's our timetoday.
Will you please put a warm roundof applause together for our
panelists, Dr.
Temple Grandin...

Microphone (Yeti Stereo (01:10:25):
thanks again for listening to
practically ranching brought toyou by Dalebanks Angus.
We are essentially sold out ofour private treaty bulls and
females offered this spring.
We appreciate all the calls andinterest.
Be sure to put Saturday,November 23rd on your calendar.
This will be our annual bullsale held here at the ranch

(01:10:47):
Northwest of Eureka.
The Saturday beforeThanksgiving.
And if you're ever through theFlint Hills, give us a call.
We'd love to host you.
Thanks again for listening.
God bless.
We'll be back again in twoweeks.

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#57 - SXSW, Better Beef

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