Our customers always say never had anything like Five Marys Ground Beef. It’s special. But what makes it so different? Not all beef is raised the same. Did you know most commercial cattle change hands 4-8 times from birth to your plate? And one pound of ground beef could have DNA from hundreds of different animals? To get the very best quality beef – you want… 1) SUPERIOR GENETICS : our ground beef comes from the cattle we raise for really good steaks and you can taste it. Ground beef in stores can often come from older dairy cows or older mother cows that aren’t producing babies anymore or feedlot cattle trim. 2) TRACEABILITY & SMALL BATCH : We harvest cattle in very small batches each week and have complete traceability for each animal we harvest. One pound of ground beef in stores might come from hundreds of different cattle! So the chances of traces of pathogens getting into each helping of meat are massively multiplied. 3) QUALITY FEED FOR CLEAN MEAT : Feedlots feed cheap protein and depending on where cattle are raised, corn can be a common finish ration, but can lead to a yellow, thicker fat. We finish on green alfalfa grass, high quality grain hay and steam-flaked barley (all barley is GMO-free) because it’s a fantastic mixed ration for cattle to easily digest but also yields a very clean, white marbling and fat – with all the best flavor! 4) DRY-AGING : Dry-aging is an old world craft tradition that creates the best possible beef with that amazing “steak house” taste and tenderness. We don’t cut our steaks or grind until the entire carcass is dry-aged for 14 to 28 days. Most beef sold in the stores is “wet-aged” or put in plastic packages to age during transport to the next distributor. Ground beef that is dry-aged gives it a truly stand-out and memorable flavor – it’s rare and a true delicacy! 5) GRASS-FED & GRAIN+GRASS FINISHED : Purely grass-finished beef can be lean and gamey and doesn’t always benefit from dry-aging, but because we finish our cattle on barley, which results in natural marbling, dry-aging is an essential part of what makes our beef unforgettable. 6) NO HORMONES or ANTIBIOTICS : When we say this, we mean it.