Chef Sense
Resilience and Innovation: The Vermont Wagyu Story with Sheila Patinkin
What drives someone to pivot from a pediatric career to raising prized Wagyu cattle? Uncover the inspiring journey of Sheila Patinkin, founder of Vermont Wagyu, as she shares her story of resilience, adaptability, and passion. From acquiring 20 Wagyu embryos in 2007 to overcoming the challenges of COVID-19, floods, and supply chain setbacks, Sheila's tale is a testament to the power of determination. We discuss the innovative ways Vermont Wagyu transitioned to an e-commerce model, now serving 5,000 customers nationwide, and how Sheila repurposed obsolete dairy farms to expand her operations.
Thank you Sheila and team for all you hard work and commitment to excellence!!
https://vermontwagyu.com/collections/wagyu-beef
Thank you to our listeners!!
Contact & More Info:
https:/www.chefmassey.com
https://www.instagram.com/chef_massey/
Other Sponsors & Discount Programs:
https://www.chefmassey.com/services-9
Podcast Disclaimer:
We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host, guest or the management. All right reserved under Chef Sense Podcast and Chef Massey, LLC.
What drives someone to pivot from a pediatric career to raising prized Wagyu cattle? Uncover the inspiring journey of Sheila Patinkin, founder of Vermont Wagyu, as she shares her story of resilience, adaptability, and passion. From acquiring 20 Wagyu embryos in 2007 to overcoming the challenges of COVID-19, floods, and supply chain setbacks, Sheila's tale is a testament to the power of determination. We discuss the innovative ways Vermont Wagyu transitioned to an e-commerce model, now serving 5,000 customers nationwide, and how Sheila repurposed obsolete dairy farms to expand her operations.
Thank you Sheila and team for all you hard work and commitment to excellence!!
https://vermontwagyu.com/collections/wagyu-beef
Thank you to our listeners!!
Contact & More Info:
https:/www.chefmassey.com
https://www.instagram.com/chef_massey/
Other Sponsors & Discount Programs:
https://www.chefmassey.com/services-9
Podcast Disclaimer:
We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host, guest or the management. All right reserved under Chef Sense Podcast and Chef Massey, LLC.
Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense. I'm your host, chef Massey. Okay, so today on the podcast, this is a real privilege. Sheila Patinkin, thank you so much for being on. From Vermont Wagyu. How are you? I'm good, working hard. Pleasure to be here. I have to say. Your product and your integrity and the commitment to what you provide in Wagyu products you know, in our country is, it's really inspiring. I actually had an acquaintance here in the Berkshires, john from Wild Acres Farm, who you know we go back and forth and and you know I've always admired the work and I'm like I've got to be more involved with this and, and you know, just enjoy the product and continue to get it in and people are just amazed by, you know, the flavor profile, the butteriness and everything that goes along with it. So you know really enough of that. But let's get into you and the backstory and how you got into this.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's a long story at this point because of the history and I think the older you get, the longer the history or the more years you've got behind you. So Vermont Wagyu was started back in 2007. I bought the farm and the same year about or a year later, I bought 20 embryos. We put those into surrogate moms. I think my background as a retired pediatrician with some genetics research rather helped me get that foot in the door of doing genetics in terms of the cows. So we put in the embryos. We got 10 calves a year later. I think by that time we're up to about 2009. And that really launched us into a very 100% full blood Wagyu program. There's black Wagyu and there's red Wagyu, and I'm sure you've heard before that Wagyu means wa meaning Japanese and gu meaning cow. So these are all Japanese cows descended from original cows that came over in the 1990s.
Speaker 1:And that's amazing, that's really amazing. And so the size I guess, looking at your operation, can you go into like the acreage and the head that you have now operation.
Speaker 2:Can you go into, like the acreage and the head that you have? Now I can. We're very much spread out. I would say 200 cows here on the home farm. We also use and lease two dairy farms that have become obsolete in terms of dairy function, but we picked them up because many of these dairy farmers that have gone out of business just don't know what to do. They don't know what to do with their property. We put them back into business and we love that.
Speaker 2:We love putting the land back into business, the farmers back into business, and we raise some of our young stock at those farms as well. So overall acreage right here between those farms and our farm we're probably at about 350 acres. A lot of that is forest, A lot of it is old pasture dating back to the 1700s, and a lot of that pasture we had to bring back, as we did the farms, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of work getting them turned back around. So that's wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, it would have been much easier had we just started over and built new barns. That said, there's some antiquity and some beauty and a feeling of putting old things back into function again, which really makes me feel good in terms of stewarding the land. Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's. It's such an investment in so many ways to turn that around. Did you face any challenges kind of getting this going? I mean, how did that process work for you?
Speaker 2:The first process was just basically how to figure out how to do the embryo work. We got into embryos because I couldn't find any full blood Wagyu to buy. There were none on the market, so I had to find a team that could put in the embryos. So we purchased the embryos. I had to figure out how to store the embryos, which means getting a liquid nitrogen tank to put them in and then getting a team together to put the embryos. I had to figure out how to store the embryos, which means getting a liquid nitrogen tank to put them in and then getting the team together to put the embryos in and birth out the calves.
Speaker 2:There was a learning process, for sure in terms of how to raise the Wagyu calf. They are not that hardy. They birth very easily. So the mama cow's role is very easy. The farmer's role in terms of making sure that calf stays alive is just beginning, the moment the calf gets born right. So there's some hurdles there. Other hurdles were what do you do when covid hits and your restaurants all go dark? Um, what you do when ludlow, vermont, which is where we had two major restaurants in the ski belt area there near Okimo Mountain, all get flooded out in last summer's floods and then you're completely lost and devoid of your major burger accounts. What you do when there's a dry ice strike in terms of railroads and trains getting dry ice supplies down to the New England area.
Speaker 2:So, all those things are points where you have to pivot and turn and figure it out. So we are now basically an e-commerce business. We sell. About 80% of our product goes nationwide 5,000 customers spread out across the United States so we're very dependent on the e-commerce chain in terms of dry ice, packaging, ups. All of those factors have a bearing on us in terms of what happens if that supply chain breaks down. We're less dependent now on what happens if the New York City restaurants go dark or one chef changes businesses. Many small farmers are very dependent on those chefs and if they disappear, go away, change jobs. It's really hard sometimes to get back into the market and get your feet on the ground again, so I learned the hard way. It's really nice having a diversified market.
Speaker 1:Wow, absolutely. You know, in talking to our farms here, there was kind of this emergence when people were going through COVID that a lot of our farm stands had gotten hit substantially due to some of those challenges. Even though farms had supply chain issues too, people were able to get product and they saw a boost in e-commerce and some things like that as well, which is great.
Speaker 2:Well, we were able to make that pivot. Covid ended up being a bit of a real turnaround for us and the ability to do that it blossomed into a whole new market for us. That's worked quite well. So now we have I guess 80% of our market is via e-commerce, which we enjoy doing. You've run into Jess.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, she's great, it's, you know, and I've got another delivery coming today, you know, cause I have a group that I'm going to be doing here this weekend, so I know they're very excited to try the product as well. But you know, looking at some of these key areas where you do the a hundred percent bloodline Wagyu I mean it's certified and it is, it is yours and you guys are the leaders in that when you look at your programming, there's that expert breeding, the agricultural focused mindset. Can we talk also about that? How you're data driven, what that breakdown looks like.
Speaker 2:Sure, part of what we do is shipping and marketing of our beef, and the other part is the livestock, which is what you're referring to now in terms of stewarding the animals, making sure we have the best of the best genetics. So I've been breeding these cows now for 15 to 16 years at least. That's a lot of generations of Wagyu to look at, and so you look to make every generation better than the last one. And when I'm collecting data, originally all we had was the growth data on the animals so we could grow better and better, bigger and bigger bulls every year but, not necessarily better marbled, which is one of the key reasons you're going to raise these animals.
Speaker 2:Marbling conveys taste and it conveys tenderness, and that's what most of the consumers want when they taste this steak. It's that wow effect that they get. What we do on top of getting growth data now is again. For a long time we did have marbling cards which allowed us to look at each cut, each animal's carcass and say, well, this one looks better than the other, and to what extent. Now we use grading cameras. We have cameras in the harvesting facilities that take a photo in a certain rib section of every animal and we can see if each generation on a yearly basis is improving. We can choose better bulls based on their marbling potential. The marbling potential is driven by numbers that we get called EPDs or EBVs from the American Wagyu Association.
Speaker 2:And it allows us to be able to predict which bull we think is going to be better than another bull, based on carcass weight, based on projections. So we're very driven by those EPDs projections. We're very driven by the growth data that we get on every animal. The other data that we use is we use live ultrasound data. We actually select our females based on how they look to ultrasound at a year of age.
Speaker 2:When they're a year of age, we have a key decision to make Do they go into the side of the business that is, into raising calves and being mamas, or do they go to the beef side of the business, and we make that decision. We save the best of the best for the mama cow-calf pair side Ones that don't look to be living up to what their genetics should be they go into the other pool of animals. So again, we're very, very driven. We're pretty advanced in the United States in the fact that we do ultrasounds. We duly register our animals both in the Australian Wagyu Association and in the American Wagyu Association, and we also look at all the growth data that we have. The one issue that we're missing is feed efficiency, and there's ways to measure how feed efficient that animal is, and I don't have that data yet, but that's on the horizon.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing how that all breaks down, so you're really able to control the product that you're putting out. Also, you are also the president correct of the American Wagyu Association.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm currently a member of the president of the American Wagyu Association, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:Do you want to share a little bit about that, a quick overview of them and kind of how those work together with what you're doing?
Speaker 2:Sure Well, the AWA has been an organization that has existed since 1991.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:They started then because that was the wave of Japanese imports into this country by plane. There were four bulls that came in prior to that in the 1970s, but no females.
Speaker 2:And you can't create a breed out of just four males, a breed out of just four males. By the time the mid-1990s came, I think, we had a total of about 130 females and about 29 to 30 bulls that came over. At that point in time the Japanese closed off all imports into this country. So what we have now is what we're going to have unless we bring in foreign genetics from other countries other than Japan. Oh my goodness. So the association started slowly and at this point in time we have about 1600 members worldwide. I think we're the fastest growing breedist cattle beef breed association in the United States. We are not the biggest by any means. Your Angus breed is probably the biggest out there, for sure but our growth is just skyrocketing.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, how do you like, over your tenure and some studying that you've, you know, built in? What have you noticed in the sense of the Wagyu coming from Japan to the United States, and how was that received over time?
Speaker 2:Japanese Wagyu beef is definitely exquisitely marbled, at least the quality of the Japanese beef that we see imported into this country. It's usually grade A4 or grade A5. They don't typically export anything that's less than that. It's a beautiful cut of meat. It's a personal taste as to whether or not you prefer the Japanese beef or the American Wagyu beef. When we refer to American Wagyu beef, oftentimes we're referring to a crossed Wagyu. Unlike my animals, which are all descended from the original Japanese that came over, American Wagyu beef tends to be a little bit less marbled than the Japanese beef or even the 100% full blood Wagyu beef that we have in this country. There's a distinct difference in the tenderness and there's a difference in the flavor profile and in the marbling. All three of those things are a little bit different between the crossed Wagyu and the full blood Wagyu.
Speaker 1:Right, and I mean I've had, you know, the A5, which is obviously it's amazing and unbelievably marbled. But again, I think, going into that I mean bringing this into the US. You know how did you see that kind of transform over time with you know, people at home or chefs?
Speaker 2:How do we see the introduction of Japanese Wagyu versus Japanese Wagyu?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:There's such a difference in price Huge. Yeah, that. Typically what we try to tell anybody who's interested in our beef is that this is a pretty darn unusual cut of beef in the United States. There aren't too many full-blood breeders out there. It's a very special flavor profile. Some of our best beef is getting very close, if not reaching, grade A5. I would say the predominant amount of our beef is grade A4, but there's certainly a top 20% tier that is grade A5. And as our bulls get better, they probably will all be grade A5. Is that a good thing? You know, I have to raise the question is everybody's flavor profile going to want the grade A5 or are they going to prefer the grade A4? And that's something that I think is going to be dependent on taste tests down the road. Personally, I think the best beef is about a grade A4 to grade A5.
Speaker 1:And I know that people you know, you know using the American Wagyu, it's been, it's been a lot of fun to educate them on and you know, let them know also, you know, coming from you in Vermont, it's such a regional and wonderful product and you know it's, it is, it's great and so looking, you know, kind of like what we're dealing with is, we've seen some of our, you know our slaughterhouses, you know, shut down over time and kind of this fight against like the big four and establishing that. You know I would, I would anticipate like you would continue to grow even more, especially with e-commerce, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I haven't seen it ever slow down since COVID. We've never had a. We've never had a backwards year.
Speaker 1:Well, I haven't seen it ever slow down since COVID. We've never had a backwards year, yeah, okay. Well, that's amazing when you're looking at your regenerative ag management on the farm in the sense of processes, of how you do this and raising the cattle. Can you kind of break that down a little bit for listeners?
Speaker 2:I think with Wagyu you've got to have hands-on calving. That's the first thing. We've talked about that a little bit. In terms of regenerative pasture measures, that gets back to the fact that these are old pastures. They're usually their lime level. They need to be limed. Their pH level needs to come up. It's not where it should be. We've got a lot of work from chemicals in terms of just making sure that the pH is correct. Most of that can be brought around just by spreading the manure, which is a great thing. Manure is a natural fertilizer. It's there and we should use it. We should use it wisely and bring back the pastures. When I first came and started farming here, it was all strawberry bushes, junipers, et cetera, so there's a lot of improvement that way.
Speaker 1:We don't till ever.
Speaker 2:It's a no-till. We of improvement that way. We don't till ever. It's a no-till. We don't even own a till, so that's not even an issue. The issues with tills in general are that if you dig up the soil you're going to create erosion and that's going to be a pollution problem. We don't till, we never have. We do spread our fertilizer during the appropriate months. In Vermont you're not allowed to spread fertilizer during the winter months because it sticks on the snow and when it melts then all the manure then runs and pollutes the rivers and the streams. So you don't spread manure in the wintertime. In the state of Vermont we test our pasture soil every year not every pasture every year, but we're on a rotational basis that we test it to make sure everything seems to be copacetic in terms of chemical balance within the soil itself. We rotate our pastures and that's key. You probably heard about that before with your exposure to pasture where you rotate them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:The reasoning or the concept behind rotational pasture grazing is that if you put your cows on a small piece of pasture, keep them there for a day, they'll eat everything down, every blade of grass, including all the weeds, and then you move them to the next piece the next day. They also put all the manure down in one small piece, thereby naturally fertilizing that small piece of pasture, and then you move them on to the next piece and you'll see profound effects. When you rotationally graze a pasture, over time the weeds will all be gone, it'll all be lush and you can really promote some of your favorite grasses, such as clovers, some of your legumes that come up there.
Speaker 1:Right, wow. So when you're using your product, is there any of yours that you find are your top sellers?
Speaker 2:Well, probably the best. Of the best is the ribeye, and then followed shortly thereafter by the New York Strip, the Denver. I love the brisket. The Denver is one. Have you tried the Denver yet?
Speaker 1:No, I have not. No, I've got to get that one.
Speaker 2:It's a fantastic cut for the value. It's at a lesser price point and only because most people don't know about it. They don't know how tender it is, how well marbled it is. It's a cut that you don't typically see in the restaurant. It's a cut which is very unusual for all beef animals to see, but in the Wagyu is absolutely supreme.
Speaker 1:Wow One. You also have your sausages too, which are amazing.
Speaker 2:Gotta like those kielbasa and the chorizo, and then there's the maple sausage too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're really good. Do you think you'll ever get into and maybe I didn't see it, but tallow?
Speaker 2:You know tallow is something we did do early on. We got all the tallow back. I have no idea what the solder facility does with the tallow. I could ask is that something you're interested in?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think it'd be really fun to you know use it for aging and see how that kind of imparts back into you know a piece of meat. Yeah, that's why I was just kind of curious. I mean, I've also seen where some chefs have done that with vegetables too.
Speaker 2:You know it does impart a great flavor. I've seen chefs use it and I think it's fantastic. It's not something I've ever used, but then I'm not a chef and I make that clear to people when I go to do taste tests with them. Is that it's too bad? I don't have a chef there to really show it off.
Speaker 1:Well, now you have my number and I'm keeping it, you know, please do because you know, again, going into like, you even have an, you even have an event space there or a kitchen as well.
Speaker 2:Well, this is the office that you're looking back at, and then upstairs, just above it, you can see some stairs going up there. It's an old barn and so that's our event space. Okay, we have. It's not big. We use it mostly for tastings. People that want to have a small dinner event and we put it to use that way. That want to have a small dinner event and we put it to use that way. It's pretty special because it's up in the top of an old hayloft in a 1790s barn and it overlooks the entire Connecticut River Valley.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That sounds so beautiful. Well, I was going to ask you too, kind of like, what you thought and I know you're not a nutritionist but in the sense of the value of eating American Wagyu beef versus Angus or that protein profile. Have you heard or gotten any feedback on data regarding that?
Speaker 2:So it's pretty well established that Wagyu beef all that intramuscular fat that you see is very high in omega-3s in the good fat Right and, given that you would expect it with its lipid profile, you would expect it to impart some healthy benefits. There are some small studies that have been done along those lines, proving that it does impart some health benefits. All that is in right now being reviewed by the American Wagyu Association and put into a summary review article as our goal, with recommendations as to what future studies should look at in terms of healthy benefits. So that's where I wear my other hat and have other projects to work on as well.
Speaker 2:Additionally, we haven't talked about authentic Wagyu, so I don't know if you've heard about that, but the American Wagyu Association is about to market a branded Wagyu. So I don't know if you've heard about that, but the American Wagyu Association is about to market a branded Wagyu beef akin to certified Angus. So this would be our version of a verified Wagyu beef, piece of beef that would have a very definite quality claim to it. It would have an authenticity claim to it, verifying by DNA that this steak that you're eating is exactly what we tell you it is, that it is Wagyu and to what percentage it is, oh my gosh. So we'll delineate it, whether or not it's a hundred percent, whether it's a higher percent, between 90 and a hundred, and whether it's just cross Wagyu, between 50 and 90. So you'll get all of that information plus. Born, raised and harvested in the United States.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, that is really amazing work. When you are working through your day, what is your? What's a day in the life you know of Sheila? I mean, what does that feel like? Because you're wearing multiple hats?
Speaker 2:Well, right now the first thing I do is I try to get up in the morning and work for about an hour or two, catch up on emails, answer some, set forth the office with the AWA, the American Wagyu Association, any critical emails or important documents that I need to get back to them.
Speaker 2:By 7.30 or so I'm out in the barn bottle feeding some of the smaller calves, because that's my job on the farm is to bottle feed the babies, Any of those that need bottle feeding. Most of our calves are naturally born and most of them are with their mamas on the pasture. We have a few embryo babies that we raise due to extreme genetics that are based on bulls that we don't have here, that we use from other sources to improve our own genetics. So those are the bottle babies that I take care of, and after that it's anybody's guess as to what's gonna happen, whether or not I'm doing a podcast with you or I'm speaking at night somewhere else, or I'm overlooking what Jess is doing in the shipping and marketing department. I pretty much don't have to do anything there anymore. She's got it running really well.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And then, addition to that, I'll check out with the guys that are out there in the fields every day as to where they are with calving any new calves? Have they been put into the data system that we keep on all the animals? We have a data system that charts every pasture and so we know when one animal gets moved from one pasture to the next. All that data has to be collected. If they're given any vaccines, that data has to be collected. If they're castrated, in terms of becoming a steer, that data has to be collected. So it's pretty intense in terms of the amount of care that you have to give and I basically just oversee most of the livestock, but it's the baby calves where I intimately get involved. That's where being a retired pediatrician comes into play, yeah.
Speaker 1:That sounds kind of like a fun perk, but you know, I'm sure there's a lot of a lot of things to learn about that there on the farm do you? Do you have any kind of like in a sense of like learning center or apprenticeship programs at all? I mean, I know you do do tours right.
Speaker 2:We do tours on an appointment basis because they have to catch us here to do them and we love doing that. We also, over the last several years, have received or brought in French students from an agricultural school in France and they seem to like coming here to the United States and they like coming, staying here. So our French has improved, but their English improved, unfortunately, a lot more than our French improved, so that's been a great boon to us. We've learned a lot about French agriculture and they learned a lot about Wagyu and taking care of Wagyu.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Other than, that I think we just started. Jess can tell you more about this, but we just started a farm to school lunch program this year. Oh fun yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great.
Speaker 2:Wagyu and we like providing it for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and also just your thoughts. I mean, you know, I've I don't know if you've heard of Dr Marion Nessel. She's done the book, she's an author and she has done about 14 publications. But food politics and it really kind of talks about our food system here in the US and how we're challenging the big ag or the complex ag system. And the sense of what you're doing and working hard to be so committed and be here in the States and be such a provider of high quality like that. You've got to feel good about your role, right.
Speaker 2:I love what I do, so it comes from the heart, it's a passion and it's something that I just get up every morning and I never look back. It's always good. I do get tired sometimes with bringing on as much as I bring on, but I do feel good about what I do. Interesting fact that I find just amazing is that the United States, with all the beef that it produces, imports relatively little. I think it's something like of the. Well, I'm not going to quote figures because I don't have them in front of me, but the majority of the beef that we produce and we're by far the largest beef producer in the world we consume almost all of it here. A very small percent gets exported and a relatively small percent gets imported. So basically we are self-consumers of all that gigantic amount of beef.
Speaker 1:Wow Okay, wow, that's really that's, that's amazing. Wow Okay, well, that's unlike most countries.
Speaker 2:If you compare it to Australia, they export almost every bit of the beef that they produce yeah, the Wagyu breed. The association itself is almost all small farmers. Our average size of our Wagyu farmer is about has 34 cows.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh wow. Do you have any other things you'd like to bring up that maybe I missed?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, james. So why did you want to do this podcast?
Speaker 1:Yes, well because when I looked at all of the work that you have done and using the quality or your drivers, you know, and the science behind what you're doing and being 100% pure blood and that commitment to giving consumers, you know, a high quality, integral product that makes a difference in their lives, it makes a difference in a chef's life and the story behind it, I think, is very inspiring and to me as a chef I'm a storyteller my job is to meet someone like you, or to meet inspiring people that have integrity in the food that they're giving to the consumer. That it's not know, it's not mixed messages and it's clean and it's you know, it's committed to. You know our region and so that's where you know in using your product, it just stands apart from everyone, so you know. That's why.
Speaker 2:So I have two messages. One hits upon the on Vermont Wagyu solely, and that is my dedication to the staff that I put together. I think they're just very special people. Most of them have come to us. Most of them live on the hill here. It's a natural, historic district. These people just are, again, so dedicated and call Jess and you'll get your order out right away. She'll even come up on a weekend when she's off. I mean, it's that kind of commitment. The guys come in all the time to take care of sick animals at night. So their dedication is just exceptional and I love working with them as well as the animals.
Speaker 2:The other message is there's so much growth and potential for the Wagyu beef in this country. We need to brand it better. We need to provide that authentic Wagyu beef in this country. We need to brand it better. We need to provide that authentic Wagyu label that tells you exactly what that animal is. And we need to tell you that the flavor profile of the American Wagyu beef especially the more marbled, the more closer to 100% full blood beef that it gets is one of the best flavor profiles in the world and we've hardly touched that story in this country. We need to touch the story that the flavor profile of 100% full blood Wagyu rivals any beef in the world, and we haven't hardly begun in terms of getting that notch.
Speaker 1:Okay, and in that I mean how can you see someone working that process? What do you think the steps are, you know, in that, to solidify that?
Speaker 2:Well, this, Well, this is an AWA issue that I hit upon often when I'm talking about AWA and its role and what can we do for the Wagyu beef in this country? I think we need more steak contests out there. I think they need to be done so that you compare the American Wagyu steak all different types and levels, because not everybody prefers 100% full blood. You'll have some that prefer that crossed Wagyu steak all different types and levels, because not everybody prefers 100% full blood. You'll have some that prefer that crossed Wagyu and you might have some people that still feel that Angus is the best beef, or Hereford. So I'd love to see steak contests where consumers get to be introduced to all the different types of beef on a blinded basis. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Verify exactly how good it is. So that's one step right there. And then the branding of it, the explaining what is a Wagyu, why is it good? What are the health benefits? We've hardly touched that in this country. You see it on our websites, but how many of your customers actually know about it when you talk to them and you tell the story? Don't you think we've got a lot more education to do?
Speaker 1:Oh, I agree with you. Yeah, because I think it's especially today. I think where technology is is it's a quick hit and move on, you know, and to captivate someone, you know. It's like you almost have to have tight verbiage in that frame just to get them and try to hit everything so that you can get as much out there as possible. And it's very hard, yeah, it's very hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a fun story to tell, though, as much as we can at this point, you'll have to come up here. You're not that far away, right?
Speaker 1:I think I'm about a two and a half hour. I'm in Western Massachusetts, Great Barrington.
Speaker 2:Ah, I have good friends in Sheffield.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, oh nice. No, I'm not. I would say probably about a two and a half hour drive. Right, I do that drive quite a bit down to Sheffield, okay, you know, okay, it would be great to get there and do a tour and see more, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, likewise, next time I drive down to Sheffield to see them, I'll have to stop by and catch a cup of coffee with you somewhere.
Speaker 1:I would love that, and I'm building up my Argentinian grill out here, so I plan on doing some things off of that. That should be fun.
Speaker 2:An Argentinian grill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a nice Duomo Troman grill so it's a station actually. It has the hanging hooks, it has the center fire pit that you start your mother in and you build it underneath and it kind of comes down and it's a circular fire pit. I can do a plancha, I could do grills and they kind of look like crescent cast iron plates that you just drop in how you want them and you can just cook and roast right.
Speaker 2:There hang some vegetables and I've got a couple of racks too, for you know roasting as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm excited about that. And that's where, again, the way that you treat your proteins, you know, especially the Wagyu using your product is. It's so beautiful getting that caramelization, that rendering at the right temperature.
Speaker 1:You know, I always say using a fire. When you're cooking out in the elements, like that maybe that's my indigenous side but like when you're out in the open and you're cooking something beautiful, like what you produce, I sense that I see it and now it's my job to do something with it. So, in that, in respecting the work from all of those people, in that one steak or that product that I'm getting in, from you all, it's like what else can I do with this? You know, can I sous vide it? Can I impart some flavor? Can I quick sear? Can I char? Can I, you know, do a variety? Can I smoke?
Speaker 1:You know, that's where cooking with, with amazing people and that's why, you know, I'm so grateful to have you on the podcast is, yeah, because I want to talk to people that inspire me. So, and you, like you said, sharing that story, what better way to get the story than from the founder herself? Oh, thank you. Yeah To to take that and that energy that you deliver to me, I pass on to them. You're respecting the process from the soil up, and to do that with what you guys are doing, it tastes completely different.
Speaker 2:You know, I haven't tried very many types of Wagyu. Can I ask?
Speaker 1:I've used, like Snake River, you know. I've used some others that you know. I thought they were very good, but yours is excellent, you know. Yeah, and I've had the A5 Wagyu flown in. That was through D'Artagnan I believe, and that was amazing, but it's a complete different, you know, complete different topic. But again, no, it truly is. It's inspiring.
Speaker 2:So I can't wait to use more of the products, so can I ask what you got most recently?
Speaker 1:Well, this order I've got the flank steak and I've done the Delmonico, the flat iron, the ground burger. I think I did that. I did the ribeye, which was awesome, like amazing, yeah, kielbasa chorizo and the breakfast sausage.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm working the list, I'm not. My homework's not done yet.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to have to have you come up. Our goal by the way this is again moving to the AWA hat for a moment is such that when you serve a steak in your restaurant, your customer can say oh, I want to check to make sure that that steak that you said you bought from Vermont Wagyu and provided for us is really a Vermont Wagyu steak, and so they can then take a sample from that steak, send it off to the AWA and be able to come back and say to you you know what it really was a Vermont Wagyu product and I know the dam and the sire of that steak. Wow, tell you what percentage of Wagyu it was.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Also be able to probably tell you what the marbling content of that was. So it is amazing and that's the level that we hope to take that authentic Wagyu program to.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's yeah. I don't even know how you even have enough time in the day, but that's all just so amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't. There's 25 hours in my day, that's why yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, all right. Well, so for the listeners how they can connect on the website correct and they can connect on the website.
Speaker 2:On the website there is a video that's about two years old now from NBC which they can click onto and they can see the farm. They can see a video. They can see your podcast hopefully will eventually make its way to the website too, oh cool. And so they can see all of this about the farm. They can see our shopping list from the farm, right there from the shopping list. They can also come to the farm as well and pick it up if they choose to do so. So there's a bit of a discount if you pick up at the farm.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like I'll be helping nurse some of the babies if I get up there and maybe give you some level of a break, right?
Speaker 2:I think it's my grandchildren's favorite thing too to come up and take care of those babies.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, that's one of the best things, it's. Yeah, that really. That really shows the kickoff into the year, right? Yes, you're like off to the races, so okay. Well, thank you, sheila, so much for your time. It was amazing learning so much more and also matching that up and getting more information into my head. You know so, when I use these amazing products, I can support educating people too and, like you said, get the word out there. So well, thank you, sheila, and take care.
Speaker 2:Same to you, james. Thanks so much, it's really been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, everyone, that is a wrap. You can check us out if you like that. Subscribe Also the Instagram Chef Massey. Let's keep it simple, chefmasseycom. Have a good one. Bye for now.