PIEDMONTESE
THE SCULPTED BREED
Southern Minnesota farmers
are marketing lean, tender beef products from an Italian
breed with extraordinary muscles.
BY CINDY GREEN
 Like
mascots for Lifetime Fitness, lean and ripped, the
Piedmontese swagger passively about the farmyard. These are
no ordinary beef cattle. The heavily-muscled breed, from the
Alpine regions of Northern Italy, yields tender, lean beef
with little fat or bone waste.
Randy Brandt has been raising Piedmontese on his farm south
of Marshall, Minn. since 1994. In 2001, he started marketing
beef sticks to a handful of stores. Now, with his new wife
Donna, he is managing three companies to produce and market
a variety of Piedmontese-cross beef products.
The R&P three
The Brandts production company, R&P Piedmontese Cattle
Company LLC, is seeking ranchers to raise Piedmontese
half-breeds. Farmers can cross any cow with a full-blood
Piedmontese bull to produce calves that can be labeled
Piedmontese.
Randy is encouraging dairy farmers to use the bottom third
of their herds: “They don’t want their genetics, and they
can breed them with Pieds.” R&P will pay “20 cents above
market price,” for feeder and finished cattle,” Randy says.
“It will give farmers the incentive to breed more.”
The second company, R&P Gourmet Food Processing, Inc.
manages product development and packaging. R&P contracts
with several processing plants to make and package their
beef sticks, jerky, hot dogs, brats, steak cuts and burgers.
Currently, it is seeking investors to finance an on-farm
facility. “We really want our own plant because then we have
quality control,” Donna says.
Finally, R&P Gourmet Beef, Inc., the marketing company,
distributes R&P products to almost 150 convenience and
farm-supply stores in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Montana, Nebraska, Colorado, Tennessee and Kentucky. The
company is in negotiations with several major grocers to
market steak cuts and burgers, and it sells a full line of
products online.
The Piedmontese advantage
Nationwide, there are only about 400 Piedmontese breeders;
Minnesota has about a dozen. The Brandts are the only
Piedmontese ranchers in the state who produce and sell
value-added products. But the Piedmontese, which have only
been in the United States for about 20 years, are just being
discovered by American consumers who want lean but tender
meat.
Full-bred Piedmontese, unlike British breeds such as Angus
and Charolais, have few fat cells. On a hanging carcass,
there is no layer of fat covering the red, sculpted,
double-muscle meat.
Calves from dairy or beef cows bred with full-blood
Piedmontese bulls have a little more fat. But a Pied-cross
sirloin steak has less cholesterol and about half the fat of
skinless chicken. Although Pieds are the same size as
average beef cattle, they weigh more because muscle is
heavier than fat. And their bones are smaller and denser.
To show the difference, Randy holds up an R&P Gourmet T-bone
the size of a large dinner plate - about twice the size of
the same Angus cut. Only a thin bone separates the
tenderloin from the New York strip sections of the T-bone.
With so little marbeling, is it tough? Actually, “it’s more
tender than other beef,” Randy says, and cooks in half the
time. He explains that the Pied’s hyper-trophy muscles yield
a fine-textured, naturally-tender meat.
A cook-out proves his point - steaks grilled only a few
minutes on each side are juicy, tender and flavorful. He
recommends also trying the ribs, which are “twice as meaty
and not fatty like other ribs.”
However, R&P is up against USDA grading standards that
equate fat marbeling with quality. Prime is recognized as
the top grade, but it’s also the highest in fat; choice is
next. R&P receives only the “standard” grade on steaks
because they have little fat. “But talk to your heart
specialists and they’ll say... lower fat... lower
cholesterol,” Randy says.
Little
lost to fat
Full-blood Pieds have coats of hollow hair that insulate
them for Minnesota winters. “And they have sweat glands, so
they don’t pant in hot weather,” Randy says.
With lightweight skin and small bones, even the half-bloods
leave little processing waste. Slaughtered at 12 to 14
months old, a 1,100 pound Pied will yield up to 800 pounds
of meat. “In the industry, 60 to 63 percent usable is
considered good,” Donna says. “We get at least 70 percent.”
Cows top out at 2,000 pounds and bulls at 2,800.
Production costs can be higher, “but the difference is
minimal if you adapt feed rations to the breed,” Randy says.
Because Pied crosses don’t have as many fat cells as
Anglican breeds, feeding them corn to fatten them up “can be
a waste of money,” Randy says. Instead, they need
high-protein feeds such as alfalfa and beet pulp.
R&P raises its animals on natural feed without hormones or
antibiotics. The hot dogs and brats contain no added
nitrates or phosphates. All-natural Piedmontese beef is
somewhat higher priced than Angus. Tenderloins are $23 per
pound; T-bones are about $14. Wieners, brats and hamburgers
are about $5 per pound. But little is lost in cooking.
For example, Donna says that for a fundraiser she prepared
sloppy joe’s with R&P ground beef alongside regular ground
beef to compare. “Out of the 50 pounds of regular beef, we
lost 30 pounds of fat and liquid and were left with 20
pounds. From the 50 pounds of (R&P) beef, we only lost 10
pounds and ended up with 40 pounds,” Donna says. She put the
drained liquid in buckets and refrigerated it. “The top four
inches (of regular beef drippings) was fat. With the Pied
drippings, fat barely skimmed the top ... it’s great in
soups or as au jus.”
Arriving from Italy
The breed can be traced back 25,000 years to Italy’s
Piemonte region. (see accompanying story, “History of the
Piedmontese”) They didn’t arrive in the United States until
1984. By 1994, there were 300 breeders and almost 12,000
registered Piedmontese in the country.
That’s when Randy discovered Pieds. He owned a 250-acre farm
and had been in and out of dairy farming since he was 19
years old. In 1992, he decided to discontinue his 100-head
dairy herd operation.
“I told an old classmate who works for the DNR that I wanted
to get back into raising cows that had a future. He told me
he had just planted trees at a neighbor’s who was into
raising Pieds and said ‘I really like the look of these
cows; they’ve been raising them for seven years.’ I went out
and looked at the cattle the next day.”
Impressed with the muscular, docile animals, “I plunged in
and bought one heifer - back then they cost 300 percent more
than other cows.” The next year, his heifer won Reserve
Grand Champion at the National Western Stock Show in Denver,
Co.
He started crossing dairy cows with a Piedmontese bull, then
experimented with other British crosses such as Guernseys,
Jerseys, Charolais and Herefords. He analyzed growth rates,
yields, leanness and tenderness. His steaks tested favorably
for fat and cholesterol and he decided to invest more in
what he deemed the “beef of the future.”
Randy started selling steaks direct to friends and through
farmers markets but realized he had to find a market for the
trim. So in 2001, he contracted with a processor to make
pepperoni meat sticks from his beef, blended with pork,
which he marketed to local stores.
Knocking on AURI’s door
Later that year, Randy decided he wanted a new all-beef
recipe and more products and approached AURI’s meat lab in
Marshall. Former AURI meat scientist Brian Reuter
experimented with various spices and natural smoke and
designed Smoky Meat Sticks, which quickly became popular
with R&P’s customers.
Randy peddled his sticks at southern Minnesota venues,
including Sponsel’s Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard in
Jordan. There he met Donna, the orchard’s operations manager
and head chef. But Donna had little time for schmoozing
during the harvest season, when the restaurant served
150,000 people in 10 weeks.
A month later, during his Sponsel stop, Donna asked if he
could make brats with the orchard’s home-pressed all natural
apple cider. With AURI’s help, he delivered. The next
spring, she asked for bacon burgers. “That’s what did it for
me,” Donna says. “On a Sunday, when we were closed, he
brought a sample to my house. I had always been too busy to
talk with him before.”
She was impressed with the bacon burgers - and Randy. “We
started dating a year ago last April, and we married in
August (2003).”
In the meantime, Reuter continued to help Randy design more
products at AURI’s meat lab, including a fine-textured,
tender, intensely flavorful pepper jerky that went on the
market in January.
This spring, AURI helped Brandt develop hot dogs and brats
for retail and tested all the products for protein, fat and
carbs.
“AURI has done so much for us,” Randy says. “They have
helped with product development, moisture testing, cooking
time - everything. We know once it’s developed by them, it’s
done right. And we get product consistency.”
Meat cuts
Donna matched Randy’s production experience with retail
expertise, helping move R&P into the more lucrative steak
market. “I knew we needed uniform packaging, and standard
cuts that are individually frozen.”
Now R&P is negotiating with several major grocery chains to
market Piedmontese steaks. “We built a trim market first,”
with jerky and sausages, Donna says. “We have been
stockpiling steaks,” so there will be enough to meet market
demands. Often, small meat processors have the reverse
problem - they can easily market steaks, then have to figure
out what to do with leftover trim.
With more interest in high-protein, low-fat, low-carb foods,
the Brandts are expecting rapid growth, Donna says.
They intend to design pre-seasoned, microwavable steaks and
are adding complementary products, such as steak seasoning.
“We would like to develop 15 more products,” Randy says, and
they want to build an on-farm retail store.
However, “we’ve been trying to do it all ourselves,” and R&P
will need employees in production and marketing, and more
farmers raising Piedmontese crosses to meet demand.
Donna says if their plans go as expected, “we’ll do $500,000
in sales this year, then one million next year, two to three
(million) after that ... and it will just keep growing.”
For more information on R&P Gourmet Beef or to order online,
visit
www.rpgourmet.com.
From Pakistan
to Italy to the U.S.
HISTORY OF THE
PIEDMONTESE
Piedmontese cattle evolved in the Alpine regions of Italy
known as the Piemonte, or “foot of the mountain,” some
25,000 years ago. Brahman cattle from Pakistan migrated to
the region and stayed, as they couldn’t cross the Alps. They
intermingled with native Aurochs, resulting in a grey-white
breed with black pigmentation that became recognized as
Piedmontese in the 1800s. They were raised as much for
their rich milk, used for specialty cheeses, as their beef.
In 1886, the Italian Herdbook noted the appearance of
‘double muscling’ in the cattle. More than 100 years later,
it was discovered that the Myostatin gene was the reason for
the bulging muscles.
Myostatin occurs naturally in all mammals and restricts
muscle growth. However, the gene naturally mutated over
centuries and became inactive. Without the “growth governor”
to restrict muscle development, the Piedmontese developed on
average 14 percent more muscle mass than cattle with
functional myostatin.
The Myostatin blockade effect not only allows for more beef
per carcass, it “also dramatically improves the beef
tenderness, leanness and healthfulness,” according to the
North American Piedmontese Cattle Association Web site.
North America’s first Italian Piedmontese arrived in Canada
in the fall of 1979: one bull named Brindisi, and 4 females:
Banana, Biba, Bisca and Binda. The next year, five more
bulls arrived: Captain, Champ, Corallo, Camino and Domingo.
In the early 1980s, three more sires: Instinto, Imbuto and
Iose and two females: India and Gazza were imported into the
United States. From this genetic base, the breed was
launched and Canada and the United States formed breeder
associations. Today, there are about 400 Piedmontese
breeders in the United States.
Source: North American Piedmontese Cattle Association Web
site:
www.piedmontese-napa.com
|
