Filling a freezer

Aug 22, 2023

By Greg Doering

For the first time in a long time, I won’t have to spend a Saturday defrosting an upright freezer in anticipation of the local meat processer calling to say our half steer is ready for pick up. Ideally this would have happened last fall, but I was really trading one hand-me-down freezer for another. And I’m a firm believer in beggars not being choosers.

The old freezer should have been scrapped a long time ago. Instead, it lives on in my brother’s garage. When I say old, I really mean ancient. It originally resided in my childhood basement and then my parents’ garage before I somehow agreed to take possession of it about a decade ago. It’s kept everything cold all that time, usually by encapsulating anything on the top two shelves in varying layers of ice.

Through some sort of magic, it’s replacement hasn’t developed the slightest hint of frost anywhere. Maybe it’s because the seal is fully intact. Or the auto defrost function is more than a marketing gimmick. Either way, when the locker calls, I won’t have to spend a day chipping out bundles of beef from a shelf.

Hopefully the call comes sooner than later, too. We’re out of steaks and running low on hamburger and roast. I might actually have to cook the beef liver I haven’t exchanged for catfish yet. Soon the freezer will be fully stocked with all of that plus a couple of briskets, some flank steak for fajitas and short ribs for braising on a chilly Sunday afternoon.

I’m looking forward to filling the freezer, but I’m not especially excited to get the bill this year. The processing fee shouldn’t be too bad, but the rancher’s cut for half a steer will be substantially more this year. This is one transaction that’s non-negotiable for me. The rancher knows the value of the steer, even in times where the number is not much higher than breakeven.

Beef eaters have had a couple of years with decent prices. Now we’re going to see the other side of the market because drought has culled the cattle herd to its lowest level in about a decade. Provided demand doesn’t fall off too much, fewer cattle means less beef at higher prices.

The contraction didn’t start overnight, and it won’t end quickly.

Click here to see more...

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.