Practically Ranching
Join Matt Perrier as he visits weekly with interesting, thoughtful, entertaining individuals within the beef community. Conversations will inspire curiosity and creativity while maintaining the independent spirit and practical nature for which ranchers are known.
Practically Ranching
#72 - Ed Greiman, A Little Better All the Time
Ed Greiman is General Manager of Upper Iowa Beef, a mid-sized beef processing plant located in Lime Springs, Iowa.
He was born and raised as a typical farm kid in rural Iowa, went to college at Iowa State University, and has had significant experience in nearly all segments of the beef industry supply chain.
NOTE: This episode was recorded in early February 2025, so some of the references to political landscape and economics may sound a bit dated.
Home - Upper Iowa Beef | Upper Iowa Beef
Thanks for joining us for episode 72 of Practically Ranching. I'm Matt Perrier and we are here thanks to Dalebanks Angus, your home for practical profitable genetics since 1904. This episode rounds out the group of conversations that I recorded while I was at 2025 Cattle Industry Convention last February. This was actually the first one I recorded in San Antonio, but given my guest's perspectives on the the beef business, I thought this would make the perfect finale. Ed Greiman is general manager of Upper Iowa Beef, so for the last few years he's been a packer. He's also a cattle feeder and owns a commercial cow calf herd and a row crop farming operation with his family, and as if these segments didn't give him enough breadth and width of perspective. He also has served as both a staff member and a volunteer leader of the Iowa Cattleman's Association through the years I. So to say that Ed has a pretty broad perspective of the beef supply and production chain would be an understatement, a huge understatement. The first time I remember meeting Ed was probably around 10 years ago at an NCBA convention. He was the chair of the Live Cattle Marketing Committee, and I watched him oversee one of the more contentious discussions that I may be ever witnessed amongst a Cattleman's group. He didn't have an easy job there. I. Because passions were high and consensus was low, and a lot of us in that room continued to debate about how the best way to determine a base price for fed cattle was. At the time, all I knew about Ed was that he was an Iowa cattle feeder, and he had a little different perspective on fed cattle marketing than a lot of my peers and I did. But I was impressed. I was impressed with his dedication to the industry, his passion for the industry. He was very diplomatic in a time that he didn't probably have to be, but was, and the thing that impressed me most was his determination to solve these problems and these industry issues instead of just complaining about them. Now, today, as I mentioned, he. For the most part is a packer, regardless of whether he's wearing that hard hat, or his cowboy hat or a seed corn cap, I've actually never seen him in one of those before, but I'll bet he owns a few) ed is a super smart guy. He is a super competitive guy, and he is a guy that I am glad to have in our beef industry. I learned a bunch from him, and I think you will as well as we visit with Ed Greiman.
Ed:Yeah, my background's kind of unique. So, uh, Graduated from Iowa State University in 1992. Um, Was your typical Iowa farm that I grew up on, cattle, pigs row crops, alfalfa, so looked very typical north central Iowa. Went to Iowa State University, the only reason I went, I was going to be on the judging team. I liked to judge I was really good at it in 4 H, did not go to a junior college, went straight there. But ended up getting on the meats judging team first. FC Parish grabbed a hold of me I had a cousin who had been on before me. And so That was my first eye opener into the meat business, is the Meats Judging Team. None of us had ever been in packing plants, right? And that was really new. Meats Judging Team, live team, left Iowa State, go home to farm. Got home to farm, we'd just come out of the 80s. The situation at home probably wasn't good enough for me to come and farm, but I had my headset on it. So very quickly I figured that out financially. It was clear that my dad was not going to continue farming. So I got a job with the Iowa Cattlemen's. Kept farming, got a job with the Iowa Cattlemen's. My wife worked for Monsanto the whole time. So she was an Iowa State grad. A little bit more ag business, but agronomy background. And so, Of course, there was always enough money to put food on the table, right? And to have a car. So, I went to work for the Iowa Cattlemen's. And that really opened up my eyes. They let me do what I needed to do. I traveled all over Iowa. Before you know it, my first project was Source and Age Verified Electronic Tags in 1998. Oh, wow. 98. Yeah. What concerns me about that is 20 some years later, we're still nowhere. We're still the same button. Yeah, I'm amazed. The same button. And, you know, I've tried to restart it a couple times at my feed yard and the packing plant. And it just seems like technology is going nowhere with that. It's really frustrating, right? And, you would just think that somewhere we're going to simplify it. But anyway, Iowa Cattlemen's, and in that process, which was unique it was called Iowa Quality Beef. We partnered up with Cargill. And in that partnership with Cargill, We were going to send 2, 000 head a week to Schuyler, Nebraska out of Iowa. And it was the first cattle that had ever been on grid marketing. So it was rib eye area, back fat, full yield grades, quality grade scores, individual carcass weights with electronic tags. So my job was to schedule those 2, 000 a week and then work with producers to understand how to interpret all the data they got back. And it was the first time they'd ever been paid premiums for quality grade and yield grade and cutability, right? And so So, those guys at Cargill, I got into the plant a lot because we were looking at Carcostata and then, because it was 2000 a week, some people like you know, Tim Ramey who ran the north and then I got to know Bill Thoni, Marcine Moldenhauer I just learned a lot, right? And I started to get this appreciation for the packing plant. In that process, we were going to open up a plant, a new plant with them. That kind of didn't happen, and so we partnered with American Foods and opened up Tama Tama, Iowa. And it ran for a very short time. And so, I was one of the guys that raised the capital with 800 producers who were going to deliver cattle. It was really modeled after U. S. Premium Beef and National. And, we had one flaw though. U. S. Premium National was is that farmland plant was actually doing okay. They just needed a good supply of cattle. We were a start up. American Foods was not really known for a quality side. So we were bringing quality cattle, but it was a new venture for them. And then BSE came along in 03 and that just ended it, right? But the one thing that bothered me that whole time is I was there every day scheduling those cattle is that it didn't work. And yet the cattle were everything they were supposed to be. And so I just felt like we missed out on an opportunity, but I also saw how hard
Matt:it was. You had a cultural problem within that group, AFG, and not necessarily a cattle problem. Yes. National and USP& B may have been the opposite.
Ed:And the same thing happened to us there that happens to almost every startup plant. We had a partner at the time in Buckhead Beef. Okay. They were an independent company at the time. They got bought by Sysco, and it came to an end. Just like that, our partner was gone for the high quality middles.
Matt:Yeah, and if you don't have that um, I mean obviously the end cuts and the offal and everything else, we'll talk about that a little bit later. They drive cash flow, but yeah, you've got to have that high end, middle meat customer that's gonna really drive value
Ed:into it. You do, and you've got to have that core that you know is always going to be gone on some kind of a formula marketing. And we lost that. So that was always, I went home from there. I left the Iowa Cattlemen's at that point. Went home, farmed. Did my thing for a while, grew the operation. What year was that? That would have been 2005. There was no hope. We tried to get somebody to open up the plant. It wasn't going to happen. So then I went back to Garner full time. And grew the operation. So we're now Cow Calf. I'm with my brother. My brother was there the whole time. So G. B. Cattle. His wife also worked for Monsanto. So Greiman Brothers. Cow Calf. Commercial Cow Calf. Which would be fall cabin herd and a spring cabin herd and really when I say spring I mean January February like we're wrapping up right now, right? Yeah, and then Feed lot so we'd be your typical feed lot in Iowa with a lot of buildings deep bedded buildings. I don't have any slats and So I did that and just grew our operation And then I became president of the Iowa Cattlemen's. Kind of Got back involved as a volunteer, right? Became president of the Iowa Cattlemen's. Then did, chaired live cattle marketing for National Cattlemen's Association. And that's when I was with Joe Cavanda, he was my vice chair. That really opened up my eyes to another world, right? Of bigger feed yards and risk management. And I learned a lot about, I understood risk management. But I, it opened my eyes to a bigger world of it. And then, did a little project along with that called the Fed Cattle Exchange, right? And so worked with the four major packers on it, got to know the heads of procurements. And it always was in the back of my mind that the packing plant was always drawing me in. And so did all that, and then an opportunity came up in 2017. When Jerry Niewohner out of Albion, Nebraska called and said, Ed, we need to open up a little packing plant in Iowa that right now has been shut down. it was called Upper Iowa Beef or Lime Springs Beef at the time. It's on the Upper Iowa River. It's in Lime Springs, Iowa. And there was 50 cattlemen that had opened it up. It was a plant that was designed to do 60 to 100 head a day. so we went in there, tried to partner with those guys. And it was within a year We had bought them out and started to grow. And I would never have been able to do that without the backing of the Niewohners in Nebraska. So a family with several generations had access to capital, right? Because that's what packing plants need, is capital. But the cattle were there, really good cattle, and and it started that way, the first day in 2017, it was November of 2017 was the first day we opened it, did eight head. Got, we're supposed to do 11 head, got shut down at number eight for a mis knock because it was a, a heifer that sat up. And then we were done for the week until we could get work through that with USDA. Wow. Things that cowboys
Matt:don't think about until they have to run that plant.
Ed:Oh yeah, humane handling's everything. Yeah, we talk a lot about food safety, it's important, but humane handling is That one will get you in a lot of trouble in a hurry.
Matt:I think it's fascinating, and we'll keep going from where we're at, because we're nowhere near the end of your story, but I think I had met you once or twice before, but until I was attending those National Cattlemen's Beef Association meetings as president of KLA, while you and Joe were chair and vice chair of the Live Cattle Marketing and working through the Fed Cattle Exchange, that was a big thing on my radar was, and this is quote unquote clear back in 2016 that I was saying we've got to figure out if we can do better at pricing fed cattle for the base that then grids and formulas and everything else can be based off of and You know in a state like Kansas I didn't necessarily get a ton of traction there, but we get to these NCBA meetings and You all were Hip deep in it already and trying as the NCBA group to figure out how do we do better at this? A producer led initiative working with folks from the feed yard and the packing and the cow calf segments, just like NCBA is supposed to be. And through that, as frustrated as all of us got, because we never really could get, at that point, we never could get an answer. We thought we could. You know, We talked to all the experts and the guy from Colorado State that did the economic study and all these things. Dr. Coons. Dr. Coons, thank you. We heard it all. And we heard what could be and yet we never could get at what should be and what will be. And instead of just getting mad and packing your stuff and going home, you decided, hey, you know what? I've learned a little bit through this process, and here's an opportunity with these folks at Upper Iowa Beef I'm gonna let the rubber meet the road, instead of just sitting at home and bitching. And that's what I think is inspiring to me, is you said, hey, I believe that we can do better, I believe there's a need for this type of a structure, now let's figure out how to do it.
Ed:That's exactly right there's a lot of people that got really frustrated, threw up their arms, and I wasn't one of those, I just said, All right. This is the system we're in. We're not going to completely change it, right? Feedlots are going to stay aligned with packers. And so let's figure out how we can do that ourselves. And I did it really truly myself. I knew the heads of procurements very well. I became friends with them. But I'm a small yard. I'm selling three to four thousand head a year. And I kept telling them I, I want the premium that this guy's getting, or I want the opportunity. And because I couldn't do the numbers the volume of numbers that the other feedlots were doing I wasn't able to achieve some of the things that I wanted to achieve at my feed yard. So, I always knew that the best way to do this, probably in Iowa, would be to start a packing plant. But I also knew, when Jerry Niewohner called me, And he said, Ed, let's do this. I told him, I said, Jerry, you're going to take 10 years of my life and just, it's going to be gone. And I said, the amount of capital that you're going to need to put in this. If you have a number in mind, you better take it times three. And I hope that's enough.
Matt:Yeah. That is a critical part that I don't think any of us can even wrap our head around, and especially in times that we've seen the increase in. Cattle prices labor, cattle prices, regulations, that's the tip of the iceberg, I know, but yeah, I mean, this thing has been fast and furious since you all started, and yet, somehow, thus far, you've been able to keep it going. We have. And growing.
Ed:It's kind of funny so, Jerry and I would talk once a week, right? And uh, not every day, he really let me do what I needed to do, but now that we, once we kind of made it and started to make some money I told him one day, I said, the only reason I, there was a lot of days I wanted to just go home and be done. And the only reason I kept doing this is because you kept sending money and he made me feel so bad that I had to keep working. And he said I kept sending money because you kept coming to work.
Matt:He was afraid you
weren't.
Ed:So both of us were miserable, I guess, for a little while because he had three brothers that he had to explain what he's doing and a bank, what's going on here. What? Why do we keep subsidizing this new venture? And
Matt:all the way through it though, there was light at the end of the tunnel for those who believe that this system could work. And I think that anytime we see somebody enter either a new business or try to reconstruct the new concept or whatever the case may be if you don't believe that it can be better and that there's a purpose in what it is you're doing. Yeah, you can't, you're not going to keep throwing. No, No,
Ed:you have to believe because it is so hard. But I got to tell you, Matt I, I wake up every morning scared to death still. And it's, you know, my wife's like, what are you, what are you worried about? I said, failure. I don't want to be another plant that didn't make it. Because you really realize it really quickly when you start talking to lenders. Because, you know, once you get going, you know, you need to start to borrow some operating money. And. We were three years into it before we could find a lender to talk to us. Wow. And when you get them to just up and up say it, they'd say, look, the track record's not very good for startup packing plants. And most of them had been burned bad on it. And I worry about that, right? The things that could go wrong.
Matt:That's why you do well. That's why you're still here today is because if you don't wake up hungry and worried and concerned about. what's out there. Yeah, something reaches up and grabs you. And, And I think that goes across regardless of size and scale and scope of a pack of processor, feed yard, a cow calf, whatever. I mean,, Probably the bigger, the bigger we get, the more worried we have to be of those things that can jump up and grab us. Okay. So get us to today and scope and size of upper Iowa beef. So you processed eight head out of 11 that you wanted to that first day. Or maybe I guess the first week because it was shut down. Yeah. Where are you today in terms of your size and scope? And where is this next? So
Ed:yeah, that was 2017 now today the plant Can do uh, 500 head a day is what we're doing. So to give you, kind of put it in perspective, the harvest floor, the kill floor, does 58 head an hour. And it was designed to do basically 60 a day. Wow. So we've uh, been in a perpetual state of growth ever since I started. Always been adding something new. Right now the new addition that we're putting on is more freezer space because we're exporting more and more. We export about a load a day into the Asian market. And so a lot of that product is frozen. I would like to grow that to two loads a day. But that process requires inspection by USDA, staging loads, holding more inventory to build loads. And so we're adding on to our freezer, which will really help us a lot. And we're also adding on to our carcass cooler. So, Yes, we're getting 500 head a day done. The cattle are too tight. The cattle are getting bigger, putting more and more weight into our hot boxes. So we're going to add on there to allow me a full 48 hour chill on these cattle. We've done our own research in terms of what, I mean, 36 hours is what you got to have, but that means a double shift plant and I'm a single shift plant. So we're going to do, we'll be able to do a full 48 hours on up to 700 head. And that will probably stop me for a little bit. And. But the biggest reason is wastewater. So I'm a direct discharge into the upper Iowa River, which means I have an NPDES permit and um, that, that's a whole other process of building wastewater. There's some new rules that are coming our way and with the, from the EPA under the Biden administration, that if they keep coming are going to be really hard to meet for packing plants. And they, you could tell that they were really pointed towards animal agriculture. And one of those things that I talk about, death by a thousand cuts, that always poking at our side. So hopefully, under the new administration, there's a compromise. Now I met with Mary Thomas about it just yesterday. And I know that we're not gonna get more relaxed. Nobody's gonna get more relaxed on what we dump into a river, right? That's not gonna happen. So there'll be more rules coming. But technology is better. We're always finding ways to stay compliant, and it's been amazing what we've figured out. So just in a few
Matt:seconds there, you touched on so many different things that most of us listening to this podcast go, Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Oh my gosh, that too. Oh, but, so I'm going to drill down on one of those things. You mentioned that you're shipping a load a day, exporting to Asia. Yeah. What cuts are those?
Ed:Oh, it's really vast. Okay. Um, so, So some, some of the product is fresh, which would be heading over there air freight or we're putting them in smaller boxes, so the rib, the strip, the pismo, things like that. And a pismo would be a tenderloin. A tenderloin, yes. And then, but then there's a lot of items that head over there that not offal, but they would be items of value that have a lot of fat on them, like the navel, the plate, the flank plate ends. Naval strips um, we've, there's like 20 cuts that have been invented for international trade and it's because of the way they, they consume our protein and it's really built around the pork belly in my opinion, a lot of fat, cook it really hot really quick, slice it thin or it's boiled, things like that.
Matt:So when you talk about a cut being invented for that. Trade, export market. Who is inventing those?
Ed:It's, so example, I have some Japanese customers there. They're wanting navels, but navels are getting harder and harder to come by. Less cattle, therefore, let the navels. Their economies aren't doing as well as ours. So now they're looking for value, and they see that when I trim the navels, we trim four corners off to square them all up. And they look like little rib fingers, and they buy rib fingers for like 5. 50 to 6 a pound. And he says, what are you doing with those? I said they're going to the fifties. Can we bag them up? Sure. Let's bag them up. Yeah. And he's how much I said 30 cents over the fifties for bagging them up. And so then you try to build value and you know, the round oyster is another funny little piece. Oh, wow. No one ever heard of, and it's going there and short plate strips. I mean, The things, it goes on and on. And every time they're there, they're standing at the bin where the fifties are going in and they're grabbing pieces. And they're like, is this, does this piece come all the time? And then somebody from the fab four will say, yeah, that's coming from the Chuck line or yeah, that's coming from the round. And so we, we, we make a new cut.
Matt:And so that's something, and again, I think most folks listen to this, fifties would be the trim that would go into a grind if it weren't for you all adding value and value adding. So those quote unquote new cuts, is that something that you all have done? Is that something that the processing segment in total has come up with some of these ways to add value? Or is that something that new product initiatives through checkoff dollars are finding? I think it's all the above, because I know that there's so many things, way back, if we go 20, 30 years back to flat iron and a lot of these quote, unquote, new cuts that are not so new anymore we're done with a, some type of a partnership between Checkoff initiatives, research community, and then also the Packer processor partners and I think that's, what's cool about this whole thought of a national cattlemen's beef association, where we have all segments that are looking at it because yeah If you can sell that, what did you call it, naval oyster? Oh, the round oyster. The round oyster. If you can sell that for X cents per pound more than it would have been in grind, that goes into The whole value of that carcass, and hopefully you can pay more for that live steer, and he can pay more for that 550 pounder, or whatever else, and it does trickle down through there, whether we want to admit that or not.
Ed:No, it does. It does trickle down, and we have to do that, because we've got to keep searching out the value, and it's just interesting that it's a combination of everything, right? So it's customers. Maybe getting something from another packer or a version of it and they'll, they'll send me a spec sheet. But like for example, I was just at CAB three to four weeks ago, and they served us what they called the pub steak. And the pub steak comes out of the chuck. And I said, are you kidding me? It's not the flat iron, it was coming out of the clod. Different muscle. Yeah and that's what's interesting about beef is we break every muscle down. I tell everybody that when they're at the plant. The difference between us and pork. is we, every muscle is pulled apart, right? And we're finding a home for it, and we're figuring out different ways to utilize it. And I believe that will continue because we harvested a million less cattle last year, right? Than the year before. That means there's two million less ribeyes last year. Somebody's gonna have to find something else to eat. In terms of featuring it. And all of a sudden, there's going to be people who can't afford the ribeye anymore. Because it becomes all white collar. Or white tablecloth, I mean. and, now we've got to look for other options. And it's crazy, as JC knows, because we're at the plant. We take new cuts home. And you'll have something like chuck flap or sirloin flap. And they're, they're better than anything we've ever had.
Matt:And that, that is so fascinating to me because it's this nuanced thing, okay, why are we trying to find new cuts? Because there aren't enough steaks to satisfy the demand and the demand has driven prices higher and so we can find these value cuts that are affordable by a bigger audience. So, Meanwhile, we're pulling that out of that 50 grind type trim. So, What's that mean? There's less ground beef. Guess what? Americans are not going to quit eating hamburgers. And so, what happens? We reach out and bring more export We do. Imported to the U. S. beef to make hamburgers. We do. Then all of a sudden we look at the numbers. Oh my gosh, look at this. We're importing more beef than we've ever imported. Well, Guess what? We're selling stuff out to other folks, either domestically or exported to other countries, for more money than what we're bringing that cheap beef in that's going to turn into a grind anyways. That's not to get into the whole politicized Trade imports and exports deal, but that's something that I think we forget about when we go to griping about this imported beef that's coming into us from Australia or wherever the case may be. Well, Guess what we traded some that was worth twice that to them or to another country. And so if Americans still want ground beef, we're probably going to end up importing some.
Ed:We're in a world market. And I say that all the time now, like I was somewhere and somebody was complaining about. How much Brazilian product was making it into China. And I, I remember I said that means there's a hole somewhere. Yeah. Because the Brazilian product was going somewhere and now there's an opportunity for somebody else. And so it's just this big void that's created every once in a while when we move things around. And you're right. We're making a big, we're sending a lot of fat over to the Asian markets. Therefore. We got to bring lean in and it's going to come from places like Australia and Uruguay. Yeah, that's
Matt:that world market is it's got a lot of moving parts and especially as we look at the dollar fluctuating and its value and what we can how competitive or Uncompetitive that we are with other countries because of their currency. And then you throw in the Trump effect. And um, I mean, most everybody listening here is going to be in agreement that, that there are more good than bad as we look at this administrative change.. But one of the question marks is, what's going to happen when we say, okay, we've been relying on, pick a region, Asia, for selling a load a day to them. We go to a some kind of a tariff on some of their products coming in and what's that happened for ours going out? What do you all see in the coming weeks months years? How is that gonna affect upper Iowa and some of your business decisions?
Ed:I mean
Matt:I
Ed:Worry about a little bit, but then I get reminded. We're in a world market. So for every action There's a reaction which will open up the door for another customer, right? And, And I've been over there now. I'm going to actually be headed over there in March. We'll be in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, customers of ours. And I've also been in China. Um, they have to buy protein from somebody. Those countries have to, from somebody. So, If it's not ours, it'll be somebody else's. And then, therefore, ours will go to wherever that hole was created. So I'm not that worried about it. What does probably worry me the most when I'm over there is Their economies aren't doing as well as ours. Our dollar's strong. They don't have the inflation that we have. I hope it doesn't trickle into us. I mean, I saw that a year ago. Still hasn't happened to us, right? We're still having good economic growth. Part of it, I think, is just how mature our economy is, too. We have a really robust, strong economy. And we are self sustaining. That's the other thing you really quickly learn when you're flying into Korea. And no natural resources, can't raise enough food to take care of themselves, and have no fossil fuels, can't make their own energy. The United States is a very unique place.
Matt:Yeah, and I think we take that for granted. Especially those of us who have not gotten the opportunity to see the parts of the world that you have seen. And we just assume that, yeah, we hear there's differences, and they're a little less self sufficient. But yeah, when you go into a place like that, that has to import all their energy and their food, my goodness, I take for granted the level of bargaining power that we have here in the United States. So let's talk about those Pacific Rim, Asian markets. you know, We'd like to think about that. Shabu or that, that steak that the Japanese are putting on their flat top griddle or whatever the case may be, but a lot of what they buy is stuff that Not many of us Americans want to or are willing to eat sometimes wouldn't even be able to grind that into, to fifties in a hamburger market. What are some of the cuts or some of those pieces that you're sending? wherever, but specifically to the Pacific ram and Asian market that we don't think about it and how important, how much is that drop credit and some of that offal to your profitability there in the processing segment. So I really
Ed:don't export a lot of offal. I export some like my tripes. I do some exporting on, but because I'm a smaller packer, I don't make loads of livers and I don't make loads of kidneys. But on the flip side, The domestic market has become so diverse that I don't need to. So I look at a customer like Quaker Valley in Philadelphia. Extremely diverse town, Philadelphia. So he's buying prime, middles, all the way down to the cheapest stuff he can find that's a protein for different customers. So livers and kidneys all the odd things that you can think of. The flexor tendons and things like that. Because he has different price points to meet, for different people that live in the Philadelphia community. And ethnicities. Yes. Yeah. And so he's got his Asian division, he's got his Hispanic groups that are needing different things. And then he's got his his white collar and his blue collar. and so we are putting loads together, when you look at it, it's like almost every cut is on there. And it, it's amazing to me, and they're distributors that, that have 50 trucks that go out every day and deliver 1 to 10 boxes of something to, to their customers.
Matt:So has that market grown from, just from your standpoint? Are they selling more of those kidneys and livers and things like that? And if so, why? Is that strictly because of a different changing in ethnicity or are there more people? More Americans that are going back to eating some of those organ type meats.
Ed:I don't know if it's really a traditional Americans. I think it is the ethnic groups. And they, they're always looking at price points. It's interesting. When I talk to Quaker Valley, I'm going to pick on Dan diamond. Cause he's a younger guy who's running the buy there now. He'll see stuff on my price sheet. And they'll say well, what are you doing with those Chuck Spare Ribs? And I'm like well, I'm at a 1. 50 on them. Well, I need something with that dollar something range because all of a sudden now neck bones are too high and hind shanks are too high, but I need something that'll fit into their price point for soups and they want a protein of some sort. And so it's constantly that way,
Matt:it's like a guy sitting in the uh, uh, sale barn that had an order for. Five weight calves that looked like this and they got too high and he decided okay, I'm gonna do the math I'm yeah, I'm gonna figure in loss and things like that But I'm gonna trade down and it's the same way all the way through the beef chain Yeah, the whole way and I think that's what we have to recognize and that's something that Uh, you said you were too small to be able to export loads of livers. Like livers to Egypt. Yeah. What about these folks that are still at or smaller than you were when you started and processing eight head a day or three head a day? What are they doing with those? Because they're probably
Ed:paying somebody to dump them. Are they not? It was really hard when I started. When I was just getting started until we kind of hit that. 250 head a day. It was really a struggle. Those offal items, you'd have to let them build up in the freezer. Um, I wasn't even washing the tripes yet. And you're not very good at it. You couldn't build it up. So that, those stuff, that's the things that were just, they were just going to rendering. And so you're getting anywhere from six to twenty cents, twenty cents a pound for them. Just going right out there to rendering when they should be bringing a dollar fifty. to 4 a pound.
Matt:And so how, as we talk about a more resilient food chain or supply chain I had Dr. Temple Grandin on here a year or so ago and, and she was talking about that big is, is not resilient as we get larger plants that are not spread out as much and she was saying we need more plants that are your size and lower but the challenge is how do you capture specially some of these really small butcher plants that are just doing a few head a week can they survive as we go forth if they can't capture that 4 a pound for some of this off all and drop credit instead of, you know, a few cents or even having to pay somebody to haul it off as waste?
Ed:Yeah, so now that I'm at 500 head a day, I believe in terms of economic efficiencies and my cost to operate, I've gotten pretty close to some of the bigger plants. As far as I can tell, that number is really hard to find out, right? There's probably four or five people that know what that number is on a cost per head, and I believe I'm getting down there. But what does concern me is They all have rendering and they all have grinds and I'm missing that. And they also all have hide processing facilities. And so I look at all those and I say well, if they can make 10 a head on each of those three segments, there's 30 right there. And that, that's what worries me because that means I've got to get an extra 30 just to be even with them out of the cuts that they're already making. So that means. We need to do everything just a little bit better and we try to like when if you're here I have some customers here and you talk to them They'll always brag about how good our cuts look and how our box looks and I remind the people that work for me we have to be a little bit better all the time because I'm gonna ask more. I'm gonna ask a fair amount more for my ribeye that than anybody else But we have to make sure we're bringing value to them too. So that ribeye better be nice, it better be sorted right. And that is the hardest part of where I am today. It's having that vision that we're gonna be a little bit better. But in the beginning, you're gonna sell it under the market. And you're gonna be a little bit better. And I'll have a plant manager say to me why are we gonna make the ribeye nicer than one of the majors? And yet you're going to get less for it. And I'm like, because we have to build up.
Matt:Get your foot in the door.
Ed:Yeah.
Matt:Yeah.
Ed:There's no other way to do it.
Matt:So of the different requests, and I'm not going to say complaints, I'm going to say requests that your customers give you, what is it that's at the absolute top of the list? Is it consistency of size? Is it quality and marbling? What, What is it they want? It's
Ed:really trim specs. Everybody's after trim specs. Everything needs to look the same. Yeah, they want them to look the same. It's, presentation in the box is getting to be big. We just started for the first time doing a three way sword on our rib eyes. We used to always pull the heavies off. Now I've got a light rib eye, an average, and a heavy. And really, it's I'm not getting less for either one of them. Heavy's a little bit at times are hard to sell, but I have customers that said, we don't mind getting that light ribeye. We just don't want it into the box with the medium, because we want to be able to open it up and say, we're cutting the light rib eyes this way thicker, but then we're cutting these over here, or we have customers who insists that. That they want to have an inch and a half thick or an inch thick steak, but they can't get it out of a 17 pound ribeye. And so we're sorting things, started doing that with the briskets. And what happens over time is you build a reputation for having a really nice brisket. So retailers like a lighter brisket that's smaller. Barbecuers want a great big one with a lot of fat. Yes, they do. And when you sort them now, all of a sudden you get pull through is what I call it. And this takes forever for a customer to tell a distributor. No, I don't want the Tyson box. I want upper Iowa beef brisket and then you have them. Then you got it. Then I can start to add a little bit on little bits at a time. So as you
Matt:let's go back to those rib eyes. What? from a either square inch size or, ribeye size or a total poundage per rib, what are those breakouts on your light, middle, and heavy ribs?
Ed:Today we've we're still trying to figure out what that right break is on the light. We're using 14 and under for my light, then 14 to 17 for my average. Square inches? Nope. Pounds per rib. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If you were to measure them up, they're going to be bigger. But yeah, it's pounds. The gals in packaging are weighing them. And so they know which box to put them into. And then 17 pounds and up are going into the heavy box. we're doing the same thing with the briskets. So under 12 pounds, we call a light brisket. They go to retail because the average smoker at home, he doesn't need. A 14, 15 pound brisket, a smaller one is all they really need. Yeah. Cause we're no longer going to say
Matt:that it doesn't fit the box. It doesn't fit the Traeger. Some of these briskets out of these 1800 pound live type of steers, they're so big and sometimes so fat. Yeah. They may not even fit on that home. Barbecuer's smoker
Ed:yeah. And that is what is really interesting that um, COVID. taught people a new world right that they could have white tablecloth food at home and really it's not that expensive so it may seem high to buy that whole brisket but if you do the math on how many people you fed compared to going out it's pretty reasonable
Matt:well especially and I always talk about beef as an experience and if we do it right And we make it right, and it eats well, it is a replacement, not for a cheap chicken dinner, it is a replacement for going to the movie theater, or to the ball game, or whatever else, and you make it an event, and if that event costs you a hundred dollars to feed four people, instead of 50, and yet they all bragged on ya? That was well worth the additional 50 bucks. And if we can make beef, time after time, whether it is that value cut, or whether it is that prime strip steak, rib eye, whatever the case may be, if we can make that an experience, and allow that mom or dad to go home and them look like the hero, There's no telling what we can charge for those retail
Ed:cats. And then I watch the next generation coming up who I believe is very conscientious of what they eat. And now we talk about clean labels. And what's interesting about beef is it is one of the proteins that can maintain its clean label the whole way through. So if you buy a ribeye, you don't have to put anything on it and it's still going to eat alright. Same with the brisket. But everything else, you usually got to top it with something, right?
Matt:Yeah, or they already have topped it and the ingredient list is a mile long. And when you buy that, slab of beef on a tray, there's one ingredient. Beef.
Ed:Yeah. And I think that's, I think it is, and I think we also don't need to worry about how big the portion sizes are. I don't think they're going to eat as much as I traditionally would have, right? But we don't need to worry about that. There's a lot of people. you know, when I go to Asia and they're ordering a few ounces, don't worry about it. There's so many
Matt:of them. So we've talked about portion size here on a lot of past podcasts. And I always ask folks that when we go down this road, as we see these 17 and 18 and 20 inch 20 square inch ribeyes that people want cut an inch and a half thick, like you said, do, in your opinion, Do consumers have a problem with cutting that ribeye into three pieces or two pieces or six pieces, whatever the case may be? Can we make this portion size and thickness of steak work with a
Ed:knife? Absolutely. And I have not seen it at the retail level yet, but I've seen it at white tablecloth restaurants. And so one of the best restaurants where I go to is at Helen in Birmingham, Alabama. And I watched it come out a couple orders of porterhouse and it is a monster. But it's already sliced up for them. So the presentation is beautiful. So what these chefs are getting good at, instead of bringing it out and you sharing a plate, they cut it back there. It's already cut. Put it back together. Lay it in between the two of you. And you're grabbing your pieces. So yeah, you want some tenderloin or you want some strip. And I believe they could start to do that for three or four people. But the key is presentation. The chef's got to cut it right. It's got to do a good job of cutting it and when they do it it's, it is unbelievable, I think, what we can do with this stuff.
Matt:Yeah I think that is another creative way that we, as an industry, including our food service and chef partners, can address this problem without just saying well, we're feeding them too long, or well, you seed stock guys have made them too big. Now, We've had plenty of podcasts talking about the other consequences back home and feeding that cow that's The sister of that steer that's gonna be an 1, 800 pound live weight and so those are things that we have to figure out with more creativity back home and nutrition and management and Selection and things like that. But yeah, the portion size of things we've argued about for years that we've got All these ribeyes are too big well That's easily remedied with a knife, in my opinion. And a little bit of, like you said, creativity. People are getting
Ed:used to it. I mean, My wife and I split salads for gosh sake's sake. We're these places we go, everybody splits the dessert now. Yeah. I think that's a very common thing. And I, I don't know why a house of, a mom and dad and a couple kids wouldn't do the same thing with a bone in ribeye. Presentation, just grab the pieces you want, and um, we're not going to stop making them bigger. I mean, Just data shows that. We're never going to, we're always going to keep raising more corn per acre. Pigs are going to keep getting bigger, chickens are going to get bigger. It's just, that's capitalism, isn't it?
Matt:Yeah, it is, and you know, the age old argument is that there's something in that chain that won't allow them to continue to get bigger. And I remember it used to be. These carcasses are dragging off the rails, clear to the floor. That was in the late nineties. The first time I heard that, and I've had other people say that that was even said back in the sixties, you know, when we, when we had the belt buckle cattle, these cattle, these carcasses just can't get any bigger. And yet, like you said, every year, it's as linear of a chart as we look at five pounds per year per carcass. After you figure out a few of the ups and downs because the corn market and things like that. But yeah, I, I. As much as I hate to admit it, as a rancher, who's trying to make cows fit an environment, the economics, until we go to buying cattle differently, and you all go to saying, you know what, there is enough pushback from an animal welfare standpoint, all these other things, until the industry says, you know what, enough's enough, we're going to send signals to make an optimum right size, and that size is going to be Whatever it is, we're not gonna, we're not gonna quit. Because the handwriting's on the wall. It's it makes us more money. It makes you more money. It's more efficient. It's part of the beast.
Ed:The pack spec thing at the packing plant, we've seen that. You know, We try to put three chuck rolls in a box. That's an industry standard. I now put two in a box for my heavy chuck roll. And it, it says right on the side, heavy chuck roll. Because they were weighing over 90 pounds. And it was a problem for lifting them. It was a problem for box integrity. And so, we'll always find a way. That's the beauty of the U. S. Is capitalism always finds a way to solve a problem, right? Well, I think as
Matt:we kind of wrap up our discussion, that's what you did. That's all the way through you found a way when you got done at Iowa State went back home and said, oh my gosh I as much as I want to farm and run cows This isn't gonna work. Let's find a way went to the Iowa cattlemen's and you solved issues there And you ran up against brick wall after brick wall with ID and all these discussions and you said We're gonna find a way and just all the way through and even to today Coming into the processing segment because you thought you needed to find a way of doing it better. I mean, inspiring to me that we have folks like yourself running these halls and running the roads of U. S. and I guess of the world. That instead of making a Facebook post and being pissed off because this segment or that segment isn't treating me right. You found a way and continue to do so and I think that's what all of us need to aspire to do.
Ed:Yeah, we really are in unique times. So I get to travel a lot, right? I'm in all the big cities and I dress just like Matt does. I never change the way I dress. Always a cowboy hat and a pair of boots. But people really want to talk to us. And they really do. I still believe that we are the royalty of the U. S., the Cowboy is, and the Cattleman. But what's interesting about that show, Yellowstone, even though I don't watch it, and I hear about it everywhere I go, for the first time, I have a lot of people that see me in an airport and don't think Cowboy. They think the boss. He's Kevin Costner. You know, Whenever you go where they always thought Cowboy hat means cowboy. Sure. When You and I don't do a lot of cowboying, really, do we? Well, I still get to,
Matt:but you're right, it's not the top of the priorities. Yeah,
Ed:and so now they see a guy who's the boss and he's raising beef, raising food. Raising a family. Yes, now there's some things about that show that we don't do, right?
Matt:I agree, we don't have a train station, you might, but But I, I agree, and my Montana friends always just get furious when I say Yellowstone's not necessarily a bad thing for the beef industry because it has, I think, and actually Ethan Lane this morning in that D. C. issues update for NCBA jokingly said that Taylor Sheridan has brought all of the issues that he has to lobby the D. C. bureaucracy and The Congress and everybody else, the administration, he's brought all of those issues to light and given just enough of a dramatic perspective on generational transfer of ownership and the challenges that they have. On working together as a family who may or may not all get along. Labor issues and animal health, and disease, and all of these different things. Consumer misperceptions about beef, and how it's raised, all these different things. Yellowstone's brought that, not just shed a little bit of light, but brought it into the cultural norm. And I think there's benefit in that. Now, again, do we do things like Beth does? I hope not, usually. Um, Usually. But there is value in it. And I think that we as beef cattle producers, whether it's at the top of the supply chain or at the bottom raising genetics to start the thing, I think we have to recognize that there's value in that and we have to embrace that and Know that the consumer craves that and they crave it for their own life and their only connection may be that opportunity to buy a cut of beef that we raised, you processed and delivered to that retailer and there's huge value in that if we do it right. If we all do our part of it to make sure that's a good experience.
Ed:100 percent and the consumer is really quite smart. They're very educated. Oh man, big time. So when I talk to them. I don't have to, you know, we talk about sustainability and group that likes to pick on us really a lot about greenhouse gases, right? Cattle have been classified as the polluter of the world and greenhouse gases and land usage and water usage. And yet when I sit and talk to them and say yeah, the cow does emit some methane when she eats forages, but I don't think that's our real problem. And I'm sitting in the middle of an airport or in the middle of a city. And I said, you know, when I'm at home, the sky is blue. I don't see this haze like you guys. That's and they understand that they get it. They get that. We don't have to say that we're carbon neutral. We just got to talk about what we do and why we do it and how the cow is utilizing land that can't be done anything else with. We're not going to raise other food off of it.
Matt:And as we have those conversations, I think the thing that I have witnessed, whether it's me talking or watching someone like yourself do that communicating, the thing that happens is in that conversation, whether we have the exact facts or figures or whether we have gotten to that point where we can Without a shadow of a doubt measure how much methane that we're producing and how sustainable our industry might be and all these benchmarks that we're trying to get at. Somewhere in that conversation with that person who is saying that we're trying to kill the environment and them in the process. They see just how much passion and how much we care about what it is we do. About keeping green spaces green. About keeping ruminants on areas of the country that can't grow corn, can't grow lettuce or strawberries or oranges or kale or whatever it is that they think we all should be eating. When we demonstrate how much it means to us and to our family and to our kids and their kids and sustaining this ranch or farm or feedlot or processing plant all the way into the future, That's generally what does more for our cause, if you will, than any facts or figures are telling them that we are carbon neutral or we aren't. And I, again, I go back to the Yellowstone effect. There's a lot of passion in that show. Sometimes it's X rated, but there's a lot of passion there. We have a lot of passion for whatever it is we do every day out here on the farms and ranches. And I think that's what we have to convey. For too many years, we have assumed that they know that we're doing everything we can to feed them. We're doing everything we can to make sure and sustain this business and this industry and this culture into the next generation. And we haven't felt like we had to tell them. It's time that we finally tell that story. as often and as loudly as what we can.
Ed:And don't apologize. That is the one thing that I've always said about cattlemen is we're truthful. Yeah. We're not very good at telling lies, right? Yeah, that's for sure. And so just tell it. Exactly. Tell the story. Don't hide it. Don't hold back. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt:And that's, that's, it takes us, it takes all of us. We can't rely on somebody else. Well, The beef check off is going to do that for us. Or well, the packer ought to be doing that because they're, they've got the connections with the retailer or whatever. It takes us all. It does. It takes all of us. And um, we've got a great story to tell. And we just need to tell it. Yeah. That probably sums it up pretty well. And, And yeah, I appreciate uh, bringing this whole circle. Yeah. It's been great. And keep up the good work and stay in touch. And again, thanks for sharing the story of Upper Iowa Beef and Ed Griman and everything can stop in any time for a tour. All right. Sounds great. Thanks a bunch. Ed. All right. Thank you.
Thanks for tuning in to Practically Ranching, brought to you by Dalebanks Angus. If you liked this show, even if you didn't, share it with somebody else, give us a five star review and a comment so we can keep cranking'em out. We're about sold out of our private treaty bulls, but if you need one, be sure to contact us soon. We're also going to be selling a group of young April Calving Cows here in the near future. If you'd like information on any of these registered groups, email me at mattperrier@dalebanks.com. God bless you all, and I look forward to visiting again soon.
