Our grass-fed beef program was started due to customer requests. Shoppers were asking meat departments for grass fed beef, meat departments called us and we responded with a new program in 2011. The same high quality cattle we use for our USDA Prime and Choice grade programs become Painted Hills Grass Fed Beef, just raised on the ranches and never fed grain.
The cattle in both programs come from the same family ranches across the Northwest. The difference is the cattle that become Painted Hills Natural Beef USDA Choice and Prime receive a finish diet that includes corn the last few months. Cattle that go in our Painted Hills Grass-Fed program never receive grain. We never allow added hormones in any of our programs. You can learn more about the USDA grass-fed standards here.
We often get asked: Can grass-fed beef be prime? And because grass-fed beef is typically a leaner product, it has a lot less marbling and is not graded by the USDA. Grass-fed beef has a distinctive, intense beef flavor and a higher percentage of healthy omega-3 fatty acids and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid)
