Beer, Beef, and Social Responsibility
Beer, beef, and social responsibility: three things that are very important to us at Bethany's Table. As we continue to evolve, we have been working to align our values with our practices. Several months ago, we switched to Oregon Natural Meats as our ground beef supplier. At that time, David wrote this post, detailing the reasons for changing suppliers and a brief bit about the new beef.
The story about this "Brew Beef," however, deserves a bit more attention. We chose Oregon Natural Meats as a supplier because their business model and values are in line with our own. ONM aims to keep their operation as local as possible, purchasing cattle only from Oregon farms, keeping feed lots close to the processing center, and selling products almost exclusively to Oregon customers. Their #1 goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of their operation - no small task in a high-footprint industry.
Now, leave ONM on the back burner for a moment. Let's talk about one of our premier beer providers: Ninkasi Brewery of Eugene. I went to college in Eugene, and have been a huge fan [since they began brewing in 2007] since I reached the legal drinking age in 2008. They are truly the Cinderella of the beer world: in the last four years, they have gone from a 15-barrel brewery to a 50-barrel brewery with distribution in several states. This is no small feat in Oregon, which is 2nd in the country for number of breweries per-capita. Ninkasi now produces close to a million gallons of beer every year, and it is delicious. The company gives wholehearted support of their local community, whether it be donating a keg or two to a local band's show or giving all of its proceeds from a special batch to the McKenzie River Trust - a nonprofit that works to "maintain the water supply that feeds the brewery as one of the cleanest purest sources in the world."
Now Ninkasi is working to reduce the waste created by the brewing process, and as eaters, we are benefiting. Ninkasi donates its spent grain to Oregon Natural Meats. When ONM's carefully selected cattle arrive in the feedlots, which are located near Eugene, they are fed a 100% vegetarian diet of grains, forage, vitamins, and minerals. This diet includes upcycled brewer's grain from Eugene's Ninkasi Brewery as well as Deschutes Brewery.
According to Stephen Neel, the CEO and founder of ONM, this process is not quite as time-efficient as other commercial feeding systems. On big commercial feedlots, cattle are given little or no room to move and force-fed agricultural by-products in an attempt to fatten them up quickly. Not so at ONM, where "the feeding process takes more time and results in a high quality slow-fed animal." He also notes that the cattle really like eating the spent brewer's grain. ONM estimates that they have upcycled over 20 million pounds of Brewer's grain since October 2009, preventing that amount of waste from entering landfills - and this is for a very small operation.
Everything about this story makes me feel good. People are making and drinking good beer, raising happy cows that produce tasty meat, and working together for more sustainable practices. It also makes me want a burger, and a beer!