Representatives from Kroger and Kentucky Cattlemen's Ground Beef officially launched the new line of Kentucky Proud ground beef products during an event on March 20 / Photo by Theresa Stanley
Shopping local just got more convenient for meat-lovers.
On March 20, 85 Kroger locations throughout Kentucky officially introduced a new line of locally sourced, harvested, packaged and produced ground beef.
Kentucky Cattlemen’s Ground Beef is an 80 percent-lean product, available in both one-pound packages of ground beef and two-pound packages of four half-pound beef patties. Inspected by the USDA and certified by the Global Food Safety Initiative, it’s fresh, natural and minimally processed, with no additives or preservatives. And the secret ingredient? Kentucky pride.
“You don’t have to drive very far outside the city limits to get to the rural, green, wide-open spaces of Kentucky … and cows out in those pastures,” said Becky Thompson, director of the Kentucky Beef Network, an outlet of the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Association (KCA). “So they [consumers] can relate and they feel a lot more pride and a part of that process.”
The product’s packaging is designed to keep beef fresher longer in your refrigerator, as opposed to traditional shrink-wrapped Styrofoam trays.
“But what we’re most proud of,” said Thompson, “is that we have been able to connect the dots to create a local, Kentucky supply chain.”
That chain starts with farm families across the Bluegrass. Participating beef producers must meet a Gold Standard of Care, which ensures that the animals are Kentucky-raised with proper access to water, feed and care. According to the team behind the project, transparency is vital to bridging the gap between producers and consumers.
“Our cattlemen and women take a great pride in providing a wholesome product to feed other people’s families, because they take great pride in feeding their own families,” said Katelyn Hawkins, director of product marketing at the Kentucky Beef Council, also part of KCA.
Meat processing is the next step in the chain. Cattle are harvested at The Chop Shop in Wolfe County. From there, the meat is packaged at Creation Gardens in Louisville. From providing new marketing opportunities for cattlemen, to creating jobs in eastern Kentucky, to adopting advanced technology in the state’s beef industry, the entire enterprise is centered on the Commonwealth.
“It is a Kentucky product through and through,” said Hawkins.
Although Kentucky is the top cattle state east of the Mississippi, such a product has never been available on a large-scale before, although the idea has long been in the works.
“When I came to work for the Cattlemen’s Association 18 years ago, this document was on the shelf,” said Dave Maples, executive vice president, while holding a similar proposal from 1997. “Everything’s about timing,” he added.
When Kroger approached the association in 2016 about creating an all-Kentucky beef product, the partnership was “a natural fit,” said Greg Osborn, the meat and seafood merchandiser for Kroger’s Louisville division stores. KCA connects 38,000 beef producers through its extensive trade association, which includes 99 county associations.
“Kroger has been around for 134 years,” said Osborn. “Some of our farms are three or four generations. For more than 17 years, folks have been working on both sides of the ‘gate’ to find ways to keep Kentucky beef in Kentucky.”
Because Kroger wanted to deal with a single entity, Beef Solutions, LLC, was created to shepherd the product from farmers’ hands to the meat case.
For KCA, this product is about giving consumers what they’ve been asking to have: a beef option that supports Kentucky farms, communities and companies.
For more information on Kentucky Cattlemen’s Ground Beef, check online at kentuckycattlemensbeef.com/our-products.