Meyer Natural Foods, a supplier of natural and organic beef to supermarkets, restaurants, and consumers, announces the launch of the Meyer Natural Foods Humanely Handled program.
The program is designed to further strengthen Meyer’s strict standards for raising and producing cattle, and establish a program that farmers and ranchers can use to produce the highest-quality beef in the most humane manner.
Meyer Natural Foods and its brands—Meyer Natural Angus, Laura’s Lean Beef, Dakota Beef, Local Harvest, and Premium Natural Beef—are committed to providing the highest-quality, best-tasting beef through environmentally sound practices, humane animal treatment, and personal integrity.
As such, the company created the Humanely Handled Program to establish common sense standards that reflect its strict guidelines, and are transparent to consumers and those within the foodservice and grocery retail industries.
The program focuses on all aspects of the production and development process from traceability, cattle housing, and transportation to environmental protection, disbudding, and castration.
Meyer’s Humanely Handled Program places the utmost emphasis on transparency and integrity, requiring third-party validation. The program is also a USDA FSIS-Approved Third Party Certified Process, and all information is publicly listed on the company’s website.
“Our goal was to develop a program that would reflect Meyer Natural Foods’ values of treating cattle with respect,” says Mark Nelson, compliance officer for Meyer Natural Foods. “It was important to us to create a thorough program, as well as have the highest levels of transparency so our consumers can trust Meyer to provide the highest-quality beef.”
Cattle used for Meyer Natural Foods’ brands are fed a vegetarian diet of grasses and grains, and their all-natural diet never includes growth hormones or antibiotics.
The Meyer Natural Foods Humanely Handled Program verifies the origins of its cattle and ensures they are born, raised, fed, and processed in accordance with the requirements of the program, as well as USDA regulations.
