Do You Know Where Your Beef Comes From, and Is It Safe?
Thereโs a lot of talk right now about beef prices, imported beef, and finding cheaper ways to get ground beef onto grocery store shelves.
We get it. Beef is expensive. We buy it every week, so we feel those prices too.
But price isnโt the only thing worth asking about.
And maybe even more importantly...
how do you know itโs safe?
At Panizzera Meat Co., we think those should be pretty easy questions to answer.
Our Supply Chain Is Pretty Simple
1. Full Circle Ranch in Santa Rosa
Our grass-fed beef comes from right here in Sonoma County and the cattle are slaughtered on the ranch.
2. Panizzera Meat Co. in Occidental
The beef comes to us and is processed here under USDA inspection.
3. Every production lot is tested
We take a sample and send it to a laboratory for STEC/E. coli testing.
4. We wait for the results
We donโt just assume everything is fine. We wait for that lot to come back negative.
5. Then we grind it fresh
Once the results are clear, the beef is ground fresh for our customers.
Thatโs it. Ranch. Butcher. Lab. Customer.
Why Are We So Serious About Ground Beef?
A steak and a pound of ground beef arenโt quite the same when it comes to food safety.
When beef is ground, the outside surfaces of the meat get mixed throughout the entire batch. Thatโs one of the reasons ground beef deserves some extra attention.
So instead of simply relying on sanitation, good practices and hoping everything went right, we add another step: we test the actual production lot.
STEC stands for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli. You donโt need to remember the acronym. The important part is that these are the types of E. coli we donโt want in your ground beef.
We test because we want to know there isnโt one.
Not All Ground Beef Is Produced the Same Way
Ground beef made at a retail grocery store can come from a very different system.
Retail stores have sanitation and recordkeeping requirements, but they generally are not sending every individual lot of ground beef they produce to an independent laboratory for STEC testing the way we do.
Our facility operates under a verified HACCP food-safety plan, and USDA also independently collects and tests products from our facility as part of its verification program.
In other words, there are multiple layers involved: sanitation, inspection, documentation, laboratory testing and federal oversight.
All That Testing Costs Money
Sending every production lot to a laboratory isnโt cheap. For a small company like ours, itโs actually a pretty exorbitant expense.
But weโve made the decision that itโs worth doing.
And despite those costs, we still work hard to keep our ground beef competitively priced.
We donโt think customers should have to choose between affordable beef and knowing where it came from, who handled it and what was done to make sure it was safe.
Traceable beef takes a little more work.
Weโre not trying to compete with mystery beef by cutting corners.
Weโre trying to give people something better.
You should be able to ask where your beef came from and get a real answer.
You should also be able to ask how it was handled and what was done to make sure it was safe.
With our ground beef, weโre happy to answer both.
Thatโs something weโre pretty damn proud of.