Good morning and happy Easter to you,
Less quantity but better quality seems to be the flavour of the moment when it comes to eating animal products, which makes sense for health, ethics & the environment. When it comes to better tasting beef, studies suggest the British prefer the flavour of suckler beef over dairy crosses, grass fed over grain fed and certain breeds, such as Angus, tend to come out on top.
Some countries like America, Australia & Japan actually reward their beef farmers based on the quality of meat they produce by paying more for better tasting beef. America, for example, grades its beef by three main categories - prime (the most delicious and expensive, with plenty o’ marbling), choice (good but less marbling) & select (uniform quality but leaner). The grade is judged by cutting between the 12th & 13th rib and seeing how much fat is dispersed in the meat of the ribeye, as the clearest indicator of flavour, juiciness and deliciousness is marbling.
In the UK, the supermarkets & large meat processors tend to value beef based on the carcass yield, not flavour or quality. Farmers in Britain are incentivised to produce a carcass with a high meat to fat & bone ratio, and our cattle are graded on the shape of the animal & the leanness of the muscle. As a result, the eating quality is low down on the list of priorities when breeding, and so what’s available to buy from the supermarkets tends to lack flavour.
On setting out to produce the best beef we can, we learned that 5% of all American beef is in the top rated ‘prime’ category, and impressively 38% of American beef that has been crossed with the Akaushi breed - aka red Wagyu - qualifies as ‘prime’.
Wagyu is producing more than its fair share of prime beef by quite some way.
If you’d like some for the easter weekend, pop by tomorrow from 11am. We’re serving hot dogs & Silly Moo Cider and look forward to seeing you in the sunny yard.
The line up is looking excellent, with hot food from 3Bros Burgers & SoPi Pizza, live music from Brighton folk band Sistie Moose and lots of wonderful Sussex food & drink stalls.
