Consumers seek more than meat from producers

Demand for organ meat, fat and bones has opened a new market for producers.

Heather Maude, who operates Maude Hog & Cattle LLC near Scenic, S.D., with her husband, Charles, began selling retail cuts of pork in 2017 and then joined the Rapid City farmers market in 2018 where they sell pork and grain-finished beef. Everything they sell at the retail level is processed at a USDA-inspected processing facility in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Maude uses two butcher shops for either whole or half hogs and quarter, half and whole beef or retail cuts. She consistently books out 6-12 months in advance at all times in order to ensure they can get in.

In addition to meat, Maude also has customers seeking beef and pork fat.

“I have people purchase it from me and they are rendering it for personal home cooking uses or for skincare products,” she said.

Maude said the beef kidney, pelvic and heart fat has been popular. Since they grain finish their beef, they also pull any external fat trim off. That fat comes back from the processor in 5-pound vacuum-sealed packages.

When they started in the meat business, they kept a small percentage of the fat in August and September for hunters. They now keep the fat off of all the beef and probably 50 percent of the hogs.

“I struggle to keep up with the beef fat. The pork is hit and miss,” Maude said. “If you have it in volume, someone may come along and take 50 pounds of it at a time. It’s a lot more sporadic. We went from not selling any to selling almost a hundred percent of the beef fat and we can consistently roll through 30 percent of our pork fat.”

Besides consumers buying fat directly from producers, restaurants are starting to switch to using beef tallow for frying. In addition to chains like Outback Steakhouse and Buffalo Wild Wings, local restaurants have started using it.

Mandan, North Dakota Rolling Hills Restaurant general manager Rachel Fay said the owners had suggested it so they did some research.

“There are some health benefits compared to soybean oil, but mainly the food tastes way better,” Fay said.

The restaurant started using beef tallow in their fryers in January. They noticed a difference in taste right away. Fay said customers really like it with some coming in just to try the fries to see the difference.

They order the tallow from the same company where they sourced their soybean oil. The tallow costs about $10 less. 

The beef tallow comes in a solid form. They start with about 50 pounds in the fryer to melt down. Their fryers stay on 24 hours a day so they only have to melt it when they change it. They purchased a new filtering process that keeps the oil cleaner and they can change it about every five days as opposed to the soybean oil that they changed about every three days.

Fay said others in Mandan and Bismarck have now switched. For customers looking for the types of oil restaurants use, the website localfats.com allows people to search an area for what kinds of oil and fats restaurants are using. The website currently lists the cooking oils used at 5,302 restaurants in 28 countries.

“Everybody’s trying it now. It’s worth a try. You can definitely taste a difference,” Fay said. “We’ve had emails and calls from places in South Dakota asking me where we got it and what we think.”

President Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, has touted what he claims to be health benefits from replacing seed oils with beef tallow.

The market for beef tallow was worth an estimated $480 million in 2023, up from $446 million in 2018, according to the North American Renderers Association. It is a fraction of the market for vegetable-based cooking oils, but producers expect the tallow market to grow as a result of Kennedy’s enthusiasm, according to a Reuters story.

In addition to fat, Maude has also seen an increase in demand for bones and organ meat. One customer orders an entire box of bones so she can make her own bone broth. Other customers like the large raw knuckles for their pets.

The demand for organ meat at the farmers market has become so popular Maude has to purchase additional organs from her USDA processor to meet the demand. While the beef organs are more popular, they do sell pork organs as well.

“The beef organs are more popular. Our number one use is pet related,” Maude said.

She has also noticed in recent months that more of her customers are interested in trying liver.

Maude said the Rapid City area is a bit unique with the Air Force base there.

“Rapid City is somewhat unique because we have an Air Force base so we have a lot of people who have a diverse palate who have lived a lot of different places and who are not afraid to cook things that my standard Midwestern kitchen has never seen. That plays into it as well,” Maude said.