Where Are Beef Rinds Sourced From?

In today's day and age sourcing is paramount. Our core values are centered around quality sourcing, nutrition and ingredients. As more information about companies questionable industry sourcing and practices get divulged—consumers are increasingly skeptical about the food products they're bringing home to their family and want more answers.

At Holy Cow, we're information first—we are transparent about our sourcing, cooking, and distribution process. We emphasize the importance of organic, grass fed & finished sourcing, safe cooking techniques, and high quality, clean practices to assure our consumers that the product is the safest and best on the market. Many of our leading competitors, are leading their consumers blind on this front—which is increasingly becoming problematic in this industry.

Our company's philosophy, sourcing, and business practices is dedicated to social advocacy, environmentalism, and sustainability. 

Today, we're going to deep dive into:

1. Where we source beef skins
2. Our vetting process
3. Where our beef rinds are produced
4. Our zero waste mission

Where We Source Beef Skins

Sourcing is so important to achieve a satisfactory end-product, so when it comes to sourcing our beef skins we don't cut corners.

Currently, we source from regenerative-focused farms throughout the Pacific Northwest region. We chose to source from regenerative farms because they have shown to be carbon-negative in the short-term and carbon-neutral in the long-term. Farms that are focused on sustainable, regenerative practices are important to us and our core values.

(When we first started, we were sourcing from these farms directly. Now, we still source from the same farms but indirectly. Meaning, we source from USDA plants that these farms deliver to in order to stay within USDA compliance standards.)

As a result of the close eye we keep on our supply chain, our upcycled beef skins are 100% traceable. Which means we're able to follow the movement of the skins through each step of the supply chain, backward and forward. The entire supply chain- from production to distribution- is fully documented.

It’s one thing to claim we are reducing waste by upcycling beef skins, but to truly boast of "100% green" credentials we’re taking every precaution; we source from farms that are geographically as close to us as possible to reduce our carbon footprint. This allows us to properly vet them by visiting their facilities whilst also ensuring that we're reducing pressure on the environment by avoiding long supply chains. 

Our Vetting Process

We emphasize the importance of organic, grass fed & finished sourcing, safe cooking techniques, and high quality, clean practices. 

The farms we source from meet our strict standards:

• Cows that are grass-fed & finished (foraging on pasture all day)
• Away from pollution sources (major highways, industrial runoff)
• Clean grass & living quarters
• And of course— happy cows!

We’re so stringent about quality control because the two of us are extremely health conscious, we don’t eat food that isn’t organic, clean and well sourced. We do a lot of research because we want to give our customers the level of quality that would make us happy, because there isn’t a class of consumers that are pickier than us.

The reason we picked grass-fed & finished cattle was not only because it is the most evolutionary consistent form of food, but also because 100% grass-fed beef is superior on every touchpoint.

We also avoid farms that are susceptible to indirect or direct pollution. This gives way for cleaner grass and living quarters. We also ensure the cattle lives in a stress-free environment where they have ample space to move around freely and sociably. 

When we visit the farms, this also gives us the opportunity to get to know our ranchers on a personal level. We love learning more about our ranchers; they all have a unique backstory related to the farm. We've even considered sharing their stories with our customers through our blog, so stay tuned!

Where Our Beef Rinds Are Produced

After we've picked up the beef skins, they make their way to our production facility located in Seattle, WA. Since we live in Seattle, it made the most sense to keep our facility as close to us as possible so that we can keep a close eye on the operations. Each and every skin that makes its way through our facility is inspected carefully for freshness. 

We can't go too deep into our cooking process as we've developed a proprietary  process to cook our rinds. But, we do generally follow the same method as pork rinds:

1. Cut the skins into small (1" x 1") pieces 
2. Boil the skins for about an hour
3. Drain and chill in the refrigerator overnight
4. Take out, cut off as much fat off as possible  
5. Set oven to 180F and place skins on grated pan in the oven for 10-12 hours with the oven cracked open
6. After they're dry, fry them in the oil of your choice heated to 400F
7. Season!

To learn more about what got us started visit our about us page. 

Our Zero Waste Mission

We're preventing landfill waste by repurposing cowhides that were destined for landfills into edible beef rinds. We like to describe our process as carbon positive; each input to our supply chain is green and follows the highest industry standards of sustainability and reusability. Further, no part of the raw input ends up being thrown away. Other pork manufacturers discard remnant components of the skin—including the hair, subcutaneous fat, and dermis. We render the fat for cooking, and use the rest as compost. (Who knew that skin is a nutritious addition to a healthy compost operation?)

To purchase these amazing fried beef skins, or "beef rinds" as we call them you can purchase here.