History

As a ranching couple, my wife and I have been actively in the ranching business in Putnam County, Florida since 1991. Since early on, our central objective and focus was to produce the very best quality beef cattle available. Quickly we recognized that we needed to be Angus based and grew our operation on that premise. Our cows are Brangus (Angus/Brahma cross) and our bulls are all high grade, registered Angus representing some of the best EPD’s (trait indicators). The bulls are selected with a number of desired traits that are desired by our consumers such as meat tenderness, ribeye sizes and marbling. We believe our genetics are of the highest quality and some of the best available for producing quality beef. As an indicator of the quality of our beef, we have had a number of our purchasers as clients for many years. All that we produce is qualified for the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) label.

Every year we see the results of our development, load up on 18 wheelers and head west. These number one 700 lb yearlings are auctioned off nationally on the Superior Livestock Auction on RFD-TV and usually purchased by feed-lot representatives. They are typically sent to Colorado, Kansas or Oklahoma to be placed on winter wheat fields until they can be scheduled into feed-lots. They are typically “implanted” once with a growth stimulant at our ranch when they are young and implanted one or more times when they get to their western destinations. They are also typically treated with antibiotics to ward off diseases that are inherent in crowded environments which they will finish in. When they reach the proper size they will be taken off the wheat fields and placed in a high stress, crowded feed lot situations for 90-120 days during which time they are fed a corn and starch based diet to get them up to 1150 lbs quickly and efficiently. Once they achieve their desired weight, they are again loaded up and shipped to Texas where they are normally processed. In short, the meat in your local grocery case usually has approximately 3800 miles of transportation and costs on it before you get it to your table.

Debbie and I, being retired business executives understand that the above process adds costs, reduces the quality of our product and takes away from the personal enjoyment of ranching that we had intended to receive from our investment in land, processes and infrastructure. We discussed our dilemma with a number of our friends and business associates about wanting to develop a new line of distribution for what we considered to be “our superior product”. Almost everyone we talked with agreed that our product was superior to that which is typically seen and consumed. They further agreed that, if given the opportunity, we could be successful in marketing our product locally. Enough people in our geographic area (1.9 million people within a 90 mile radius) would be interested in securing the best available products for their families. Our Florida Grass Fed Beef business was conceived through discussions with out local UF-IFAS Extension Director for Putnam County. We started having discussions about how we, in the agricultural community, could share our locally produced products with the local citizenry who were searching for affordable, high quality goods and services for their families. Almost immediately we included our agricultural partners in the tri-county area (Putnam, St Johns, and Flagler) and the University of Florida - Institute of Food and Agricultural Services (UF-IFAS) who were interested in helping define and develop the Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) concept in this discussion. Soon our project was underway.

 

Just as natural as the wide open green pastures, the sun, the wind, the rain and the stars