Direct-to-consumer beef

Producers pivot to meet demand of hungry consumers while grappling with production and delivery dilemmas

by CCA Director of Communications Katie Roberti

In the May 2020 issue of the California Cattleman, a few CCA members who sell meat directly to consumers shared how they expected COVID-19 could impact the way consumers purchase food. At the time of publication, the United States was only a few weeks into the coronavirus pandemic. While the initial surge of food piling and empty grocery isles had passed, many questions remained about how the pandemic might change the country’s food supply chain and consumers’ buying habits.

“‘I’ve talked to several people who have invested in second freezers,” Julie Morris of Morris Grassfed Beef, San Juan Bautista said this time last year. The May 2020 story continued on to say, “A holdback for many consumers when it comes to buying a quarter or half a cow is a limited amount of storage space for meat. If people are buying second freezers, that may be an indication that people are changing their buying habits,” Morris said.

A year later, ranchers are continuing to pivot to understand how the pandemic is changing the way some consumers purchase food and explore new options for selling directly to consumers.

Freezer space, as Morris suggested last May, did continue to expand for some of her customers in 2020. As Morris Grassfed Beef focuses on selling quarters of beef, having a large amount of freezer space is necessary for their customers. But with real estate trends showing people moving out of cities or further away from downtown areas, freezers are something more consumers may have made room for within the last year.

“That is something we will have to wait and see if it holds,” Morris said. “I do know that sales of single-family homes have shot up, and that means that people have more space…and it’s easier to buy more stuff.”

After ordering beef earlier in 2020, a backorder on freezers did cause many of Morris’s customers a delay in being able to receive their beef in the summer. Fortunately, those orders were able to be held in cold storage until Julie and her husband, Joe, could deliver them upon hearing from customers that their new freezers had arrived and were ready to welcome their beef. The supply hiccup from last year aside, consumers having more available freezer space should be good for Morris’s business.

In addition to experiencing the many firsts of living amid a pandemic, in 2020, Morris Grassfed Beef, also—for the first time in 29 years—decided to add shipping as an option for their beef to reach more consumers. Little did Morris know in January of 2020, when she set up their shipping platform and ordered a palette of boxes with lining to keep the beef frozen, that this decision would coincide with meeting consumer trends as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Morris said having made the decision to start shipping and ordering supplies before the impacts of coronavirus hit was “serendipitous,” as food and grocery delivery sales became hugely popular last year during the pandemic.

For 2021 orders, Morris Grassfed Beef will continue offering shipping based on the first year’s success. By adding shipping to their direct-to-consumer program, Morris says they have reached a different demographic of customers compared to deliveries only, which has been great for both their business and consumers.

As demand for food delivery and shipping has increased since the pandemic, prices for shipping materials have also increased. Both boxes and dry ice used for shipping went up in cost because of the high demand. Morris said dry ice costs have increased because people are shipping more food and vaccines and because it has become valuable to have a constant dry ice supply.

“These are all things you don’t necessarily think about when you plan a shipping program, but there are a lot of

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pieces that have to come together to make it successful,” Morris said. “It’s [shipping] a little bit of an extra haul on our part, but it’s worth it just to make sure that our product gets to our customers in pristine condition.”

One unexpected new market for Morris Grassfed Beef in 2020 was food preparation and meal kits. Morris said while they had dabbled a little with programs like this before, it was nice to engage in these other outlets for the first time this past year, too, including food hubs like Grubmarket in San Francisco and their local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box, “Eat with the Season.” This opportunity served as a win for both the food hubs and Morris Grassfed Beef. The food hubs were able to purchase the beef not only to resell to their customers but also to use it in food preparation—placing a value add on the products. At the same time, it offered Morris Grassfed Beef the opportunity to serve as a reliable source for those food hubs while helping move some of their supply of roasts and ground beef.

With food delivery and online grocery sales trending up in 2020, much like Morris Grassfed Beef chose the right time to start shipping, Clayton and Natalie Koopmann, Sunol, picked an ideal time to launch Koopmann Family Beef and start selling frozen beef cuts directly to consumers.

“With a profound passion for raising livestock and the western way of life, Clayton and Natalie Koopmann had a desire to reconnect their urban neighbors to the ranch and where their food is produced,” the Koopmanns share on their website. “Inspired by the idea of producing and marketing locally raised beef, Clayton and Natalie made a long time dream a reality and founded Koopmann Family Beef in 2020.”

“Right when the pandemic started, happened to be right when we were about to launch. We had just gotten our website together, we got our LLC finalized, but we didn’t have any product yet,” Natalie Koopmann said. “Although that would have been a great time to have tons of beef to sell because that’s when everything really started to take off, we just weren’t quite there yet.”

Still, the Koopmanns were met with a demand for their product right out of the gate when they were ready to start selling meat in June of 2020.

“We were a little bit behind everything, but there was still a huge demand and people were really starting to take notice of wanting to buy more locally,” Koopmann said. “Also, being that it was harder to get in the store, it still drove people to our business.”

As opposed to selling quarters of beef like Morris Grassfed, the Koopmanns run all of their orders through their website, where customers can select the frozen cuts of beef they want to purchase. From there, customers have two options for receiving their meat: shipping or picking it up at the ranch. Much like other producers have experienced, shipping beef for the Koopmanns hasn’t been ease-free.

“UPS stopped guaranteeing all shipments during COVID, and they just brought back their guarantee last week,” Koopmann said. This means any shipment lost or delayed during this time period ended in a complete loss for the seller. “We guarantee everything so that all falls back on us to replace that product if it doesn’t get there frozen.”

Fortunately, even without the shipping guarantees, they have found what it takes to make the system work. Securing supplies such as dry ice and boxes has not been an issue thus far, and the company has already shipped to 10 states other than California within the first year of business.

“I have had some customers that don’t leave their house because of the pandemic, so they were looking to source their meat online, but honestly my sales have come more so from people that want to support small business and want to buy locally and want that story behind their beef,” Koopmann said.

Using social media for advertising their products and Koopmann Family Beef’s story has been key, specifically in catering to the locals who want to go to the ranch to pick up their beef at no additional cost. Although Koopmann admits running the social media accounts and having creative content for their followers to engage with has been a lot of work, she says it’s a huge aspect of this business. Some customers even end up purchasing because of social media, as it makes them feel connected to what is happening daily on the operation and a part of the story when they pick up their beef on the ranch.

As another way to reach out to locals, this spring, the Koopmanns will also start selling their beef at farmers’ markets in the Bay Area.

While it is still not clear how COVID will change peoples’ buying habits long term, the trials of getting beef processed—an issue covered in last year’s story—remains, as both Morris and Koopmann explain. Morris says their operation is managing, but the capacity issues of not having enough butchers and USDA inspected slaughterhouses continue to be one of the biggest challenges for their directto-consumer business.

“We have our slots reserved for this year which we have been working on for months with our two main butchers. But it is still not easy,” Morris said. “We just got a call a couple of

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weeks ago from one of the butchers changing all of our dates, which we had already told our customers when they were going to get their beef, and now, we have to contact each and every customer and tell them that’s not when they’re going to get their beef.”

In 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, processing issues were on full display as the food supply chain had to adjust to the coronavirus’s impacts. The industry faced major bottlenecks, with cattle ready to be processed and nowhere to go. The combination of unpredictable beef supplies at grocery stores and a volatile cattle market last spring brought some awareness and discussion on the issue, but no real change to date.

“I feel like maybe there is a little more movement to address the processing issue,” Morris said. “I think more people are talking about it, and hopefully, we will see some collaboration on how to address that bottleneck.”

Similarly, the Koopmanns know the struggles that the business’s processing side can bring, with all of their kill dates for 2022 having already been submitted to their processor at the beginning of April 2021.

“The most difficult part with the processors are having to set your dates so early. Because we now have to have our dates set almost a year in advance, we are feeding to the date they have to be killed, as opposed to just sending them when they are actually ready,” Koopmann said.

“You may not have a steer that’s 100% ready. He may be 90%, but could use maybe another 20 to 30 days on feed, and he’s got to go because you have to send how many head you committed to six months to a year prior. That’s been the most difficult part.”

Still, like Morris Grassfed continues to do, the Koopmanns are finding a way to make it work and finding excitement in the journey of following their beef through to consumers.

“My favorite part has been starting something new and really getting to know my customers and honestly getting to know more about beef and cuts and that whole other side of the beef business that really we don’t focus on as much when we’re on the cow-calf side,” Koopmann said. “Now to be able to follow that through to the very end and to the consumer to see how they like our product, what the size of our steaks are and actually watching our cattle feed and how well they feed compared to others, for me that’s been the most exciting part.”

To keep up with their journeys of selling California beef directly to consumers and learn more about both Morris Grassfed Beef and Koopmann Family Beef, follow them on social media.

@Koopmann_Family_Beef | @MorrisGrassfed