Agweek Staff Writer
Published Monday, September 18, 2006

BILLINGS, Mont. - While cattle producers in North Dakota and South Dakota are focusing more on the “natural” beef market, several Montana producers groups have been into the business for several years.

And now there's a new player in the corral - Montana Ranch Brand Inc.

The Billings, Mont.-based meat company was organized in 2005 and is emerging as a competitor for the fast-expanding market and features “elite” Italian genetics in cross-breeding featuring the Piedmontese breed. The company is led by an experienced hand and will compete for customers and producers in North Dakota, South Dakota and beyond.

New brand

A bit of background.

Natural beef can mean many things, but once a company certifies its protocols and label with USDA, the company has to do what it says. For Montana Ranch Brand, that means no added growth hormones or antibiotics - “never ever” - plus source-verification and all-vegetarian feed.

“We're certifying our cattle supplies, as never ever for antibiotics and growth hormones - the top tier of natural and one step shy of being organic,” says Ralph Peterson, president and chief operating officer.

A natural progression

In about 2000, there were a couple of Montana companies that set their cowboy hats on the market, with goals of selling 1,000 head or more.

First among them was the famed Leachman Cattle Co., then a huge seedstock producer (now defunct) from Billings. Leachman bought Ameripied L.L.C. of Ohio and moved that meat company to Montana and changed the name to Montana Range Meat Co., with the goal of marketing natural beef. Peterson, a Kansas native, worked for Leachman.

(Ameripied refers to the Piedmontese cattle breed. More on that later.)

Also about 2000, a separate company, Montana Legend, was created by rancher Derek Kampfe of Roscoe, Mont., marketing the ranch's own cattle as natural, primarily through the Internet and mail-order sales. Montana Legend still is moving ahead, reportedly marketing 700 to 800 head a year.

The third large player - the largest in the game - was Meyers Angus Ranch of Helmsville, Mont. The Meyers Natural Angus has done very well, handling roughly 35,000 cattle, which would translate to $35 million to $50 million in sales, Peterson estimates. The meat company was based in Nebraska and recently moved to Loveland, Colo., according its Web site.

Back to Leachman.

In 2003, Leachman Cattle Co., saddled with debt and lawsuits, went into receivership and sold its assets. The Montana Range subsidiary was sold to its primary cattle supplier, a rancher, Kevin Brewer of Forsythe, Mont. Now Peterson worked for Brewer.

But in 2004, Peterson assembled a diverse group of about 10 investors who tried to buy Brewer out. Larry Descheemaeker, a Grass Range, Mont., rancher, was one of the investors in the unsuccessful purchase attempt.

Though unsuccessful, this bid offered a new beginning.

Montana Ranch brand

Turns out, the Descheemaekers had a brand of their own - Montana Ranch - around which the investor group would form a new company. Montana Ranch was started in the 1980s by the Descheemaeker family and some of their friends for a somewhat less-expansive purpose.

“They were producing, essentially, would be considered ‘natural' products in a canned form,” Peterson says, “canned stew, canned beef hash - canned beef in general.”

But that was before the term “natural” had came into vogue. The Descheemaekers simply were selling an authentic Montana product, largely with labor from ranch wives and to local supermarket chains. The Descheemaekers kept the brand on “life support” but became busy with managing their ranches and families.

After the failed bid for Montana Range, Peterson launched a new effort for a meat company under the Descheemaekers' Montana Ranch Brand.

In May 2005, the Montana Ranch Brand started slaughtering at Premium Protein Products, a custom kill in Hastings, Neb.

Peterson says the company is approaching a slaughter rate that would equate to $10 million in annual sales by the end of the fiscal/calendar year of 2006. He expects the company will have killed about 6,000 head in 2006 and will grow again in 2007.

The company offers two product lines - both “natural,” but one that also is certified Piedmontese.

The company already contracts for calves in 10 states, as far away as Washington and Oregon, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Annually renewed contracts offer premiums of up to $50 per head over the producers' local calf market. Most raised weaned calves are taken to Nebraska to a pasture and feedlot program for finishing.

Verification of the “natural” protocols is handled through affidavits and random inspections.

The company handles primarily fresh products. It also offers beef, pork, bison and lamb products, but about 75 percent are in beef.

Peterson says it's a “good challenge” to sell all of the meat from an entire beef animal. He says the company looks for value-added customers for the burger, people who will identify Montana Ranch Brand on things such as boxed burger, meatloaf or meatballs.

The company markets to retailers and food service establishments.

“You're looking for more urban areas, where people have more disposable income and are more removed from the ag sector,” Peterson says, using Ohio and Florida as geographic examples. He declines to discuss specific customers at this point.

“We work with independent retailers,” he says. “We're looking for retailers that need an edge - something different than in the big supermarket chains.”

Peterson knows there are getting to be more players in “natural” beef, including North Dakota and South Dakota, but he believes there is a lot of growth potential in the “natural” market for the people who “do the due diligence to create a quality product.” He notes there are 28 million head of steers and heifers harvested every year in the United States. Of those, roughly 100,000 to 200,000 currently are marketed as natural.

‘Double-muscle' genes

About half of Montana Ranch Brand's production is certified Piedmontese breeding. The company would like it to be 100 percent and is working toward that during the next five years.

Piedmontese originated in northern Italy in the province of Piedmont. The breed was imported into the United States about 30 years ago. The breed has very little backfat or “marbling” fat in the muscle.

What's unique about them is an extra muscling, what sometimes is called “double-muscling.”

“All mammals have a ‘myostatin' gene,” Peterson says. “It's a sort of shut-off valve that stops your muscles from continually growing. We'd all grow up to look naturally like Arnold Schwarzenegger if we didn't have this gene,” Peterson says. “In Piedmontese cattle, this gene is inactive. It causes the muscles to overdevelop and creates a natural tenderness at the same time.”

Peterson says he's looking for producers in the North Dakota and South Dakota.

“We're looking for producers willing to put in the extra husbandry to raise cattle without antibiotics. There's a lot of people out there wondering if there's things they can do to increase their marketing opportunities.

“I would say we're more concerned first about the quality of the producer,” Peterson says. “Second, we're concerned about the quality of the herd, second; and third, location.”

Peterson says that doesn't have to be Montana, though “I would say we have a real commitment to our heritage of being a Montana-based company, committed to working with ranchers to provide a sustainable return for the extra husbandry, for the extra steps.”

On the Web: www.montanaranchbrand.com

Click your BACK button to return to previous page.

www.piedmontese-napa.com