The challenges of beef production/processing from the eyes of a family farmer

Hello, my name is Nancee Emmerich, and I am relatively new to the We R Food Safety! team, having started in November as Food Safety and Quality Program Coordinator. My business career has revolved around customer service and client relations, but my life skills have been honed by helping my husband, Steve, with the ownership and operation of our Wisconsin family farm. In my contribution to this blog, I’d like to tell you about our family farm and how the daily focus on details, quality assurance and food safety parallel the vision and mission at We R Food Safety. I may not always write about the farm, but I hope the insights I can bring to you from the producer side of the equation will help you perform better in your business.

Steve Emmerich (Nancee's husband) displays a small 
gold calf gift that was sent to the family by a visitor 
from India who was impressed with the cattle operation 
at Emmerich Family Farms.

Emmerich Family Farms, Inc. was founded in 1873 by my husband’s great-great-great-grandfather, who came to the U.S. from Germany, like so many in this area of central Wisconsin. Our youngest son is the 6th generation of Emmerichs who learned many life lessons on the farm and as a member of our local 4-H club by showing steers and goats at the county fair.

Through the years, our farm has evolved from a dairy farm to a significantly diversified operation featuring a 500-head cattle feedlot, a purebred Angus herd, corn and soybean acreage and also a maple syrup sugar bush with 5,000 trees.

Of course, animal welfare and quality assurance are crucial to our operation and ultimately the meat and food we produce. For us, food safety begins on the farm with proper animal-welfare practices. We keep our animals clean and calm, and always use veterinarian-prescribed vaccinations and treatments; and we administer these products at the correct sites on the animal.

Once the animals are ready for processing, however, we face additional challenges. Finding custom-processing plants — let alone facilities that do a high-quality job we can trust — to handle our direct-to-consumer beef sales is a big challenge, because a very large number of custom processors have gone out of business or been acquired in the last five years. As a result, we currently have to schedule animals for harvest at least 12 to 18 months in advance.

The maple syrup processing operation at Emmerich Family Farms.

There are always challenges to be met on the farm. High capital and labor costs, market uncertainty and low profit margins along with unpredictable weather all add up to a high-risk adventure. But it is an adventure that we love!

By paying attention to the details and always striving for the highest quality product, whether it be market steers or maple syrup, we hope to sustain the farm for the next generation.

— Nancee Emmerich, Food Safety and Quality Program Coordinator, nancee@werfoodsafety.com