Ethically RAISED
Our calves are raised in the pastures here on Black Hawk Farms where they spend the first eight to nine months grazing in open fields. While most of our competitors would send their calves out west to finish quickly on grain, we simply bring them 1.6 miles down the road to our state-of-the-art Composting Finishing Barn where they're fed a blend of hay and our own farm-grown white corn. While conventional feedlots might spend 180 days feeding grain to their animals, we feed our herd a blend of grain and hay for 500 days, resulting in a superior quality finished product.
Most importantly, we never add any hormones or antibiotics to our feed, which means it’s safer for you while exhibiting better flavor and more consistent marbling.
Our Difference
Our entire process takes place on our Kentucky farm: the entire life cycle of the cattle, grains, and grass happens right here. Start to finish.
Black Hawk Farms produces the best meat possible by going back to the basics. We take care of our soil and pasture. We raise healthy, happy animals. We grow the grains used to finish our beef. We humanely process the meat locally to ensure quality. And you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone else in the country with an operation like ours.
FAMILY OWNED
We’ve worked the fields of our home soil for more than four and a half decades. Frustrated from the lack of good quality beef in local restaurants, we realized that we could do something about it; and in the process, we discovered the key to what could eventually change the entire industry. In October of 2013, we decided to begin our beef production on a full time scale and manage it in the same manner we handled our beef for our own personal consumption. The result is rich, buttery beef that's raised in a sustainable, eco-friendly process unique to the industry.
CHEF QUALITY
By taking a slower approach, our cattle gradually gain fat which ensures dense and even marbling. We’ve had the honor of providing our American Wagyu beef to many chefs and restaurants—from high-end establishments to neighborhood dives—and we’re more than excited to finally offer Black Hawk to you, the home consumer.
Marbling is one of the critical things we look for in our meat. While all breeds will produce some marbling, some are specifically bred to increase the density of the marbling, and Wagyu breeds are notorious for their intense fat marbling. We feed our calves a diet rich with grain over a longer period of time, which allows fat to slowly and evenly develop throughout the meat. On the other hand, calves on conventional feed lots are generally fed grain for less than six months, which isn't enough time to achieve significant marbling within the meat. Our lengthy feeding process results in more fat that is more evenly dispersed, which provides an amazing amount of flavor and texture - this is precisely why professional chefs love our beef.
Renewably Produced
Great tasting beef starts at the ground level - literally the ground - and we've spent years perfecting grazing methods on our Kentucky farm. Our process was built with environmental stewardship in mind at every step, from rotational grazing methods in our pastures to recycling barn compost into fertilizer. As a result, we’re able to produce an amazing product while protecting the environment. And in a commitment to our sustainability efforts, all the grain and hay we feed to our cattle is grown and harvested right here on our farm.
Thanks to our work with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the EPA, we've designed and built an entirely eco-friendly environment for finishing our calves.
While most cattle are loaded on trucks and transported out west to spend their final days in massive, inhumane feedlots, ours remain here on the farm in Kentucky. Our process avoids those long-haul, cross-country rides that place undue stress on the animals and result in an overwhelming carbon footprint.
And we follow up this commitment by packaging every order in recycled, recyclable and compostable packaging.