by Doug Toburen
The Kansas Beef Council has once again found a way to put producers’ dollars to work through the Beef Checkoff program with their recent Pasture to Plate Chef’s Tour held near Wichita, Kan.
According to Todd Johnson, KBC executive director, this was an idea Sharla Huseman, KBC director of marketing, came up with and coordinated.
“The overall purpose of the Chef’s Tour is to put a face on the industry,” Johnson explained. “Chefs and people in food service are influencers in the beef industry and we want them to understand the face of the producer that brings the product to them.”
This year’s tour, the second in two years, included restaurant chefs from Kansas City, Garden City and Wichita. In addition to the chefs on the tour, there were a handful of other attendees who are involved in the food service industry.
The tour’s focus on the chefs had much more to do with what happens in their kitchens.
“Chefs are not just in a true kitchen setting,” Johnson said. “They are the ones who are instructing as well as making decisions on where their product is bought and how.”
According to him, this year’s tour was designed to be chronological in the life cycle of beef cattle.
The first stop of the tour was at McCurry Brothers Angus Ranch in Sedgwick, Kan.
This stop was selected, according to Johnson, to show tour participants the importance of high quality genetics.
“Tour participants were amazed by the technology that is at play in our industry,” Johnson explained. “At McCurry’s they got to see them ultrasound a heifer for pregnancy and they were really impressed.”
As the bus loaded up and left McCurry’s the next stop was set at Stroberg Land & Cattle in Hutchinson, Kan.
This stop, according to Johnson, was aimed at showing tour participants the commercial cow/calf side of the industry.
“Really, there were two reasons we selected Stroberg’s as a stop. First, to show the mass production and large numbers produced by commercial producers and, second, to show the care required when it comes to calving season, maintaining cows on roughage and being environmentally friendly,” Johnson said.
In addition to learning the ins and outs of commercial cattle production tour participants also got to learn the importance of low-stress cattle handling.
Low-stress, quiet cattle handling was explained to the chefs and food service personnel by Jon Mollhagen, owner of Molle Manufacturing, which produces Silencer squeeze chutes.
“The stop at Stroberg’s was a good chance to touch on the more practical side of the industry in comparison to that of the seedstock producer,” Johnson said.
As the tour departed, they headed for Pratt Feeders, a 40,000-head commercial feeding operation headquartered in Pratt, Kan.
Johnson felt this was a good stop that would reinforce the care and expertise behind making efficient beef.
“The stop was great, the cattle were comfortable, the pens were clean and overall animal care practices were evident at Pratt Feeders,” he said.
Each stop on the tour brought beef production closer to home, or to the plate, for those on the tour.
At Pratt Feeders the chefs were impressed again at the quality of care given to the animals, according to Johnson.
“They asked question about feed rations, how they feed so many head and how that much food is manufactured,” he explained. “They seemed almost amazed at the care given through every step of the chain.”
The first day of the tour concluded with a Chef’s Challenge.
“This gave the chefs another opportunity to network with each other and to let them work with beef as an ingredient,” Johnson explained.
During the challenge, chefs were teamed with beef producers and were required to prepare an appetizer and an entree’ using only the ingredients that were set out.
“From my perspective it reminded them to slow down and talk to the producers they were working with, explaining to them what they were doing,” he said.
According to Johnson, for the producers, they got to see what takes place back in the kitchen.
“Now all of us knows the effort behind our meals,” he explained.
The second day of the tour kicked off with a trip to Creekstone Farms in Arkansas City, Kan.
Creekstone Farms is a processing plant featuring only premium black Angus beef which separates them from other processing facilities.
According to Don Morrow, quality director at Creekstone Farms, quality sets them apart. From the way cattle are procured all the way through the state-of-the-art processing plant producing the highest quality beef in America is their commitment.
“We had some reservations about touring a processing plant because it can be graphic,” Johnson explained.
However, according to him, the comments were very positive and it let the chefs actually see how the cuts of beef get from the cattle to their restaurant.
“Amazement was a good descriptor for that tour,” Johnson said. “The safety protocols impressed the chefs and participants.”
Creekstone Farms was the final stop of the Kansas Beef Council’s Pasture to Plate Chef’s Tour and after all the stops were made and evaluations returned, Johnson said it was definitely deemed a success.
According to him, there was so much more to this tour than giving food service personnel and chefs a trip to the country.
“This is important to agriculture because it shows the world what we are doing and why we do it,” he explained. “Anytime we can be transparent with what we are doing we rebuild trust with the consumer.”
Johnson feels that many times people in agriculture are considered to be private people and that can sometimes have a negative effect.
“Our producers do their thing and they do it well without expecting to receive accolades and that makes us private people,” he explained. “Couple that with the attacks from anti-animal ag groups and doubt is tainted about cattle care, animal handling and the environmental impact of agriculture. These misnomers tied to people in a private industry tends to make people become suspicious.”
That is why, according to him, tours and events like this open the barn gate and let people know what is going on in production agriculture and lets producers know they don’t have to apologize for what they are doing.
In the end, the bottom line is that the next time any of the chefs who were on the tour prepare any type of beef and send it out of their kitchens, they are going to know exactly what kind of care went into creating that desirable eating experience for their customers.
