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Comment by AtomicOrbital | Hacker News Reader

Most Americans have never eaten beef grown on a family farm where its grass fed, no hormones nor antibiotics ... even store bought expensive organic beef pales in comparison ... family friends own such a wholesome farm and I can say their beef is incredible and its not even beef cattle its Swiss Brown and Jerseys which are milk cows ... even beef from high end restaurants is no match for beef from such a caring gentle farm ... the quality of beef has suffered greatly in the name of profits due to industrial scale multinationals who dominate the mass market

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I have and it can be very good but the best (and most expensive) cuts from a butcher can be just as good. There were also small farms that have gone into the grassfed boutique approach that sell direct or through farmer's markets and they tend to be better than my great uncle's ranch was (no offense to him). There were some dairy farms that tried something similar but still had trouble being too profitable. The milk from them came in glass bottles and was very good.

What's the price difference between industrial beef and the beef from your friend's farm?

When my folks buy a half or whole beef creature from the farmer down the hill, it works out to be cheaper than buying the same cuts at retail. Last time I ran the numbers it was $3.50 - $4/pound; of course that's over everything, from stew meat and liver to ribeyes and tenderloin. The farmer takes the animal to the butcher shop, where it's slaughtered, hung, cut, packaged, vacuum-sealed, and flash frozen.

In every way, it's superior to grocery store meat. You just need to be able to purchase it in bulk and have an entire freezer to store it.

There's a startup called CrowdCow that sells this grade of beef but in smaller portions: https://www.crowdcow.com

I also had a friend raising grass fed organic beef. This was about 10 years ago when I was still in Canada, but I seem to remember that his prices were fairly comparable to the supermarket. Cheaper than a high end butcher anyway. He had a series of setbacks (a serial arsonist burnt down his barn, mad cow disease restricted his access to slaughter houses, foot and mouth disease in the area, etc...) In the end he had to cut down his herd fairly dramatically and he ended up doing a lot of vegetable farming to fill the gap. Not sure how he's doing now, but at the time there was a crazy waiting list to get his beef. And it was spectacular. I'm pretty sure he was going to try to build his herd back up, but then he was also pretty upset by all of the problems he had. The relative simplicity of high end organic veggies was growing on him.

Edit: misread your comment. Removing mine.

Not the OP, but I've been buying beef from a farmer I know (relative of a friend) for the last few years. It's grass-fed, high quality beef and I buy about 250 lbs at a time which lasts us about a year. Total cost per lb including butchershop costs (cutting into steaks, roasts, grinding, etc.) averages under $3/lb. Only the cheapest hamburger in the store is available at that price around here.

The few times I've needed to buy store bought I can instantly taste the difference.

And now that I'm almost out of beef I'm in the "annoying" position of having nothing left in the freezer but a few T-bone and ribeye steaks because I hid some in the bottom last year :-)

What part of the US do you live in? I'm looking at at the very least around $6.50/lb for a half a steer in the Bay Area.

That's insane.

I live outside the Minneapolis metro area. As far as I can tell, he's not giving me a special price. I buy a quarter; I'm sure a half would be a little cheaper. It's in line with what I've heard from other people. Bison is a little more expensive, but not by much.

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