Fresh vs. Frozen
I hear so many people say they prefer to buy their meats from the grocery store because they’re fresh not frozen like ours. My reply is always that ours are frozen at the peak of freshness, which is 100% true, but it doesn’t always work as a sales pitch!
So, I set out to get the scoop on meats that are sold in local stores…
I’ve always been under the impression that if a “protein” you were buying had been previously frozen, it had to say so somewhere on the packaging. Then I read somewhere online, that wasn’t necessarily true. I decided to make a few phone calls.
I called a couple of local chain grocery stores (I guess that’s what we’d call them?), & they all said their meat is fresh, never frozen. Hmm… So what do I do with that? I guess the best I can do is explain the process from our side, & what I imagine the process looks like from theirs. None of the folks I spoke to could speak to more than how they handle the meat in-store, so I’m filling in the gaps with my limited knowledge.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Unless a store advertises that they have a local source for their meats, & “local” is up for interpretation, their meat is likely coming through one of the 4 main processors here in the U.S. Most of this beef is finished (brought up to their ideal processing weight) in feedlots in the Mid-West and High Plains.
The early part of these animals’ lives is 100% on pasture, nursing from their moms and then grazing with other calves. They’re weaned around 6-8 months old & separated from the cows. Once they reach about a year old, they’re transitioned to a feedlot where they are fed a high energy diet that includes grains to get them to gain weight as quickly as possible. Cattle in this situation can range from 15-22 months of age; there are lots of factors that go into when they’re finished and ready for processing.
I’m trying to be objective here, & not disparaging. I may think our way is superior, but there a lot of paradigms that need to be changed in the beef industry & American food system before there will be major change. There are a lot of reasons why this is the norm right now.
Here’s what that same process looks like on our farm. It’s not all that different until you get to the finishing part…
The beef we sell in our farm store & at the farmers markets we go to is 100% raised by us on our farm in Dudley. We take great pride in how we care for our animals and our soil. I’ve written whole blog posts about that if you want to check those out.
Right now all of our calves are born here on the farm. Just like their counterparts they nurse and graze at their momma’s sides until weaning, usually around 6 months old. We calve later in the spring than most traditional herds, so weaning in late fall still only gives us about 6 months before weaning. (We’ve tried in the past to leave the calves on the cows all winter, and liked how it worked at the time, but when we evaluated the following fall we felt like the calves may have done better if they’d been inside with better feed over the winter months.) Once weaned our calves are moved into our stocker/finisher group which is simply all of the animals that aren’t mommas. Both of our groups of cattle are moved daily (really!) to new grass during our growing season. When the grass stops growing, our momma cows are moved to their winter pasture where we bring them bales of haylage (fermented hay) every day. The stocker/finisher group comes into the barn where we feed them bales of haylage until the ground dries out & the grass starts growing and they can return to grazing. When we decide an animal is ready for processing, that they’ve grown well and are carrying enough muscle AND have enough fat they’re anywhere from 24-36 months old. It just takes that much longer without the grain.
Apparently when I get on a roll, I’m hard to stop! Stay tuned next week for part 2, where I’ll actually address the fresh or frozen question I started out with!!
Part 2When we left our finished cattle, both groups were ready for processing. I know exactly how the next part works on our side, but have to guess a little on the food system side. If I’m wrong & you know better please correct me!
When a beef animal is butchered it needs to hang for at least 10-14 days in a cooler under controlled conditions. The value of this age-old process has long been known to farmers, abattoirs, and cooks. Hanging allows naturally occurring enzymes to work on the muscle, releasing moisture and relaxing the fibers, resulting in a more tender, flavorful piece of meat. Dry aging is a more intense version of this process that some people feel yields even more tender beef, but it requires a very specific humidity and temperature controlled situation. As far as I know, this process isn’t offered at any of our local slaughterhouses at this time.
We know that our meat hangs for 14 days (more or less) every time, in the same facility that it was butchered in. I had assumed that the “western boxed beef” sold in all of our grocery-type stores went through a similar process, or that maybe the hanging took place on route to the East coast, which would explain how they could get it to the meat counter without ever freezing it. That would mean the carcasses would actually need to hang from a hook in the refrigerated carrier on its journey. After a little research though, I’m more apt to think that the meat is actually “wet aged”, which means that it is packaged right after slaughter, either as halves, primals, or individual cuts & not aged at all while it’s in transit. The real aging process results in shrink (in this case that means less saleable meat per animal), which doesn’t benefit anyone along the commercial chain except for the end consumer who enjoys a better product. If an animal can be butchered and shipped within hours, the seller has a much longer window to get that product sold before it needs to be frozen to prevent spoilage and a lot less shrink from the original size. It makes sense.
I want to say again that this is hypothesizing on my part, I’m just trying to figure out how the beef is managed without being frozen.
After hanging, our beef is immediately cut into the pieces that we’ve ordered, vacuum sealed, & blast frozen. When it’s all ready, we pick it up & bring it directly home to our walk-in where we keep it frozen until you buy it. Truly frozen at the peak of freshness!
A few years ago someone told me about research that had been done on how many times beef could be thawed & refrozen before there was any degradation in taste or nutritional profile. I’ve been able to find plenty of places that say it can be done safely, but not much info beyond that…
The original question that led me down this trail was simply is fresh meat “better” than frozen. It’s definitely a personal decision, but I hope that I’ve at least been able to shed some light on what the whole process looks like behind the scenes. And I hope you’ll agree with me that frozen is great!
