Is all grass fed beef created equal?

Grass fed Holsteins used for producing milk are often used to produce beef after their milking days are over. This gets to the heart of what grass fed beef farmers are up against. Beef farmers are crafting a quality product by painstakingly managing their fields and the grasses and legumes that grow in them, controlling the size of their herd and balancing the diet of their cattle. All of this is done with the goal of getting their cattle to size in under 24 months and having that cattle yield flavorful and nicely marbled steaks. When this goes as planned, the beef is tender, flavorful and contains no off-flavors

This is not the case with an old used up Holstein called a cull cow. The beef is neither marbled nor tender. The steaks often have off-flavors as well. That's why most of this beef is sold as ground. The detection of certain undesirable flavors has a larger margin of error when all the beef from a Holstein is ground and the price is right. Even if the consumer finds these burgers lacking, buyer remorse is unlikely. So what's the problem

If a farmer wants to provide you a quality steak from a 100% Angus beef cattle, he has to do all the hard work mentioned above realizing that there's no guarantee he'll succeed. Furthermore, while each head of cattle may produce 60lbs of quality steaks, 340lbs of beef remain. All of this gets ground and sold as bulk ground, hamburger patties, beef sticks or jerky because few consumers have discovered the deliciousness nor have the interest in cooking short ribs, hanger steak, petit tenders, flatirons, skirt, brisket, flank or pot roast for that matter. The ground tastes as good as the steaks, but it's ground. People aren't willing to pay much of a premium for ground. So this is where the conundrum lies. To just break even, a grass fed beef farmer still has to charge more for his ground than the ground produced from an old Holstein since the money's been made on the milk produced by the younger cow. So, when you talk about sustainability and helping the small farmer etc, consider whose beef you're buying when you find ground beef at a fire sale price. Not all beef is created equal.