Meat+Poultry - January 2017 - 28

C O M PA N Y P R O F I L E

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MEAT+ POULTRY | 01.17 | www.meatpoultry.com

of the tier within grass-fed, but Ehrlich
says Verde Farms is well-balanced by using
the whole carcass. "So, that means using
everything from your middle-meats to end cuts
to ground beef." Ehrlich adds that Verde Farms
currently is engaged in some value-added beef
production and the company will focus on that
segment going forward.

ARGENTINA INSPIRATION
Ehrlich was a semi-conductor engineer prior
to entering the beef business. He was working
on his MBA at the Tuck School of Business at
Dartmouth College when he participated in an
exchange program in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
"It was there that I started eating a lot of
grass-fed beef, probably at least five (to) six
days a week; and it wasn't until I was back in
the US that I discovered there was something
different about the beef we were eating here,
and I started to delve into it," he says.
He discovered a strong potential of a
business opportunity, coupled with his
personal interests in entrepreneurship, food,
the environment and health and wellness. "I
saw the intersection of all these things come
together and the promotion and transformation
of the cattle industry almost back to the
grass-fed cattle model could solve a lot of
environmental issues, as well as personal
issues," he explains.
Ehrlich admits he faced challenges
transferring to the beef business from a
background in the high-tech industry, but he
says many of his skill sets applied to the beef
sector.
"I had a tremendous amount of
background in operations and product
management/product development and that
carried over very well," he says. "And there
were a lot of things that did not carry over
in terms of my knowledge base. It took a
significant amount of time to learn at the
beginning, and of course, you always learn as
you go along. It's been a long road, but now
we're at the point where we've developed the
company into something substantial and we
have a lot more progress to go."
Part of the company's progress is the
conversion to a new proprietary information
technology infrastructure based on the
Salesforce platform.
"From what I've seen, especially in most

Verde Farms

is typically leaner compared
to grain-finished beef, but
Ehrlich says leanness is an
attribute that goes well with
the consumer that's looking for
healthier product. But the price
of grass-fed continues to be a
hurdle to consumers interested
in it but who may be daunted by
the price point of grass-fed beef.
"As we progressed, we
noticed that there was a big gap
between the conventional and
grain-finished beef - where the
cattle are finished in feedlots -
and our organic grass-fed beef,"
Ehrlich says.
For example, the difference
Dana Ehrlich
in commodity retail beef prices
and grass-fed retail beef prices
in November were as low as
$3.13 for short ribs to a high of
$23.55 for filet mignon, according to the US
Dept. of Agriculture's National Monthly Grass
Fed Beef Report.
To address the price premium, Verde Farms
developed the Grass-Fed line as an entry-level
grass-fed program for foodservice and retail
customers, while the Never Ever line is a
middle-range program within the grass-fed
sector. Verde Farms also offers a Reserve line
"Grass-fed beef which is a steak-house quality, 100-percent
grass-fed, grass-finished line. Ehrlich believes
doesn't have
the premium between commodity beef and
the corn-based grass-fed beef will narrow over time.
"Grass-fed beef doesn't have the corn-based
subsidies
subsidies
that are so predominant within the
that are so
feedlot-based system," he says. "So, over time
predominant
there probably will be some premium, even at
the entry-level grass-fed program. But as we
within the
scale up and we use the economies of scale
feedlot-based
that the rest of the sector uses we can pass on
system."
those cost savings to the consumers.
"So our entry-level grass-fed price point,
- DANA EHRLICH
while still above conventional (beef) is still
accessible to the vast majority of Americans,"
he adds. "Then, there are other things that
we can do such as distribution. The wider
our footprint gets on distribution the more
accessible not just within the Northeast,
mid-Atlantic and West Coast, but throughout
the middle parts of America."
Ground beef leads the category regardless
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