Five Marys Harvest Program
We are proud to have complete control over every step of raising really great quality meats for our customers - and this includes the harvest, dry-aging and packaging components that are all done on the ranch and at our own USDA inspected facilities we’ve built.
Brian and I realized early on that the only way to have quality control and the best animal welfare and handling experience was to do it ourselves. We are one of the only ranches in the US that can do it all ourselves including on-ranch harvest, premium dry-aging and shipping direct to our customers (no wholesale or other distributors). This is so important to us - but it hasn’t been easy to get here….
Last year we built a USDA mobile harvest facility on the ranch. It includes an animal handling barn we worked with Temple Grandin to design and a Mobile Harvest Unit designed by Friesla. Harvesting was the only piece of the process that we were missing, and given the state of the world these days, knowing you can do something yourself versus relying on somebody else to do it, we knew we needed to make it happen. Because of how remote we are geographically, we were traveling long distances to get animals harvested (2-5 hours away) depending on which butcher we were using.
Our on-ranch mobile harvest facility closes the circle of ownership - breeding, calving, raising, backgrounding, feeding, finishing, and harvesting… all on our ranch! We wanted and were willing to invest in that stability to know that we control the whole chain at this point.
I’ve never seen Brian put more heart, thought, time, stress, and paperwork (oh, the paperwork!) into anything like he has during the 2+ years it took to design, build, and start operating our on-ranch USDA certified harvest facility.
For the harvest of each animal, we complete the California Department of Food & Agriculture’s brand inspection, the USDA and FSIS (Food Safety Inspection Service) in-person and extensive oversight on everything from checking sanitization, temperatures, pre-mortem inspection, harvest procedure, post-mortem inspection, and organ inspection - as well as humane animal handling and just making sure it’s all done in the best manner possible for the livestock and for the quality end product.
We have a father-son duo, Luke & Crawford, who have been doing this their whole lives - working to ensure that everything is done in the smoothest and safest manner. It is a skill that requires experience and skillful hands to do right and we wouldn’t trust anyone else.
This has certainly been no easy feat, but Brian doesn’t do anything he’s not proud of. We are both so proud to be able to harvest, dry-age, butcher, and package beef for the first of many other ranchers doing the same thing we do - where attention to detail and a great end product matters!
We are so proud to say that we are in the only ranch in the United States doing all of this start to finish with USDA certification, dry-aging and shipping direct to families doorsteps in all 50 states. We are also in the business of sharing what we’ve learned along the way, and love sharing our successes and failures (so you don’t make the same mistakes!) with our M5 Entrepreneur Community.
Working with Temple Grandin
As we were in the beginning stages of planning our designs, we knew we wanted to consult our design with Temple Grandin and her team. Temple is a world-famous scientist and industrial designer and is very well-known for her knowledge about designing animal handling systems that minimize pain and fear, particularly in slaughterhouses.
A major component of the mobile facility involves animal handling, so the animals and everyone involved stays safe and calm. It isn’t necessary to load and haul the animals to a different facility since the unit is right on our ranch. We walk the animals up to the animal handling space, which keeps everything very low stress… which in the end means a much better quality meat!
We sent our designs to Temple and she helped us tweak some things for the best design to start with. She won’t approve a full facility, but she does approve pen designs. She said that she loved this plan - the smallest she’d ever helped design - and she wished there were more of them! She designs very large plants, but she says she would much rather see more of these smaller units on ranches - we were so excited to hear that from her!
Quality Control at Five Marys Custom Meat Co.
Independent meat processors are a casualty of the centralization of the meat business. What used to be done in small towns across America is now limited to very few places. It’s common for farmers to drive 2-8 hours for a butcher and they can book out months in advance! There just aren’t enough facilities to keep up with the ever growing demand for consumers who want to know where their food comes from and purchase directly from a farmer.
In most cases, USDA regulations require any animals that sold to consumers are harvested and butchered under their inspection. This is intended to protect the safety of our meat supply and isn’t necesarily a bad thing (avoiding cross-contamination, ensuring correct temperatures, monitoring operations) for producers or consumers. This is tricky business and has to be done well!
But, we also need to get back to a little more old-school style butcher availability to make sure that small farms and ranchers can harvest safely, humanely, and get their products right to their customers.
That is exactly why we built Five Marys Custom Meat Co. last year. We are bringing back the small town butchery! We have a team of talented craft butchers and state-of-the-art facilities that allow us quality control throughout each step of the process. It was SO much hard work (like…so much!) but, it has allowed us to provide even more products and custom cuts for our customers and enhance our extended dry-aging.
Dry-aging is a craft tradition that used to be the norm, but is slowly being phased out commercially in favor of expediency and efficiency. Brian and I firmly believe that dry-aging creates the best possible beef with that amazing ‘steak house’ taste and tenderness every time. The search for the best quality meat to serve in our restaurant is what led us to become ranchers in the first place!
We don’t cut a single steak or grind any meat until the entire carcass is dry-aged for at 14-24 days after harvest. This, along with great genetics on our cattle and an extended finish on alfalfa, grasses, and steam-flaked barley, is what gives our beef an incredible stand-out flavor. Most tell us it’s better than any steakhouse beef they’ve ever eaten. Even our ground beef is dry-aged, giving it a truly stand-out and memorable flavor.
Order Five Marys Meats Right to Your Door!
We ship our meat boxes right from our little shop on Main Street in Northern California - right down the road from the ranch! Boxes are shipped overnight to your doorstep on dry-ice (a science experiment for home learning if there’s some left as an added bonus!) and meats go right in your freezer for whenever you need to shop for dinner from your home.