14
June 2020
www.GlobeMiamiTimes.com
Ready to educate the public about locally raised beef. Photo courtesy of Lyman Ranches.
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Photo by Chris Coture
Getting Grass Fed in Gila County By Patti Daley
“This was the first time in many people’s lives... to enter a grocery store and see the meat freezer empty,” says Carol Ptak, co-founder of the Demand Driven Institute and co-owner of Gryphon Ranch in the Pinal mountains. Temporary shutdowns and continued slowdowns of meatpacking plants due to Covid-19 outbreaks have slowed the distribution of beef into U.S. stores and restaurants. Prices went up and concern over shortages spiked consumer purchasing, which extended the phenomenon of empty freezers and reinforced fears. “It is not a shortage,” explains Cassie Lyman of Lyman Ranches. “It’s a process problem.” Cassie and her husband Jared Lyman, a sixthgeneration rancher, raise Angus-cross cattle and four sons on the north shore of Roosevelt Lake. They graze their cattle on public land and sell it to the commercial market, where it is processed into beef and distributed to stores and restaurants. According to the Arizona Cattlegrowers Association, 85% of U.S. cattle that ends up as beef for human consumption is processed through the plants of four large corporations. The remaining 15% is handled by smaller USDA-certified packing houses. There are six of these in Arizona. Many had temporary closures due to the coronavirus concerns. Now open, there is a backlog of beef to process. For local ranchers, there is a “silver lining” to this impact on the meatpacking industry. The public has become more interested and knowledgeable about their food sources. Demand for local beef is up. Three Gila County ranchers sell Arizona grass-fed beef directly
to their communities and 150 ranchers are doing it state-wide. “We’ve sold every animal mature enough to be butchered,” Carol says. “They want to know what’s in their beef and they want to buy local.”
Local Beef Production Carol and Jim Ptak have been selling Gryphon Ranch beef directly to consumers in Gila County since 2014. Customers for their grass-fed, grass-finished, humanely raised and killed cattle come from Phoenix 70%, Tucson 20%, and Globe 10%. The Ptaks maintain
certifications to convey to consumers their methods, and run ranch tours to show them firsthand. “A customer that is educated is more likely to buy,” says Carol. According to state law, the smallest portion they can sell to a consumer is ¼ animal. Gryphon Ranch employs a mobile butcher and Carol has him booked through October. The process is long and labor intensive: two to three weeks to hang. A week to cut and wrap. With sales already 25% higher than last year; Gryphon Ranch has been partnering with some of our surrounding ranchers, who also ranch grass-fed and grass-finished, but typically sell at auction and have never sold to the consumer. ”There’s a lot of work that goes into direct sales,” Carol says. “We’ve made that investment.” Lyman Ranches also sells directly to consumers, in whole and half-beef portions, and while consumer sales are up, they are unlikely to exceed 10% of the overall business. “The U.S. Forest Service regulates how many animals you can have on your land,” Cassie explains, “and the age of those animals dictates direct sales.”
Brief History of Meatpacking Before the Civil War, beef production looked much the way it does today for direct-sell ranchers. Local farmers raised cows. Local butchers prepared the meat for local consumers. Beef production took a turn in 1881 with the introduction of the refrigerated railcar. This made it possible to ship carcasses around the country and opened national markets. International markets followed with the use of refrigerated ships; it became an industry. Like many industries in the early 1900s, the meatpacking industry was known to overwork their employees and failed to maintain adequate safety measures. The Jungle, a novel by Upton Sinclair was published in 1906, and exposed the horrors of the meatpacking industry to the public, which resulted in public pressure on the U.S. Congress to improve sanitary conditions.
Jim Ptak and the Scottish Highland cattle at the Gryphon Ranch in the Pinals. Photo courtesy of the Ptaks.
Where’s The Beef?, Continued on page 15
