OWNER: ALLISON MEHARG • RANCH NAME: NOWAK FARMS
How did you get started selling branded Brahman beef?
We sell bulk Brahman-influenced beef. We started in Brahmans to raise crossbred show steers for the show market, but Covid changed our plans, and we started feeding out calves that wouldn’t sell well in the market weekly sales. The show calf market went to nothing locally and freezer beef took off.
What type of cattle are you using in your beef program?
We have a hodge podge herd of crossbred English influence cattle, as well as ¼ to purebred Brahmans, and ½ to purebred Beefmasters. We use a Beefmaster and a Fleckvieh Simmental bull for natural service, along with either AI or leasing a Brahman bull.
How do you market your branded beef operation?
Word of mouth and customer recommendations through social media. It’s the only beef I think that sells itself without having to do much marketing when you have the right cultural market.
Where is your product available for sale?
It’s all direct to consumers through us. We open our waitlist to new customers a couple times a year but have a high return rate that keeps us steadily booked.
What cuts do you offer? What is the most popular?
We do bulk halves and wholes only. Customers pick their own cuts. Most popular are bone in ribeye, ground beef, chuck roasts, briskets, ox tail, tri tip, and rib cuts. We try to get as much back as possible for our customers, which means they get a wide variety of cuts.
How is Brahman beef different than other beef?
Our customers tell us the flavor is unlike beef they get through traditional sources. We see that too. I think it’s because the fat has a more butter-like flavor and the calves marble well without putting too much fat into the internal portions of the cuts. Our customers value how much meat in usable cuts they get back instead of fat. I know the grade scales value the high marbling and fat composition, but the Brahman meat value that customers see makes them realize the quality they get back for a variety of recipes. I think the average Brahman beef customers like the leaner beef and value the butter like texture of the fat.
Are there any negative preconceived notions about Brahman beef from buyers that you have to address?
Eighty percent of people have no issues, and any that do like it once they try it, but we do screen new customers with specific questions that will weed out which ones would prefer Angus or Wagyu vs Brahman. We ultimately want the customer to be a happy return buyer. The problem in the beef market is actual breeders. Most customers have only had Angus beef. We can change their minds most of the time with a taste test, but it’s stunning how many breeders of Brahman influence cattle have zero clue on the feedlot value of their cattle.
We have a really hard time finding purebred Brahman steers. Yet, I can buy fairly cheap 12–24-month-old bulls every day. That’s too old for us to be able to use, but the breeders are taking a loss on those animals keeping them, feeding them, getting a BSE, registration papers, etc. We have tried working with a few breeders but haven’t had a lot of luck changing their minds on the value of selling weaned steers. We can find Brahman sired calves though and that has helped us supplement our own herd.
I know there are a lot of complaints that the association isn’t doing a good job marketing bulls. I think the question needs to be – how can we show breeders the value of castrating bull calves early that may only be a decent, not great bull prospect? A mediocre bull makes a great steer, and you have way less money in them long term! I just think we need to get that message out better to all breeders. A great bloodline doesn’t always equal a great bull.
How interested are people in buying Brahman beef? Please describe the current demand.
Demand is our actual problem. We doubled our production in the last two years and still can’t meet demand. We could double it again and still probably have a long waitlist. We are actively working to find other local growers to join our program to help upscale our business since land leases aren’t available to grow our number of calves. We think if the Brahman-influence breed associations could form a marketing group, the demand for Brahman beef could rival Angus. Restaurants, food trucks, wholesale distributors, local specialty food businesses have all approached us with additional opportunities to work with them. We can’t even get close to meeting the demand. It’s a good problem to have, but incredibly frustrating when we can’t fi nd enough calves or farms that see the potential.
Are you retaining kill data to be used with other performance data in your herd? If so, what data do you receive and how do you use it or plan to use it?
We don’t currently put any data into the Digital Beef system as almost none of our herd is registered. I wish there was a cheaper option for us to do a herd data input so we could start putting that in. We know most birthweights, all weaning weights, all hanging weights, days to kill time, and are working on building a chute setup so we can have live weights before the butcher date. Our herd is so diverse that we have a wide range of weights but customers like that because everyone usually wants something different depending on family size.
Do you have particular bloodlines that you think are superior based on the meat?
No. I want to work on that with the hopes of owning an AI prospect we can market with actual kill data to back it up. Most of the better bloodlines are out of our price range currently. We can’t justify paying more than $115-150 a straw to AI or more than $6-7000 for a bull. That has limited what purebred Brahmans we use. It’s been more cost effective for us to buy females that didn’t fit friends registered show herds because they raise the best freezer calves. We also don’t mind females with small cosmetic issues that would cull them from other herds. We will be hopefully leasing a Brahman bull this year to go on our heifers and keep the resulting heifer calves.
Please describe the biggest challenges of owning a branded beef operation. Is there anything else that I have not asked you want to tell me about?
The most frequent question we get is – You can eat them? That tells me that the Brahman-influence breeds have nailed the marketing strategy for females. Everyone knows they make great moms. But the same people will tell you the meat is worthless until you cook it for them. Then they still say Angus or Wagyu is better. We even heard the same thing from breeders at a couple shows that sell registered Brahmans or Brahman-influence heifers/bulls, but their freezer beef herd is Angus, Hereford or Wagyu. That’s frustrating. We need to gather data, work on finding out who our exact customer is, and then develop specific goals to expand Brahman influence beef operations. There just isn’t the infrastructure in place to do that now. I know we have marketing, but it’s not actual beef focused. Its export focused. I’m more concerned about growing young and small US operations, which I think freezer beef is the answer to doing that.
I have talked to some researchers that know Brahman beef has a giant opportunity to grow their brand, but we must educate our own breeders and develop the infrastructure first. Breeders need to see the value in their calves even if they aren’t going to become breeding stock. When we make breeders believers in their own product, then we can change things like the grade scales, marketing campaigns, etc.
• 850-232-1681
• 3150 SANDICREST DR, CANTONMENT, FL 32533
• FACEBOOK GROUP: NOWAK FARMS – CANTONMENT, FL
