There is an interesting thing happening in our culture. Advertising. Advertising wins. If you can come up with the prettiest ad, the cleverest motto, the most touching video clip, you can sell anything. But what if you canâtâŚ
Farmers arenât usually very tech-savvy, at least not compared to the big-wig corporations out there nowadays. And weâre definitely not very up to speed on large-scale advertising trends. We are busy delivering calves, repairing water lines, baling hay, and changing giant tractor tires!
Even if we were able to keep up, itâs thousands and even millions of dollars just to get in the door and get in front of a larger audience. We tend to get pushed aside with our quaint paper flyers and our old-timey market cashboxes.
After all, there are more options available to consumers now. There are more convenient options.
Why would any sane person pay more for the lesser convenience of buying from a local farm out in the sticks, when they can just pop in to the local supermarket on the way home from work, and get their grass-fed beef, their pool toys, their toilet paper, a new toothbrush and a Happy Graduation card, all in one place? All on one plastic transaction. Using a shopping cart. And a scannable coupon on their phone. In the air conditioning. Talk about efficiency! Convenience abounds!
Did I mention the price is right, too? That supermarket can offer an everyday price thatâs $2 lower per pound than the local farmer’s version. Sure, the local farmerâs product is probably better. But this product is good. The label says so. It has to be.
Right?
It has all the right words… But rememberâthatâs what advertising is about.
I know you donât have time to read my ravings on the wiles of slick marketing majors working to gain the edge for one of the 10 major food companies in America.
But think about this: If you thought globalization and modernization was about diversity and choices⌠Guess again. Only 10 food companies own all the store brands you see on the supermarket shelf. What if you had only 10 shirts to choose from? Thatâs NOT much diversity. Thatâs hardly any CHOICE. Itâs only the appearance of diversity. And yet we support and feed this ever-swelling, already-gigantic food industry controlled by less than a dozen entities, because of convenience. They have wooed us away from the real farms using convenience and marketing as the bait.
But itâs âfree range!â Itâs âorganic!â Itâs âhormone-free!â They know that consumers want better quality meat. Well, they know that many consumers will accept meat that SOUNDS like itâs better quality.
But not you. Thatâs why youâre here. Youâve seen behind the curtain and know that there is something betterâsomething genuine. It can be a little hard to get to sometimes, but itâs worth the extra effort.
Still, it is easy to get sucked in and settle for âgood enough,â especially with the fast-paced changes that are happening with the labeling laws today. Those giant food companies have money to throw at lobbying for dilution of marketing terms so they can reach even the better-informed and more conscious consumer.
Donât believe me? Here are a few examples you may not have heard about:
Theyâre working hard to change âhigh fructose corn syrupâ to âcorn sugar.â Sounds better, doesn’t it? Another example: For years, there’s been major push-back against GMO-labeling, in spite of the fact that MOST consumers WANT GMOs to be labeled. Opponents cite âunreasonable fearâ of consumers against this supposedly-safe technology. If itâs so safe, why donât you just tell us youâre doing it?
Most of the terms in our industry are the sameâthe labels have become captivating marketing terms and really tell you nothing about the quality of the product youâre buying. âFree-rangeâ chickens only have to be able to look outside, not actually go there. âOrganicâ beef can be standing in an organic feedlot eating organic corn and never eat one lick of actual grass. âHormone-freeâ pork and chicken? Itâs illegal across the board to administer hormones to pigs and chickens. EVERYONEâS chicken and pork are hormone-free. Thatâs like claiming that the package of meat youâre scrutinizing is âSold in the USA!â OF COURSE IT IS! Tell me something I donât know!
And my personal favorite⌠very quietly, about a year ago, THEY RENEGED ON COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING REQUIREMENTS FOR MEAT.
Packs of burger used to be required to disclose where the cow was raisedâYou’d see something like “Product of Uruguay,” or Brazil, New Zealand, Argentina, U.S.A., etc. Now they say nothing. This change was great timing because recently, the USDA starting having talks with Chinese chicken processing companies about outsourcing the processing of chicken before shipping it back to the USA for sale. The rules have changed, and no one has to tell you that your chicken was fileted and marinated in the Peopleâs Republic. Organic, or otherwise! The Chinese Chicken thing hasnât quite gone through yet, as far as I know, but it will soon, and how we will know when it does? They are no longer required to tell us.
Why would they take away a law that no one was complaining about, that apparently was able to be complied with, and that aided shoppers in choosing to support American farm economies and domestic rural communities and their own peace of mind? So much for choice⌠Why would they nix our opportunity to know whether our meats are imported?
Itâs because deep down, the big marketers knew that no matter what pretty words they put on the packageâŚâGrass-fed,â âHumanely Raised,â âNo HormonesâŚâ people would still be wary of meat brought in from overseas, as they should be. So they killed the facts. The facts are still there. You just canât know them if youâre meat-shopping at the store.
They did the same thing with âGrass-fed.â They killed the facts. The Powers that Be suddenly decided that it was âunfairâ to be policing such a widely-used term and officially declared that the term âgrass-fedâ was now strictly a marketing term, internally defined, and the burden of proof now falls solely on consumers to seek out. Officials said that consumers would now have to visit each companyâs website to research whether that specific companyâs definition of grass-fed matched their own.
Yep, Iâm going to stand there at the freezing-cold meat counter with 4 hungry, squirming, noisy children asking me every 14 seconds when we will be home and whatâs for dinner, with icecream melting in my cart and my phone buzzing repeatedly, reminding me that Iâm already late for my next stop. Iâm going to take THAT busy moment to go online, weed through the marketing nonsense to try to track down what Barbecue Bobâs âGrass-fedâ Beef actually ate, and whether it was actually raised in America or not. Yeah, right!
Most folks think, âWell if the label says âGrass-fed,â even if itâs internally defined, it still must mean the cows ate mostly grass, right?â
No. Itâs internally defined. Itâs internally defined! The word âgrass-fedâ as it appears on pretty green stickers at the meat counter is now completely meaningless, and your meaning has nothing whatsoever to do with the reality of the companyâs meaning!
They call this era the post-truth era. Think about that for a moment. Weâre a generation no longer interested in truth as much as feeling good about what we do. Many areas of our lives are suffering. The area relevant in this article is the local, really-grass-fed farm. Our farm, and many other small farms of integrity, are struggling to compete with our real products against a multitude of fake, but oh-so-convenient products.
Donât fall asleep at the kitchen stove. Keep your eyes open to the truth about your food. We at Shady Grove Ranch have tried to make it really simple through online ordering, email reminders, attending farmers market, selling through local retailers, and offering free routine drop points.
You have to do your part, too, and eat the best food in the world every month, every week, every day. I know we sometimes have seasonal shortages of things. (Beef is almost readyâhang in there! Just a couple more weeks!!) Thatâs what real, connected-with-the-farm eating is like sometimes. I am the Ingredient Substitution Queen, and I am happy to help you find meal ideas that will please the tummies in your house while your favorite out-of-stock item finishes fattening on real grass in a real pasture, right here in Jefferson, Texas.
Thank you for supporting our work so we can be around to feed your grandkids and ours in 20 years! Please make it part of your routine to visit us at Shreveport Farmers Market tomorrow and support REAL pasture-raised foods raised by a REAL family farm!
