It is our family’s mission to raise high quality beef at an affordable price. When we began selling our beef directly to our community 8 years ago, our goal was to try to eliminate the middlemen and allow our customers the opportunity to buy local. We have been so appreciative of the loyal customers that we have gained along the way and all of the wonderful people who have chosen to support our family business.
Unfortunately, costs have been increasing in all aspects of life and this is impacting our business as well. The two most significant costs associated with our business are of course raising the cattle and then processing the beef. The time and money involved with raising cattle has always been the largest piece of that equation. However, the processing costs (killing, cutting, and packaging) have been increasing rapidly. We have done our best to absorb these increases as much as we can rather than passing them on to you. We received notice from our butcher shop that they will be increasing their prices again effective April 1st. In the past 12 months the cost of processing our meat has increased 70%! There are a number of factors that have contributed to the butcher shop having to increase what they charge. The cost of labor, the cost of insurance (they are in a rural area with a presumed threat of wildfire and the cost of their insurance tripled in 2021), the availability and prices of plastic packaging has been a struggle throughout the pandemic, and then of course the costs increases that everyone has experienced (fuel, utilities, etc.).
Because of our commitment to quality beef, there are very few processors that we are able to use because our beef must be USDA inspected when it is killed and cut in order to sell it to you. There are numerous butcher shops that are USDA inspected to cut meat, but very few that have the facilities to kill the cattle as well. When it comes to processing our meat, it is very important to us to try to keep everything local.
We want to be as transparent as we possibly can and want to help you to understand why we have to increase our prices. We do not take any pleasure in this but we need to increase our prices or ultimately, we will not be able to stay in the beef business. With that being said, we want to give you the opportunity to stock up before this increase goes into effect. We will be adjusting our prices on April 15th.
We will always strive to provide you the best beef at a competitive price and we thank you for your continued support throughout this journey.
Sincerely,
Amanda & The Rankin Family