For years, buying a steak to prepare at home involved the same step: go to the supermarket, rifle through the wrapped foam trays to find the best cut, and take it to the cashier. Even if you were lucky enough to live by a meat market or a butcher and could get custom cuts, you still were able to see the product before bringing it home.
The last time that White Oak Pastures was on the cover of this magazine, it was because owner Will Harris had decided to build a processing plant to slaughter his own grass-fed beef. Over the last dozen years, the company continues to be at the forefront of producing pasture-raised beef.
The year 2020 has been like a bad disaster movie in many ways, but there has been at least one unexpected benefit. If all the consumer trends were pointing toward small processors in 2019, there is no longer any question about it: independent processors are in demand.
