June 01, 2017 0 Comments
We've got beef with American Airlines... grass-fed beef. We are honored that the airline recently selected Joyce Farms to supply beef for their signature Flagship Burger! It will be served in Flagship First Dining locations within their exclusive airport Flagship Lounges.
Here’s a look at the Flagship Burger, to get your mouth watering. It’s served on a brioche bun and topped off with onion-bacon marmalade - YUM!
A post shared by Jessica • Travel & Food (@cheatdayeats) on
The single source burger patty used for the Flagship Burger is made from a special grind of our grass-fed Heritage Beef (formerly Naked Beef), which comes from 100% grass-fed heritage Aberdeen Angus cattle that are raised with no antibiotics, no animal by-products, no added hormones or growth stimulants, and nothing artificial EVER.
Guests are raving about the Flagship Burger - some calling it the best burger they had ever tasted! We’re glad to hear that, because we put a lot of care and attention into how we raise our cattle to produce beef that’s better for you, better for the animals, and better for the planet.
Flagship First Dining Features Joyce Farms Beef!
American Airlines officially introduced Flagship First Dining on Thursday with the debut of their newly renovated Flagship Lounge at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York this month. This Lounge (one of seven new or renovated lounges they have planned across the US), is the ultimate in airport luxury. American is the first U.S. airline to offer customers a restaurant-style dining experience on the ground, and a complimentary, first-class one at that! Access to Flagship Lounges and Flagship First Dining is exclusive to First Class and Business Class customers traveling on qualifying international and transcontinental flights.
We know American Airlines looked for the best of the best for their new and improved Flagship Lounges, and we are thrilled they chose our beef as the best out there!
For more information:
May 17, 2017 0 Comments
We are excited to introduce you to the recipient of the 2017-18 Joyce Farms Poultry Science Scholarship, Lacinda Prevatt!
Lacinda is a Poultry Science B.S. student at North Carolina State University with an Associate’s Degree in Livestock and Poultry Management. She is Native American, and she has had quite a bit of hands on experience with animals already.
Lacinda is supporting herself financially through college and aspires to be a veterinarian. She hopes to travel the world to provide medical care to animals in foreign countries while educating animal owners on proper animal care. Lacinda is also passionate about food sources and educating the public regarding facts and myths about agriculture as a whole.
The Joyce Farms Poultry Science Scholarship was established in 2007 to support students pursuing careers in agricultural science at NC State University.
Each year, students from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences submit applications and essays for consideration. One outstanding applicant is selected to receive $1,000 from Joyce Farms to help fund his or her education.
Find information on how to apply for future scholarship consideration here.
April 05, 2017 0 Comments
We’re highly selective about the products we sell, so we wanted to tell you a little about why we think Batistini Farms is a great addition to our offerings.
Batistini Farms shares our mission to produce the highest quality food products by returning to artisanal, sustainable methods and using only the best ingredients. As with Joyce Farms products, the resulting flavor and eating experience will demonstrate the level of care and attention that went into producing them.
Often when people try our Poulet Rouge® chicken for the first time, they have that “wow” moment — they suddenly realize that’s how chicken should taste. After our first taste of Batistini Farms extra virgin olive oil, we had a similar reaction, and we wanted to share that with you, our customers.
Batistini Farms uses growing and processing methods that align with our philosophy of returning to traditional methods to produce the pure flavor Mother Nature intended.
Their products have no artificial ingredients, no additives, and are gluten-free. They are made with olives and grapes grown in the mineral-rich soil of Italy using natural and sustainable growing methods. As they say on their website, “Batistini Farms presents ingredients from nature combined with traditional methods passed down from generations.” Or as we like to say… “Welcome Back to Flavor®!”
Extra virgin olive oil is the highest quality of olive oil, produced using only the fruit of the olive tree using methods that do not lead to any alterations in the oil. A great deal of time and hard work go into making Batistini Farms extra virgin olive oils a cut above the rest. Olives are hand-selected, picked, and cold pressed within 24 hours of harvest. This process is no simple task when you consider that it takes 10-16 pounds of olives to produce 1 liter of extra virgin olive oil, but it’s this kind of care and attention that results in a truly exceptional product and eating experience.
Unfortunately, not all olive oils are created equal. Some producers take shortcuts and sell low-quality oils at high-quality prices. A truly authentic, high-quality extra virgin olive oil (like those from Batistini Farms) will exhibit certain qualities.
Signs of High-Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil:
Batistini Farms uses the same level of care to produce their superior line of balsamic vinegars. They use the old traditions, recipes, and expertise of families of highly skilled artisans in Modena, Italy. “Cooked Grape Must” is the most important ingredient in dark balsamic vinegar. The wine grapes for the grape must are grown in the Modena region, and every batch is handcrafted like a “masterpiece” of art, keeping the flavors of the grape must. Environmental conditions, the grapes, the recipes, the types of casks used, the tending to the casks, and the artistry of the artisans all play an important role in the outcome of the balsamic vinegar. The final product should taste pleasant, delicate, and a bit acidic, with woody notes finished by a bittersweet but balanced flavor.
We currently offer four Batistini Farms products in our store:
We invite you to try them all, and see for yourself just how delicious they are with our poultry, beef and game selections.
March 30, 2017 0 Comments
The view from Joyce Farms president and CEO Ron Joyce’s temporary office looked a lot like paradise last week. If you guessed the photo above wasn’t taken here in North Carolina, you’d be right!
Ron took a trip to Bermuda last week to visit some of our most satisfied customers, who have also become enthusiastic advocates of Joyce Farms, our products, and the old-world methods we use to produce them.
We began supplying beef to the island last year, actually by accident, when some of our beef was mistakenly shipped there. It ended up in the hands of John O’Doherty, a meat executive at Dunkley’s, one of the largest food wholesalers in Bermuda. John discovered the quality of what he had received and realized this was no mistake — this was a happy accident. He told us to keep it coming, and even sent us this outstanding review, which we still have hanging in our sales office:
As it turns out, Joyce Farms high-end products, particularly our Heritage Aberdeen Angus Beef and Heritage Poultry, continue to impress chefs, butchers, citizens and guests in Bermuda. They truly appreciate the quality and eating experience, and for a good reason — the old-world flavor. When the Bermudans taste our grass-fed beef, the taste, the smell and even the texture often remind them of their childhoods, the products they grew up with, and the quality of old-world European foods.
As the oldest British overseas territory, Bermuda has deep European ties, and the culture of the island reflects its heritage since many current inhabitants are of European descent.
Our grass-fed Heritage Beef also has ties to Europe. It’s produced exclusively from our herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, an old-world breed that we can trace back to the original old Doddie and Humble cattle that existed in Scotland in the 1700s. The Aberdeen Angus breed is noted for its ability to finish well on grass, making it an ideal breed for the production of high-quality grass-fed beef. Through our breed exclusivity and raising standards, we have successfully revived a natural, old-world flavor from the past that the citizens of Bermuda can remember. Welcome Back To Flavor® indeed!
During his trip, Ron attended a Chef Association of Bermuda Dinner that Joyce Farms co-sponsored along with Dunkley’s Bermuda and Baldor Specialty Foods. The menu for the event, which took place at the Village Pantry, featured Joyce Farms Poulet Rouge® chicken, oxtails, and braised beef short ribs as the star of the main course.
We’re thrilled that chefs and butchers in Bermuda stand behind our products, and we’re also happy to see retail popularity rise as citizens of the island discover the unmatched quality (so good it made the news last week!).
Our grass-fed Heritage Beef and Heritage Poultry products (which also deliver that old-world European flavor) are offered in several of the island’s most popular retail stores including Miles Market, The SuperMart, and Lindo’s Market.
Russell Sedgwick from Miles Market (left) and Alex Hooper from The SuperMart (right) sporting Joyce Farms aprons.
Ron Joyce with Joyce Farms Heritage Beef (formerly Naked Beef) products at Lindo's Market.
March 10, 2017 0 Comments
We all know fast food is, by its very nature, more about convenience than nutrition. But when faced with the necessity of getting fast food, you may think opting for chicken is the lesser evil. Chicken, after all, is touted as a healthier type of meat. A recent study, however, shows that even chicken can be made unhealthy when it’s subjected to fast food’s “flavorizing" techniques.
Last month a CBC Marketplace investigation did DNA testing on the meat in a variety of fast food meals containing chicken. Amazingly, none had chicken that was 100% chicken DNA, and in one case the “chicken” was found to contain only about half chicken DNA. The restaurant in question is disputing these findings, but whether it was 50% chicken or 90% chicken isn’t the point of this post. The fact that it wasn’t 100% chicken is the point.
How does chicken end up not being 100% chicken? Well, it isn’t because they mix in other types of meat. No, what brings the percentage down is all the stuff they put in for flavor. As the article linked above says, “An unadulterated piece of chicken from the store should come in at 100% chicken DNA. Seasoning, marinating or processing meat would bring that number down, so fast food samples seasoned for taste wouldn't be expected to hit that 100% target.”
In other words, 10% or more of fast food chicken is usually made up of other ingredients that are added for taste. And they do add more taste, but they also add calories and carbs and lower nutritional value. To quote the CBC article: “Marketplace's testing revealed that once the ingredients are factored in, the fast food chicken had about a quarter less protein than you would get in its home-cooked equivalent. And overall, the sodium levels were between seven and 10 times what they would be in a piece of unadulterated chicken….Nutritionist and registered dietitian Christy Brissette notes that most [added] products…are simply variants on salt or sugar, the latter of which can elevate the carbohydrate level of a chicken breast to well above where it should be: zero percent.”
Why is it necessary to add all this stuff to chicken to make it taste good and be less healthy? Because, sadly, our food is no longer developed for taste or nutrition, but for commerce (e.g. low cost, fast production, ease of shipping and storage). It has no taste, so we add more seasonings, sugar and salt. The result is chicken that’s not really chicken, whether you get it from the local fast food place or your local grocery store and add all those things yourself.
That’s why we do what we do at Joyce Farms. We set out to produce the absolute best tasting chicken possible, and we have. Our Naked Chicken is the finest all-natural domestic chicken for sale in America, with the flavor nature intended (much more flavorful than factory-farmed commodity chickens). Our heritage Poulet Rouge Fermier® chicken, meanwhile, raises the bar even higher – we believe it’s the best tasting chicken in the world.
So if you’re looking for chicken that you can cook and eat as it is, 100% chicken, not loaded down with stuff to give it some kind of taste, we have it. Don’t settle for “chicken” that’s not really chicken. The real thing is so much better!
March 08, 2017 0 Comments
This year marks Joyce Farms’ 55th anniversary, and we think that’s worth celebrating! Of course, we’ve changed and evolved a lot over the years, as all companies do, so here's a look at a few of our most significant milestones from over the years.
In 1962, our company was founded by Alvin Joyce as a small poultry wholesaler serving local “mom and pop” grocery stores.
Ron Joyce joined the business with his father in 1971.
Ten years later, Ron Joyce purchased the company.
In 1991, we opened a state-of-the-art processing and distribution facility in Clemmons, N.C., allowing for more rapid growth.
In 1995, we began producing the high-quality, branded, all-natural chickens we now call Naked Chicken, offering noticeably better culinary qualities than mass produced factory-farm chickens.
By 1998, we expanded our all-natural offerings to include All-Natural Turkey and Naked Duck.
We focused our time, attention and resources on our Heritage Poultry and game birds in 2001, and we established farms to produce them.
In 2005, we became the first company to produce an authentic Label Rouge chicken in America — our signature Poulet Rouge FermierT® chicken.
We expanded our Heritage Poultry production in 2006, to include Pintade Fermiere (French Guinea) and White Pheasant, one of the best meat pheasants in the world.
Ryan Joyce, Ron's son, joined the family business in 2008. He acts as our VP of Finance and oversees financial and legal matters for the company.
Stuart Joyce joined his father and brother when he joined the company in 2010. He is now our VP of Operations, overseeing farm operations and processing.
In 2011, we added grass-fed grass-fed beef to our line of products, and added grass-fed beef expert Dr. Allen Williams to our team to oversee its production.
In 2016, we completed an expansion to our processing plant and distribution facility, adding more storage space and a state-of-the-art hatchery that improves our capacity to incubate and hatch birds in our Heritage Poultry line.
In 2017 and beyond, we will continue to offer the finest poultry, game and beef products to chefs and consumers across America. In addition, we're working hard on an exceptional new line of pork to add to our heritage products. Stay tuned!
December 21, 2016 0 Comments
We're excited to announce that the expansion to our USDA-inspected poultry processing plant and distribution facility is complete! Last Thursday, December 15th, we held an official ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by our management team, employees, and Mayor Nick Nelson of Clemmons.
The expansion, which began over the summer, adds 10,400 square feet of space to our previously 32,350-square-foot facility. It includes a new warehouse of dry storage space for labels, packaging, and other materials, and a brand new, state-of-the-art hatchery that will greatly improve our capacity to incubate and hatch birds in our Heritage Poultry line.
The hatchery will house birds from our Heritage Poultry line — the Poulet Rouge
President and CEO of Joyce Farms, Ron Joyce stated, “Our Welcome Back to Flavor® message is resonating with more chefs and consumers as we have moved back to older breeds, old world farming methods and small scale processing. We have seen increased demand for our pasture raised, heritage products, and we’re thrilled by the response. We look forward to making Joyce Farms available to even more chefs, restaurant goers and home cooks.”
With the addition, we will retain the artisanal processes and strict quality control measures for which we are known. Birds will continue to be individually processed by hand from start to finish, allowing for precise inspection. Our plant has consistently earned a 100% score in animal welfare by a third party auditing company.
Our facility was originally constructed back in 1991, ten years after Ron purchased the company from his father. In 2002, we added a kitchen facility for research and development. The new expansion project marks our first major expansion to the building since it was constructed.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Ryan and Stuart Joyce (Ron's two sons and Joyce Farms' VP of Finance and VP of Operations respectively) officially cut the ribbon together. It marked a special moment for them, because they quite literally grew up here (as you can see below).
Pictured Left: Joyce kids at construction of the original facility in 1991 -- Ashley (left), Stuart (middle), Ryan (right).
Pictured Right: Stuart (left) and Ryan (right) cut ribbon to new expansion.
The design and construction team for the expansion includes Landmark Builders, West & Stem Architects and Landwehrmann Engineering PLLC.
November 15, 2016 0 Comments
Written By Dr. Allen Williams, Ph.D.
A champion of the grass-fed beef industry as well as cutting edge grazing methodology, Allen helps restore natural soil water retention and reduce runoff, increase land productivity, enhance plant and wildlife biodiversity, and produce healthier food. He also serves as Joyce Farms' CRO (Chief Ranching Officer). Learn more about Allen
We have talked about what is happening in agriculture — the dichotomy between farmers seeking ever higher yields to fix their financial woes, and those higher yields influencing lower prices. I also mentioned what has been happening with our soils and my concerns over what we are finding, with the caveat of hope. This month, I will set the stage for explaining where we are, where we’ve been, and where we need to go.
First, in agriculture, just like in broader pop culture, we have been seeking instant gratification. We have become similar to a lot of today’s kids. They have smart phones, tablets, iPads, etc. at their disposal 24/7 and are seeking instant gratification. If anything takes some time to learn, they become discouraged and often give up on it.
The advent of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, supplements, etc., has taught us to anticipate and expect almost instantaneous results. We think if we do not see visual results very quickly, then what we are doing is not working. So, what do we do then? We get upset and anxious and say to ourselves, “Well that didn’t work, so I’m going back to what I know works”. In the process of doing this we are giving up on biology and trying to work solely through chemistry.
In essence we are destroying biology in favor of chemistry because we believe chemistry works better and we are seeking instant gratification. We are thinking singularly.
I will say this, if what you are attempting to achieve through biology isn’t working, it is not the fault of biology but the fault of management. If one method isn’t working, don’t give up on biology, simply try another route. You need to constantly ask yourself questions about what you are doing and it’s potential impact, all the while being highly observant.
The problem with being highly observant is that it takes time. Time we think we don’t have. In talking with a large, respected Midwest farmer the other day, he told me that farmers are so busy simply trying to keep their heads above water that they don’t have time to “waste” trying to figure out all this cover crop and adaptive grazing stuff. He then went on to say that “if it worked so well, why haven’t all farmers already adopted those practices?” We’ve all heard that statement before and we all inherently know it is not a reasonable question. In fact, I could actually reverse the question back to the farmer and ask, “If what most farmers are doing now is causing them to lose money, why are they still doing it?”
In an October 13, 2016 article in Beef Producer, Alan Newport posed the question, “Can Ultra High Stock Density make 10x stock rate?” Interesting question. We know from experience and data that we can certainly see stocking rates increase two to four times within just 5 years when making the switch from conventional grazing to higher stock density adaptive grazing. In several of my past articles, I have detailed many of the benefits of adaptive grazing. Once again though, we have that pesky question, “If it works so well, why isn’t everyone doing it?”
The simple answer is they either don’t know about adaptive grazing or they don’t know how to implement it. Even those who are interested worry about how to initiate it without negatively impacting their financial positions. Many farmers and ranchers are so heavily in debt that they worry about doing anything differently. The truth is very few will suffer financially by better grazing management and moving their livestock more frequently.
Now that we see where we are, lets dive into where we have been and where we need to go. When our forefathers first settled on the eastern shores and then moved across the continent, they were looking primarily for fertile lands for agricultural purposes. In most instances they found them, but the fertility often played out within just a few short generations. Why? Tillage and a tendency towards monoculture agriculture. This manifested itself in a continuous westward migration, as settlers searched for more fertile lands to replace the land they left behind in the east. What nature had built up over thousands of years, we destroyed in a very short period of time.
How did nature build that initial fertility? One of the primary ways was through herds of large wild ruminants. According to a July 2015 article in The Wildernist, bison were a significant factor not only on the western plains, but all the way to the east coast of the present day U.S. Fossil records show that bison were quite common in the Southeastern U.S. from 200,000 years ago or more. The earliest known species of bison in North America was the Bison latifrons, a long-horned species that weighed up to 3000 pounds and had horns that were 6 feet long. At the time of their existence they had to contend with predators such as saber-toothed cats, giant lions, and dire wolves. These bison preferred an open woodland habitat which was common in the Southeastern region at that time.
Somewhere around 24,000 BP (before present time), the Bison latifrons was supplanted by the Bison antiquus, a smaller species weighing up to 2500 pounds with horns intermediate in size between the Bison latifrons and the modern bison (Bison bison). It is thought that the Bison antiquus was more of a migratory animal than the Bison latifrons. The Bison antiquus disappeared due to overhunting by man (early Native Americans). The Bison bison evolved from the Bison antiquus as a smaller species that was more agile and able to migrate over longer distances to escape the pressure from man and from apex predators.
Due to hunting pressure and the tendency to overhunt, North American bison populations fluxed in both total population size and by region. There was a period of time where bison were far less prevalent in the eastern U.S. and much more prevalent on the western plains. However, in the 1500s, Europeans (primarily Spaniards) visiting eastern regions of present day U.S. introduced infectious diseases that decimated Native American populations. As a result, the bison returned to the eastern portions of the U.S. They repopulated rapidly on the abandoned Indian farmland and grassy prairies of the east, feeding under the trees of the open woodlands. They made good use of the grassy understories and the mast crops. They also favored the canebreaks that were prevalent along the many river and stream bottomlands before wholesale clearing of bottomlands by the European settlers wiped out most of the canebreaks.
The Eastern bison were plentiful in the longleaf pine savannas, alkaline cedar glades, bluegrass savannas and woodland, the coastal prairies and marshes, and the Black Belt prairies of Eastern Mississippi and Western Alabama. Bison bones dating to the 1600’s and 1700’s were plentiful in Indian mounds located in Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. Evidence of old “buffalo licks” still exists around the Southeast.
As the European settlers moved westward from the extreme east coast, they eagerly hunted the eastern bison as a source of meat and for their hides. By the late 1700’s, when the American Revolution was taking place, bison were already a rare commodity in the east. Most written records show that the last remaining eastern bison were killed in the eastern U.S. between 1775 and 1825. In Pennsylvania the last known bison was shot in 1801, in Louisiana in 1803, in Kentucky in 1820, and in West Virginia in 1825. Many of the trails used by the settlers were originally bison trails. These early trails have become modern state highways.
When the bison were exterminated from the Eastern U.S., we experienced a significant loss of ecological diversity.
The bison, as large ruminants, were able to maintain open areas in the eastern U.S. through their high stock density grazing and resultant trampling, eating acorns along the way and reducing tree germination. Due to the impact of the bison, as a large ruminant, habitat for a multitude of species was created. Their impact was key in the creation of soil organic matter and fertility. They encouraged plant species complexity and diversity through their grazing actions, and through seed dispersal as a result of their migratory habits. Many plant species that are rare, or even extinct, today were common when the bison roamed the eastern grasslands and open woodlands. They are not prevalent today because they depended on heavy grazing and trampling by large ruminants to reduce their competition. Bird, animal, amphibian, and insect species that used to be prevalent in the eastern U.S. due to bison presence included many species of insects that are unknown to modern man, toads, ground squirrels, burrowing owls, eastern prairie chickens, bobwhite quail, meadowlarks, and upland sandpipers.
Adaptive grazing, as we interpret it today, is simply a form of biomimicry. We are mimicking what the bison and other large ruminants used to provide in terms of biological and environmental impact.
We may be missing the eastern bison today but we can use our cattle to simulate the positive effects the bison had on our environment.
November 08, 2016 0 Comments
One thing that makes Joyce Farms an industry leader in the area of animal welfare is our adherence to the Global Animal Partnership’s 5-Step Animal Welfare program for both our heritage chicken and heritage beef.
The GAP animal welfare program is a higher standard than almost any other animal welfare rating. Founded in 2008, Global Animal Partnership (GAP) is an organization that brings together farmers, scientists, ranchers, retailers, and advocates who want to improve the welfare of animals in agriculture. Originally developed and sponsored by Whole Foods, today GAP is an independent nonprofit that partners with a number of US grocers. Whole Foods is still a major sponsor, and insists that all the fresh beef, pork, chicken and turkey in their store are raised to at least GAP Step 1 standards. To achieve even that, farmers and ranchers must meet more than 100 animal-welfare requirements. Each step above Step 1 requires more.
At Joyce Farms, we’re proud to say that we go well beyond that Step 1 minimum. All of our Poulet Rouge Fermier® Heritage Chickens hold a GAP Step 4 animal welfare rating. The birds are raised in houses offering natural light, natural ventilation, enrichments, 400% more space than conventional birds, and access to additional space in a pasture. Our grass-fed Aberdeen Angus cattle are also GAP Step 4, raised on farms that routinely pass the strictest audits for humane handling.
How does the GAP program compare to other ways of determining how an animal is raised? According to a ranking by The Wall Street Journal, a label indicating an animal was raised using GAP standards is a much better way to judge animal welfare than either of the more common “American Humane Certified” or “USDA Organic” labels. And the experts at humaneitarian.org put it even more bluntly: “Generally speaking, if you want chicken, pork, or beef raised in a pasture-centered way, look for GAP products labeled Step 4 or Step 5.”
October 25, 2016 0 Comments
The USDA requires that processed chickens be chilled to at least 40 degrees within four hours of killing. Within our industry there are two accepted ways to do this – using air or using water. Most processors use the latter method, cooling their chickens in large communal vats of ice cold chlorinated water. But at Joyce Farms, we choose to air chill all our Heritage Poultry, and we inject them with nothing. Here’s why.
When chickens are water chilled, they absorb some of the water they’re placed in and then they’re injected with more water, so when you buy water-chilled chicken, part of what you’re paying for is water.
Some estimates say that, on average, water is actually 8% of the chicken’s body weight when it’s sold. But when you buy air-chilled chicken, all you’re paying for is chicken.
Because the birds aren’t subjected to the chlorine or added salt and water that is absorbed by the birds in the industrial chilling tanks, top chefs agree that air chilling preserves the true flavor of the birds.
The water in water-chilled chicken evaporates as it cooks, creating shrunken, rubbery chicken, especially when it’s grilled or barbecued. Further, air-chilled chicken cooks faster, absorbs marinades and seasonings much better, and has a crispier skin after cooking.
Air-chilled chickens are cooled individually, while water-chilled chickens are dunked in a communal pool. With air chilling there is much less chance for bacteria to spread among chickens.
In fact, a University of Nebraska study found that air-chilled chicken contains 80% less bacteria than water-chilled chicken.
In the last few years we’ve seen major droughts in both the southeastern and western United States. In those conditions, every drop of water becomes precious. According to one expert, if the 9 billion water-chilled chickens processed annually were air chilled instead, 4.5 billion gallons of water would be saved.
There you have it. Our goal is to offer our customers the best poultry in the world, and we believe air chilling contributes to achieving that. And experts agree. Not long ago the website TheSoftLanding.com looked at air-chilled chicken vs. water-chilled chicken and declared Joyce Farms air-chilled, heritage Poulet Rouge™ chicken to be the best on the market!
Air-Chilled Chicken vs Water-Chilled Chicken: Is There a Winner? (thesoftlanding.com)
If You’re Not Cooking With Air-Chilled Chicken, You’re Doing It Wrong (Bloomberg.com)
October 14, 2016 0 Comments
Written By Dr. Allen Williams, Ph.D.
A champion of the grass-fed beef industry as well as cutting edge grazing methodology, Allen helps restore natural soil water retention and reduce runoff, increase land productivity, enhance plant and wildlife biodiversity, and produce healthier food. He also serves as Joyce Farms' CRO (Chief Ranching Officer). Learn more about Allen
Beyond Meat®, a company that calls itself the Future of Protein™ has recently been the benefactor of investment from what might seem like a strange place. Tyson Foods, a member of the Big Four meat packers, has become a 5% owner in the company that hopes to replace meat with plant-based proteins. According to news reports in the New York Times, Business Insider, and MeatingPlace, the investment is the result of a fundraising initiative by Beyond Meat targeted at providing capital to fund expansion of their product portfolio and distribution.
In a statement by Ethan Brown, Founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, he said, “This investment by Tyson Foods underscores the growing market for plant protein. I’m pleased to welcome Tyson as an investor and look forward to leveraging this support to broaden availability of plant protein choices to consumers.”
At the joint disclosure, a Tyson executive, Monica McGurk, expressed enthusiasm with the investment and added that it “…gives us exposure to a fast-growing segment of the protein market.” McGurk went on to say that the investment will increase consumer choices from the Tyson portfolio of food products and will allow Tyson to satisfy demands from a growing diverse population. She did directly state that Tyson would remain focused on their animal protein base.
Products currently offered in the Beyond Meat portfolio include the Beyond Burger™, single serve meals with Beyond Beef® and Beyond Chicken® protein alternatives, the Beast Burger, and Southwest Style Beyond Chicken® Strips. Most packages have a facsimile of a steer or chicken on them.
Beyond Meat was founded in 2009 as the result of more than a decade of research by a Dr. Fu-Hung Hsieh at the University of Missouri. Hsieh’s research has focused on taking soy proteins and producing meat analogs that are palatable and that appear to be similar to real muscle foods. The Beyond Chicken products are a combination of non-GMO soy and pea protein. The Beast Burger is a 100% pea protein extrusion and is touted as a “soy-free, gluten-free, non-GMO” product.
Whole Foods Markets first started carrying Beyond Meat products in 2013 at select stores. The company’s products are now sold in more than 10,000 stores nationwide.
Other investors in Beyond Meat include Bill Gates, Kleiner Perkins, the founders of Twitter, Biz Stone, General Mills, and the Humane Society of the United States. The former CEO of McDonald’s North American operations, Don Thompson, sits on their board of directors.
The question for us as producers of pasture-based protein products is not whether there will be challenges in the market place from plant-based protein alternatives, but rather how will we respond to that market challenge? There will be a segment of the consumer population that believes plant-based proteins are a better choice for their health and the environment. For those of us in regenerative agriculture, we know that animals in the mix allow for rapid rebuilding of soil organic matter, reduction of erosion, reduced chemical inputs and harmful runoff, increases in plant species diversity, and improvement in pollinator insect, beneficial insect, and wildlife populations.
Animals in the mix allow for rapid rebuilding of soil organic matter, reduction of erosion, reduced chemical inputs and harmful runoff, increases in plant species diversity, and improvement in pollinator insect, beneficial insect, and wildlife populations.
Where crops are grown without the benefit of proper livestock impact, we see serious issues with soil compaction, water infiltration rates, water quality, erosion, harmful runoff, and increased reliance on synthetic chemical inputs and irrigation.
The loss of soil organic matter, soil aggregation, and fertility across farmlands in North America over the past several decades has been staggering. The focus on the current monoculture agricultural model has created a lot of unintended consequences that are proving detrimental to our environment and to human health.
What we have to consider is that animals, particularly the natural mix of large and small ruminants, followed by grassland birds, have played a significant role for millennia in building the tremendous fertility across the grasslands and savannas of the world. For thousands of years these wild ruminants were an essential part of nature’s design moving about in large groups or mobs due to constant pressure from apex predators. The result of their grazing of the grasslands and savannas was incredible diversity and complexity in soil, plant, insect, bird, and animal life.
In regenerative agriculture, we use our livestock and poultry the way nature intended – to build and maintain soil fertility and diversity in soil, plant, insect, and animal life. Moving to a plant only diet will further increase issues brought about by monoculture agricultural systems.
The beautiful thing about raising animals the way we do is that we are reviving nature’s bounty while providing the consumer with protein products that contain favorable fatty acid profiles; are loaded with minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants; and actually improve the environment.
Our problem – the average consumer is unaware of the myriad benefits of raising livestock and poultry in pasture-based systems through regenerative practices. It is incumbent upon us to do a much better job of informing consumers that they do have a choice in their protein purchase decisions.
With so many confusing market claims and labels, the consumer is often left grasping at straws, wondering what is factual and what is simply smoke and mirrors. We must be true to our label claims, clearly communicate to the consumer, and provide factual information to back up those claims. Trust is everything and we must be trustworthy.
September 26, 2016 0 Comments
When you buy grain-fed beef in your local grocery store, it probably has a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) grade on it. The USDA grades meat quality for tenderness, juiciness, and flavor, and there are eight quality grades for beef. How are they determined? According to the USDA, “Quality grades are based on the amount of marbling (flecks of fat within the lean), color, and maturity.”
Prime grade, for instance, “has abundant marbling,” while Choice grade (the grade most commonly found in grocery stores) is “high quality, but has less marbling than Prime.” Select grade, meanwhile, “is very uniform in quality and normally leaner than the higher grades…but, because it has less marbling, it may lack some of the juiciness and flavor of the higher grades.”
So for the USDA, the grading is largely based on the marbling. Why? Because feeding cows grain not only gets them fatter quicker, it also enhances fat marbling. Marbling is the intramuscular fat that adds juiciness and some elements of tenderness to beef. Because almost all US cattle are finished on grain, and have been for decades, marbling became the quickest and easiest way to grade the beef.
This is why a lot grass-fed beef producers say their product gets the short end of the steak when it comes to grading. They’ll tell you that their grass-fed beef is leaner and healthier than grain-fed beef, but not as marbled, so for them to get a USDA Choice or Prime grade for their grass-fed beef is impossible. And frankly, for THEIR grass-fed beef, it probably is.
But it’s not impossible for our grass-fed beef to get a USDA Choice or Prime grade; we know that because ours does. In fact, Joyce Farms is one of only a few grass-fed beef producers in the country that elects to have our beef USDA quality graded.
Because we have cattle with the right genetics and we utilize superior raising and forage grazing standards, our grass-fed beef can offer the tenderness, the delicious taste and, yes, the marbling required to get a USDA Choice or Prime grade. Want proof? Just check this out...
So don’t believe the myth that a delicious, well-marbled, USDA Choice or Prime grade grass-fed steak is unrealistic, and that off-flavors, lack of marbling, and a lack of tenderness is part of the grass-fed eating experience. To top it all off, that added marbling is loaded with healthy Omega-3’s and CLA’s and other healthy fats. If you’re looking for grass-fed beef that’s healthy and makes the grade, look no further than our Heritage Aberdeen Angus Beef.
Note to our web shoppers: The cuts sold on our web store are USDA Choice or Select grade, and grades are noted in product descriptions. Due to such high demand from our foodservice customers, we are unable to offer Prime Grade on the web at this time, but you can find it on the menus of a number of fine-dining restaurants across the United States!