How a small farm in Michigan won “Best Beef in the West"

written and illustrated by Derek Sample. Derek@ABPmag.com

Some weeks ago in Riverton, Wyoming, a quiet minute held in the celebrity judge’s room at the Rendezvous City Beef Roundup. Then we could hear one of the judges asking Tyler McCann, founder of this event, “Can we try cut #13 again?” The rest of the judges also piped up, discussing how they kept thinking of entry #13 and wanted more. That night, the competition's winner was a clear choice: #13 was awarded the title of “Best Beef in the West,” or as a few judges later confessed, “probably in the whole country!"

Sawmill Creek Farms. Richmond, MI

That evening, Tyler announced that the beef was a Holstein cut from Sawmill Creek Farms in Richmond, Michigan. Everybody was impressed. Tyler heard of their growing Farm to Table operation and contacted the owners, Sarah and Nick Knust, to ask if they wanted to enter his Best Beef competition. Sarah said she hadn’t ever done anything like this before but then said, “Why not?” I talked with Sarah for about an hour and discovered that she and her husband were running a small operation that’s…not so small anymore. It's snowballing in such a great way that they keep expanding to keep up with the demand. More on that in a minute…

Local rancher Tyler McCann created this event about 5 years ago, which has grown uncommonly fast while celebrating everything beef. It all started when Tyler and his wife were at a coffee roasters festival where they had one of those “aha” moments, “We looked at each other, and we’ve been drinking coffee all our lives, and we learned so much that day. So, we said, if we’re not doing this with beef, we’re stupid. So, they started it as a state-wide event, which grew to be very popular, “We need to highlight our beef producers and ultimately make sure that people are aware of how to access them.” Well, word got out, and everybody wanted in. Beef producers called Tyler from all over the country, “This is amazing, and we don’t understand how you’re doing this. We couldn’t do this in our state. Can we compete?”

The Roundup now has two “Best Beef” competitions. The first is the “Open Division,” with 21 entries from 15 states as far east as New York and New Jersey. The prize winners will be chosen by celebrity judges who are professionals and/or avid beef eaters with a significant presence in the local area. The next is the “Wyoming Division,” which, for VIP ticket holders, was the dinner during the Roundup. This consisted of ten producers from around the state entering the same cut of beef. VIP ticket holders got a one-ounce serving from the ten ranges and voted on the “Best Beef in Wyoming.” The winners of each event get a special rodeo-style belt buckle to mark their victory.

Ok, back to Sawmill Farm’s steaks and why I can’t wait to cut into the second one on my plate. I was supposed to attend this competition, but I had a bit of an accident with my truck on the way there. My sunroof blew up. It blasted up and out, with shards of glass falling all over me. So, I had no choice but to return home and call my insurance. Fun.

The following day, I contacted Sarah Knust. A quick response and a couple of rings later, we talked for almost an hour. I spent my summers in Michigan with family, so we talked briefly about that and the remainder about how they started small and have grown so much, thanks to COVID-19. “I was quite shocked about the win. I didn’t know what to do or expect from the contest. I didn’t look at the steaks I sent as they were wrapped up and ready to sell. I just took a few out of the fridge, boxed ‘em up, and sent them out to Tyler since I only had a few days to send my entries in.” She knew her beef was a great seller at her store and even had trouble keeping it in stock. But this? Wow. She didn’t think anything of it until they announced her name while she was watching the broadcast. “They kept raving about #13, and I was like, wow, that must be some beef. Lucky them. When they announced 2nd place, and it still wasn’t my name, I thought, oh well, at least I gave it a go. But then they said Sawmill Creek Farms won. I didn’t know how to react but was so excited.”

Sarah’s farm is like most others in this country. “Well, I grew up on a dairy farm, and my husband grew up farming crops with his family. We married in 2013, bought a place near the family farm, and started our operation. In 2015, when our oldest son was born, I missed the cows. So, we got a couple of dairy calves just for me to raise. It gave me something to do. Eventually, we got more cattle and sold sides, halves, and whatnot. Then, it quickly grew from there. We sold our first side of beef in 2016. Then, in 2017, we decided to put up four freezers in our garage and start selling by the pound. In 2018, we added pork, which we raised ourselves. We added piglets, raised them, and started selling those too. Our place used to be a greenhouse/produce stand, so there was already a store on the property, and we used it. We quickly grew out of our garage, remodeled the old store and moved everything out there. We only put up a few walls since we thought, oh, we don't need anything big <laughs>. Not long after that, we had to add two more freezers for a total of six to keep up with demand. Then, we started raising our chickens because people were asking for chickens. So that was in 2019 when we remodeled our store again and started raising the meat chickens. We were established before 2020, but when COVID-19 hit, we were the only farm in the area. Even the grocery stores didn't have meat, and everything else was closed. We were the only source of meat for miles.”

“This is when it all just exploded..."

"We were only open three hours a day then, but we ran 50-60 people through our store daily. Whenever we brought more in, I had to shut down our store because we ran out of meat quickly. This was when COVID-19 was getting scary around March or April, and everything was shut down. I didn't shut down, I just paused it 'cause we had no meat to sell. I would get our beef back from the processor and take more orders, and people would quickly come to pick it up. We would bring home three whole beefs worth of meat, which would be gone within three days.

WE just didn’t have the animals, but we fixed that. We got more cattle, pigs, chickens, and land to grow more crops. Then we started tearing more walls down and made the whole front of the store into our storefront. Now we have 14 chest freezers and one 8 x 16 walkin freezer in which we keep our extra meat. We commonly have 80 people through our store on a busy day, and we’re only open for four hours.

As far as the beef, we don't really do anything special. We did experiment with some recipes and eventually decided upon something that made everybody happy. I would call us the misfits of the livestock world because when we moved here, there was nothing, not a trace of any barn or animals. We’ve built this all from scratch. Take the barns; we made one our pig barn and the other our ‘green barn’ with hay and stuff. We built a lean-to and then another for our big feedlot. Then, we added a chicken barn, where we raise and sell close to 3,500 meat chickens a year. Pigs, we do 120 a year. Beef, we do about 140 a year. We send 10-12 steers to the butcher every month since that's what we go through in our store. The butcher is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive, but we go to him because he’s really good. We have about 275 head of cattle with a herd of 45 beef cattle and a 40 by 80 hoop barn in which we have calves. We have Holsteins, Charolais Jersey crosses, and Holstein Angus crosses. We have our brew cows, British whites, and Herefords. So, it's all mismatched. The key is we feed 'em all the same way. They go on grain as soon as they are able. Then they're just on a steer stuffer. We also have a 2,000-acre crop farm where we raise about 150 acres a year of non-GMO corn for our animals, grind it all ourselves, and feed it. We also have about 200 acres of wheat and 135 acres of hay. Plus, we have 900 acres of corn and 800 acres of soybeans, where we do cover crops in between. We try to be sustainable. When we plant the cover crops, it’s not just for the soil's nutrients; we harvest that cover crop and feed our brew cows. It has a lot of uses.

Everybody wants non-GMO corn and non-GMO-fed animals. We can't do organic because we can't say we're organic.”

Back to the Best Beef Rendezvous. I talked to a couple of the judges on the panel, and they were both excited to share their judging experience. First was Master Chief Petty Officer Harvey Fisher, a Navy Explosives Ordinance Operator with 22 Years of Service: “All the beef was excellent. We went back and forth with a couple of them. It was between 13 and 10, but 13 was just miles ahead of 10, so it was a pretty easy choice. That combination of smell, taste, and texture was much better. Most of us thought 13 was perfect across the board. When we found out what it was, we were surprised it was Holstein, yes, but mostly surprised that it was from Michigan. Kudos to the producer, as we were all taken back by both the breed and the location.”

Can Sawmill Creek do it again? We’ll see next year. They won by such a wide margin that it’s entirely possible. I’m sure there will be many more entries next year now that the word is out in an even bigger way. I can tell you that Sarah and Nick are some of the nicest people and are extremely surprised yet appreciative of this whole experience.

Visit their site: www.SawmillCreekFarmsLLC.com

Second place went to Burly Brothers Country Butchery in Attica, New York. Third is Goethe Farms in Bricelyn, Minnesota, and fourth is Mountain View Meats in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Best Beef in Wyoming comes from Turbiville Ranch in Sundance. Second best is Circle H Ranch in Afton and third was a tie between Jackknife from Freedom and J. Walker Land & Livestock in Gillette.

I’ll write more on the Rendezvous in a future issue since there’s much more to tell about Tyler McCann and his plans for next year. Who knows, maybe I’ll make it next time.