Roseda Beef: Juicy and Tender

Angus cattle are recognized world wide for high
quality beef. It's the marbling (flecks of fat) in the
muscle that creates a juicy taste and Angus cattle
marble better than any other breed of beef cattle.
Within the Angus breed, there are some cattle that
marble better than others. At Roseda Farm, we
access the national database of the American
Angus Association and select the very elite Angus
bulls (best of the best) to serve as herd sires for our
purebred herd in Monkton, MD. The resulting bull
calves are developed for breeding purposes and
placed in local commercial herds. The calves
raised by the commercial cattlemen are then
purchased by Roseda at six months of age and
placed in local feedlots.

We do not know of any other program similar to
ours in the country that starts with superior Angus
genetics and controls the management of the cattle
from birth thru harvest.

Juicy and Tender

Birth to weaning (6-7 months)

Roseda contracts with local (MD, DE, VA, PA)
commercial herds who use approved Roseda bulls for
breeding. All calves are weighed at birth (70-80 pound
average) and tagged with a unique identification
number. Each herd maintains performance and health
records on each calf as required by Roseda Farm.
During this period calves are nursing their "mamas"
and eating lush pasture grass. At approximately six
months of age, the calves are vaccinated for all the
major cattle diseases, weaned and purchased for
Roseda Farm weighing about 600-650 pounds.

Weaning to Harvest (140-250 days)

Roseda contracts with local feedlots to grow the cattle to
approximately 1,150-1,200 pounds. The cattle are fed a
nutritionally balanced diet of corn, barley, soybean meal,
hay, minerals, vitamins and fresh water. We do not use
hormones or feed antibiotics. Occasionally, a sick
animal will require treatment with medications. In these
cases, we use only FDA approved medications and wait
the required time to assure that the medications are not
in the animal at the time of harvest. The cattle will gain
close to 3 pounds a day and be ready for harvest at 12 to
18 months of age. Since our cattle are young when
delivered to the packer, they will naturally be more
tender. Industry wide, the age of cattle harvested is
much higher, closer to 24-30 months of age. Roseda
experts routinely visit the local feedlots to monitor the
progress of the cattle and insure that our standards are
being met.

Harvesting

The Roseda cattle are harvested by two local, federally
inspected packers. Once harvested, the entire carcass
is "dry aged" under controlled refrigeration conditions
for 14 to 21 days. Dry aging the entire carcass is unique
to the Roseda program and insures a tender, beefy
taste for every cut of beef. It is the reason Roseda beef
is so consistent and why even our burgers smell and
taste like steak. Most commodity beef is aged very little
(3 to 7 days). Even when aged, it is normally just the
high priced steak cuts that get aged and they are "wet
aged" in cryovac packages which will increase
tenderness but not provide the unique Roseda beefy
taste.

There are two major factors that influence juiciness and tenderness. First, the
pedigree or breeding background of the cattle accounts for 40% of the difference.
Secondly, how the cattle are managed from birth to retail sale accounts for 60%.

That is why we use the slogan "Beef with a Background" wherever we display our
name. Producing all of our beef from Angus bulls selected and/or developed by the
beef experts at Roseda Farm allows us to control the first part of the
tenderness/juiciness equation.

Management of the cattle controls 60% of the tenderness/juiciness equation, which
can be best addressed by following the life cycle of a Roseda steer.