Owner Mike Stine says his grass-fed cattle graze in a “beyond organic” environment

Mike Stine with Grass fed cattle.

Stonebridge Beef owner Mike Stine herds his cattle into a fresh pasture. Stine said he moves the cattle every one or two days to minimize over-grazing, which can hurt the plant matter and soil and is unhealthy for the animals. All cattle that Stine finishes are completely grass-fed – from the time he gets them at eight or nine months old, to when they are big enough to be sold to the consumer.

By EMILIE THIESSEN
Staff Writer

emilie.thiessen@mcrecord.com

In 2004, Mike Stine set out to provide consumers with an alternative – an alternative to both how consumers purchase their beef and the actual beef they buy.

“That alternative is the kind of food that I think helps the environment, the community, farmers like me and our customers,” he said. “It gives people the opportunity to buy from someone they know and can talk to.”

Alongside wife  and Stonebridge Beef co-owner Sue, Stine raises grass-fed, Devonshire beef cattle on his 160 acre farm just outside of Long Prairie, and bypasses distribution issues by simply selling directly to the consumer, even making the deliveries himself. Seven years after starting, Stine said he can barely keep up with demand.

“The local food movement is just exploding,” he said.

Stine’s cattle eat only greens throughout the year, meaning absolutely no corn or barley in their diet.

All his cattle spend their days grazing on picturesque pastures. The animals are moved every one or two days to a fresh pasture, ensuring they are getting all the fresh greens they need to stay healthy and to retain the integrity of the pastures without using fertilizers.

Stine said because of the low-stress environment his cattle are finished in, they are always healthy and are never in need of antibiotics or hormones. Stine said he carefully monitors the environment of the cattle to make sure they are living a high health life – naturally. So naturally, in fact, that Stine said he has not bothered to become organically certified, as his practices far exceed federal regulations making his farm “beyond organic.”

Grass Fed British White Cow

This British White cow feeds on the “salad bar” of grasses found in the pastures of Stonebridge beef. Stine finishes mostly Devonshire cattle, but to keep up with growing demand, recently bought two steers from his neighbor who raises grass-fed British White cows just across the road.

With a PHD equivalent  in physics and many years of experience doing research and development for Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical, Stine knew right away when purchasing the farm that much effort would have to put into rebuilding the soil.

For many years, the land was conventionally farmed with corn and soybeans and did not have enough nutrients to support truly healthy greens to feed the cattle.

Now, after seven years of work and maintenance, the soil is able to easily support a varied mix of forage grasses including rich clover and alfalfa. Stine said he continues to monitor the soil carefully and performs frequent tests to ensure the right amount of naturally occurring nutrients and minerals are in the soil.

This is a strong distinguishing characteristic between Stonebridge Beef and other larger, conventional farms Stine said – his farming techniques only add to the quality of the soil while many conventional techniques continue to deplete it.

Stine sells much of his beef to local, independent customers who can have the meat delivered to their home. Customers are also welcome to pick the meat up directly from the farm itself.

“I can sit across the table from Mike and have a face-to-face conversation about the animals,” said Staples resident John Makosky during a recent visit to the farm, picking up his half of beef. “That is very important to me.”

Makosky has been a stay-at-home dad for more than three years and said the nutritional quality of food he brings home and prepares for his wife and three daughters is very important to him.

“The flavor is exceptional,” he said. “And any time we can keep our money closer to home, I think that is very important.”

Makosky said he is glad to see the increased interest when it comes to local, sustainably grown food not generated by concentrated animal feeding operations. He hopes, however, more people will begin to see the benefit of buying directly from the farmer.

“There is a fair amount of local growing going on, people are trying to market directly to customers, but some struggle with it – Mike is a success story,” Makosky said.

Stine believes much of his success comes from the boom of business he has seen in the Twin Cities.

Grass-fed Stonebridge Beef cuts are now featured on the menus of numerous restaurants in the area including Victory 44, Lucias, Grand Cafe, the Marsh, Dakota Jazz, Broders, Lowbrow and Hell’s Kitchen – Stine’s largest customer. Prairie Bay Restaurant in Brainerd is one of Stine’s larger customers in North Central Minnesota, he said, and one of the only chef-driven establishments for miles around.

“They are competing with each other, emphasizing they are buying directly from farmers,” he said.

Because of the great demand for his product, especially in the Twin Cities, Stine said his product has doubled in sale every year for the last four years. This year, Stine will finish 130 cows, up from 30 head of cattle during his first year of operation.

Stine said as the city becomes more isolated from surrounding farms, many urbanites are craving that contact with farm life, which prompts restaurant patrons to request more locally grown foods.

“In the city, this is their contact,” he said.

Stine said his main goal has always been to offer an alternative for people, not to chastise bigger, conventional farmers. But in the future, he hopes more farmers will go back to concentrating more on nutritional value rather than just quantity.

“Conventional farmers simply have to raise the stuff that they think has a probability about turning a profit,” he said. “I don’t think there is anything much un-American about that. And once you start down the industrial path where you are growing conventional commodities, the farm has to continue to get bigger … they just have to do more in order to keep the profit margin acceptable.”

Tony and Margaret are StoneBridge Beef vendors at the Baxter and Alexandria farmers markets this season.  The Baxter market is on Friday from 8:00 until 12:30 and the Alexandria Market is on Saturday from 9:00 until 12:00.  Stop in and give us a chat.  We will be selling Burger Packs, Variety Packs, and some individual cuts of grass-fed meats as they are available.  Halves and quarters of beef will continue to be the centerpiece of our sales efforts.  We have over 80 head of stocker cattle ready for 2011 deliveries.  Order anytime from now until November.  The lead time is about 3 or 4 weeks.

Chefs who feature our grass-fed beef at restaurants here in Central Minnesota are getting lots of compliments on our grass-fed beef.  Lucias, Broders, Hell’s Kitchen, The Grand Café, Victory 44, Kings Wine Bar, Campus Club at the U of M, The Marsh, The Lowbrow, The Sample Room, Crema, Dakota Jazz, The Craftsman, and Prairie Bay are a few of our regular restaurant customers.  Hell’s Kitchen alone serves about 1100 people per day, featuring our beef (and our farm) on their menu.  If you think the local food movement is a passing fad, stop in and chat with folks at these restaurants.

Forming Local Food Networks (local buying clubs) is the next initiative we plan for 2011-3012.  Hello long term customers!  Would you like to provide a framework for your friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbors to buy meat directly thru StoneBridge Farm?  If so, give me a shout.  I will do the work and you will share in the fun of enjoying our meat with those you love.  It will also help us schedule group deliveries directly to your neighborhood.  We hope to offer grass-fed beef, free range eggs and chicken, and other products as we diversify our farm.

We are having another Festival of Farms on Saturday July 16, 2011.  StoneBridge Farm hosted a similar event in 2009 and many of you attended.  This year it will be hosted by our friends Mel and Lorna Wiens at Acorn Ridge Farm, 11862 261 ave. Staples, MN 56479.  Check out festivaloffarms.com for more details.  You may also call or e-mail us for the latest info.  AND don’t forget that we love visitors to our farm almost ANYTIME!  (Mondays and Thursdays we are on the road.)  Just let us know when you plan to come.  Bring friends and family and come see the new menagerie of critters.

Mike

News From the Farm

StoneBridge Beef and the Local Foods Movement had a banner year in 2009! The credit goes to consumers like you who vote with your dollars, spending money on the best food and not the cheapest. We have the happy privilege of working feverishly to keep up with the demand for more locally grown, grass-fed beef.

Farmers market sales started slowly because we had no inventory in the cold months of May and June 2009. That changed in July and we introduced more and more families to our grass-fed beef during the year. We added Willmar and St. Joseph farmers markets and we are thrilled with all our new customers. Hosting Festival of Farms was another significant event for 2009. We fed and toured about 100 people on a beautiful day in September.

StoneBridge Beef is now available at the following Twin Cities clubs and boutique restaurants: Lucia’s, Dakota Jazz Club, The Marsh, U of M Campus Club, and The Sample Room. Award winning chefs are shifting their purchasing from distributors to local farmers. Many of you will not be surprised that discerning chefs would want to serve our grass-fed beef. And our custom processing seems to fit their needs just fine.

Our customers really do need beef year around so we built a sizeable frozen inventory of variety packs and burger packs and we are ready for 2010. Let me suggest, however, that you plan to buy halves and quarters from us when the grass is green. See the grass-fed link under Our Beef for the benefits of grass-fed over commodity beef.

St. Joseph Meats is our new processing partner. Gerard Hoffarth and his crew are great! Their retail store is one of the best in the State. We are impressed with their professionalism, experience and overall competence. They are strategically located near I-94 in St. Joseph and they love to have visitors at both their processing facility and their retail store.

We are now approved by the ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE (AWI) as a farm and processor team. The Animal Welfare Institute was founded in 1951 and we welcome their participation. “Beyond organic” validation, such as AWI, is consistent with our core values of humane treatment of animals. Like us they acknowledge that preparing meat is part of our omnivore heritage, but the entire process must done safely and thoughtfully.

We anticipate the arrival of about sixty 500 lb. calves in a few weeks. The credit goes to Thompson Land and Cattle Company for another impressive crop of stockers. We will be happy to show them off when you visit the farm.

We are excited about 2010. We love being your farmer and love having you visit our farm.

Mike

March 2009

StoneBridge Beef is busy getting ready for a great season.

Copious snow and cold this winter, still the cows did well and so did their farmers. But we are ALL ready to see some green grass! About a month of bright green pastures and we will be selling beef again. More about that subject later in the blog.

Hope you have already noticed the website upgraded. We think we made online ordering easier for you, for us, and especially for new customers. We expect a few glitches at first but as usual, I will call each of you to confirm, assist, or help any way I can. We would like you to be brutally frank about fixes or suggestions for the website. We also have a new computer guru (see the bottom of most pages) and he is teaching us how to modify the site on-the-fly.

CONTACT US now shows our farmers’ market schedule for 2009. Little Falls Farmer markets will be new for us and we are excited to meet new friends there. We may add a couple of more locations, so please check our schedule as the season progresses.

OH YES! WE HAVE A NEW PRODUCT TO ANNOUNCE!

Per your request we will stock 20# BURGER PACKs at farmers’ markets and online! They will contain 20, one-pound packages of our best Prairie Fed Burger in a clear tube format. Many of you have called it “ground steak” and we like the compliment.

Our costs have gone up. (Where have you heard that before?) Our 2009 prices are up only to the extent necessary to cover the increases in our input costs. Retail beef prices are up everywhere but we don’t follow those trends. (Our direct fuel cost is only about 7 cents per lb. of beef.) Our suppliers, however, are seeing serious cost increases and pass them on to us.

We plan to distribute lots of recipes this year. There will be a set of six recipes-of-the-week that correspond to the contents of our Variety Pack (as well as quarters and halves). The recipes will also be coordinated with IN-SEASON fruits and vegetables available at Farmers Markets for that week. We have also expanded our RECIPE links section of our website. Check it out!

Even with the economy going the wrong way, our sales are GROWING. We have purchased our feeder cattle for 2009 and we LIKE what we see ahead of us in 2009. We hope you will order this spring so we can use summer grasses to full advantage. Our grasses are solar powered but the days get shorter in the fall and the angle of the sun changes. Grass finishing beef is a summer thing!

Thank you for being the wonderful customers that you are! Warm weather is on the way!

Mike, Sue, Evan and the Crew