ARLINGTON – Get away from the business parks and freeways that cut across the southern half of Snohomish County, and you’ll still find lush green fields dotted with cattle.
The pastoral scenes created by local farms is undercut, however, by the reality that it’s getting harder to make a living raising animals.
A budding group of cattle ranchers, however, may change that. They hope to start selling their product under the Cascade Range brand name to restaurants and grocery stores in the coming months.
“This would be local beef raised on good local grass,” said Mike Hackett at the Washington State University Extension office in Everett. “We think there’s a big potential with it.”
Local ranchers also hope the marketing program will help solve several obstacles they face in getting their beef and other meat to consumers. That includes the lack of a local slaughter facility approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“In Snohomish County, there’s this big hole. I can’t sell my cattle,” said Linda Neunzig, who owns the 50-acre Ninety Farms in Arlington with her husband, Brad. She also serves on the county’s Agricultural Advisory Board.
Meat cannot be sold commercially if it’s not slaughtered in a federally approved plant or mobile facility, Neunzig said. Instead, farmers have to sell their animals to sales lots, which then transfer them to a butchering plant. Or they have to sell the animal live to a private buyer, then slaughter it individually. Either way, it cuts into the profit margin.
With that dilemma in mind, Neunzig and others first met a year and a half ago. Their discussions led them to meet with Anacortes-based Mindgarden Group about marketing their beef. The agency specializes in creating and cultivating product brands,
Bill Shepard, a principal with Mindgarden, said the ranchers have a product that fits in naturally with the growing number of consumers who want meats that are healthy and of good quality.
“Here’s an opportunity for people to get really healthy beef at a time when more are turning back to beef as a source of protein,” said Shepard, who has previously worked with food brands including General Mills’ Chex cereal and Cascadian Farm, an organic food brand based in Skagit County. “Grass-fed beef is healthier, it’s higher in omega-3 fatty acids and lower in saturated fat. It’s more like beef used to be raised before factory farms.”
With assistance from a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, Mindgarden researched the market and came up with the Cascade Range brand and logo.
The agency also helped develop a set of standards for ranchers who want their beef sold under the brand name. For example, the cattle can’t be given antibiotics or growth hormones, and they must be fed grasses, not grains.
Along with other grazing, animal handling and tracking requirements, the animals must be inspected by an independent inspector before they are slaughtered.
So far, between 25 and 30 ranchers have joined the cooperative effort to establish the Cascade Range brand. Neunzig said interest from farmers and help from a list of groups, ranging from the Snohomish County Cattlemen’s Association to the Farm Bureau and the county government, has been heartening.
“It’s been so neat. There’s been no competition between people. Instead, they’ve all worked together,” she said.
The Cascade Range brand is now on the verge of being launched, with the goal of selling beef from 1,000 head of cattle in 2005, Neunzig said.
If the marketing program works out, the effects will be felt by more than just the ranchers taking part. More beef sales means better times for farm supply stores and a range of other local businesses.
Once ranchers begin raising more cattle, it could put some of the county’s inactive farms and grazing lands back into production, Hackett added.
It’s also hoped that greater beef production in Snohomish County will lead to the establishment of a USDA-approved slaughter facility here. After all, that was the original goal and one that’s still critically important, Neunzig said.
In the meantime, her ranch and others are using their existing relationships with USDA-approved facilities elsewhere in the Puget Sound region to process beef for the program.
As details of the Cascade Range marketing program are finalized, the plan is to introduce the brand soon to restaurants and then grocery stores in the region, Shepard said.
“This is a relatively small group of ranchers getting started, but there’s a significant opportunity for a larger number of farmers to get involved,” he said.
As of 2002, beef cattle and calves ranked eighth among the county’s top agricultural commodities, according to state statistics. But Neunzig said she’s had farmers who don’t raise cattle now call her to find out more about the new program.
“Who knows how we’ll end up with this,” she said. “The sky’s the limit.”
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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