Hello again,
It’s Jason from Benson Farms. This week has been exciting for our family. Naomi, who’s in the first grade, came home from school on Wednesday with a reading award. She's a "ready reader" and we're not even done with the first six weeks of school. Sandy and I are both very big proponents of reading as the fundamental base of education, and we are very proud of her!.
Benson Farms Update: We are finished baling the last of hay for the year and now we have to get it out of the field and into the barn. Over the next few weeks, we will be over-seeding many of the fields for winter forages and mowing all of the fields that aren’t cut for hay.
Gratitude: Yesterday we were in Nashville visiting the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital Down Syndrome Clinic. Since we were unexpectedly blessed with baby Brock this past February, Sandy has done everything possible to make sure we are taking advantage of every available resource and opportunity for him. All of the doctors, therapists, and staff at the clinic were wonderful. We are extremely grateful knowing that he has access to the incredible expertise and facilities at Vanderbilt should the need ever arise, and we are looking forward to more trips to Nashville in the future.
Spring Deposits are Open: Deposits are still open for our spring bulk beef harvest. Deposits close at noon on October 31st. Don't wait to lock in your guaranteed share of our limited spring herd! Once your deposit is placed, we put your name on one of our herd and you own it. You can see our products here and place a deposit now.
Welcome to the Benson Farms Family: If you are a new subscriber this week, and this is your first time reading our newsletter, we are happy you've joined us. Welcome aboard! You can check out more of our past newsletters on our webpage in the Newsletter Archive.
What Our Customers Are Saying: Thank you to all of you who responded with feedback to my question about your #1 priority when you purchase beef. We can’t try to be everything for everybody, and your input helps us focus on the things that are most important to our customers. One thing that I have noted is that many of the responses referenced price. I’d like to take a minute today to address pricing and value.
Sometimes people ask me why we decided to start selling grass-finished beef. This is often their way of asking, “Who would pay that much AND wait that long for beef?” I think that my answers sometimes surprise them.
Grass-finished beef may actually NOT be right for you and your family.
It definitely isn’t a cheaper alternative.
In fact, it costs more than your average neighborhood grocer.
Our customers don’t choose us to provide meat for their family because they want the cheapest meat they can buy. They choose us because they value something that our beef provides.
So, what are those things that our customers value? The number one response that I get from our subscribers is taste. In case you missed it, I explained why our delicious grass-finished beef has such robust flavor in a couple of my recent newsletter here and here.
Here are the other reasons you might value our product:
✓ If your family’s health and wellness is a priority…
✓ If you want to trust the source of your meat and how your beef was raised…
✓ If you want a relationship with your farmer…
✓ If you want the convenience of beef delivered to your door…
Then our beef IS right for you!
n the news: More strikes this week have left restaurants and hospitals wondering if their food supplies will get delivered. Incidents like this continue to reinforce how fragile our supply chains still are as we continue to recover from from the shutdowns and quarantines of the last two years. Here is another article I saw on MSN that I thought was interesting. In it, they point out that while lots of factors from supply chain issues, to inflation, to global political events, to natural weather disasters can effect prices, demand remains the same. Basic economics tells us that if demand for a product stays the same, any disruption in supply that leads to less product available will result in an increase in the price. Every indication is that prices are going to keep going up for the foreseeable future.
One final thought: You’ll find that our dry-aged grass-finished bulk beef prices are in line with what you could expect to pay for the same cuts and quantity from retailers like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. However, while they may offer options for “locally sourced” (one local Whole Foods employee recently told me that since Amazon acquired Whole Foods, the focus has been on bigger regional and national contracts), they still send the cattle to the same massive plants owned by the “Big 4” meat producers for slaughter and processing. They use the same slaughter and processing facilities as every other grocery chain like Kroger, Wal-Mart, Food Lion, and BI-LO. That means that not only is their beef not dry-aged, it is also not single sourced. Depending on the location, those facilities process from dozens to hundreds of cattle per day; mixing parts of different animals together and increasing the risk of contamination.
Until next time,
Jason Benson
Co-Owner
Benson Farms