What Makes Beef Great?

As an insider, I get irritated with beef commercials.  These big chains all claim to have “the juiciest and most tender beef for less”, but I know it's simply not true.  News Flash… Better quality costs more and the only way to reduce price is to reduce quality – period.

Apparently facts mean nothing in the world of marketing.  Folks have been misled so often and for so long they either start to believe the lies or just go numb from overload.  

Want to be a savvier shopper?  Here are the facts every consumer should know about choosing beef, and about our beef at Tony’s.

Tony's Natural Local Beef

Great beef is the backbone of our meat departments, so we go to great lengths to assure we have the finest beef possible in our markets.  Read on for the facts about Tony’s Natural Local Beef.


USDA High Choice and Prime Grade Beef

Marbling is a key grading factor - translating into great flavor and juiciness.

We use a combination of High or Premium Choice (the top 10% of the USDA Choice Grade) and Prime grade beef for our steaks.  Our beef represents the top few percentile of quality in the country.  Read more about USDA Beef Quality Grades in the next section.

USDA Natural

Our beef has no added chemical, hormonal or antibiotic residues, nor is it ‘enhanced’ with added flavorings, water or additives of any kind.  Testing for chemical residues is done at processing, and we further verify this with random testing and independent labs.

Pumping, injecting or vacuum marinating meats with water and chemical flavoring solutions is a very common practice in meat and poultry.  These ‘enhancing’ techniques increase weights by as much as 20% while they improve the taste, tenderness and juiciness of low-grade meats.  You’ll never get ‘enhanced’ beef at Tony’s Markets!

Locally Raised

We live in some of the best cattle country in the world, so we only buy the highest grades of beef raised by local family ranchers within 300 miles of our markets.  Raising high-grade beef is not easy, so quality-minded (rather than bulk minded) ranchers and processors carefully plan and track lineage, birth, feeding and health in great detail.  Then at processing the final quality is closely scrutinized and performance information is fed back to the grower so he can continue to grow even better beef cattle.

Grass Fed

Our beef ranges freely on irrigated grasslands and non-irrigated rangelands and is constantly rotated to assure the lands are not overgrazed. Then our beef is finished for 100 days on a thoughtfully planned grain and roughage diet before harvesting.  This combination of feeding methods gives us the best quality beef possible, and assures sustainability.

Cattle grazing irrigated pasture near Hotchkiss, CO.

No Added Hormones

There are no added hormones, steroids or growth stimulants in our beef – USDA testing confirms this, and we also conduct our own random testing.

Never Fed Antibiotics

No sub-therapeutic use or feeding of antibiotics. 

Humane Treatment

Superior animal husbandry is the rule and one of the secrets to raising great beef – our growers always treat their animals in a kind and humane manner.  It’s not factory farms raising beef of high quality; rather its small family ranchers who take excellent care for their animals.

Extended 3-4 Week Aging

We proudly offer both Dry Aged and Wet Aged Beef, and age all our steak cuts for 21-28 days.  Extended aging under the right conditions improves the flavor and tenderness of beef.  Aging ties up money and causes shrinkage, both of which drives up price, so this step is usually skipped in today’s efficient marketplace, but often misrepresented.

No Gassed Meats

We cut all our meats by hand and in house, and we sell it fresh or frozen - we never use gas packaging, preservatives or color stabilizers.

In-House Ground Meats

Our ground meats have never and will never contain bulk meats, outside carcass trimmings, additives, by-products or meat pastes from automatic meat recovery systems (AKA 'Pink Slime' - get more details on that here). 

We grind our beef in small batches several times each day and only use whole muscle cuts; lean steak and roast trimmings from the loin, rib, sirloin and round, as well as whole muscle chucks tested free of e-coli.

For our ground chicken and turkey we use only all natural breast and thigh meat, and our ground pork and sausages are ground from all natural pork loin and shoulder.  We never use by-products, skin, fillers, chemicals, preservatives or additives of any kind.

We also regularly tour and inspect all our suppliers to assure all our meats are of the highest quality and safety, and that they are never treated with chemicals or additives of any kind before they reach our doors.

No Meat Glues

Smaller pieces of meat can be ‘glued’ together to look like solid muscle cuts – a common practice that we never take part in.

USDA Beef Quality Grades

The USDA offers an inspection service to rate the potential quality of beef to help the consumer with a consistent set of quality standards.  At Tony's, we will only sell USDA inspected beef (and all meats).  Many grocery chains skip this step to save money, but still represent their beef as graded (for shame!).

USDA Prime

This is the highest grade of beef, and only about 2% of all American beef can achieve this lofty grade.  USDA Prime beef has to meet a lot of standards, most notably is a very high marbling level.  Marbling is the streaks of fat inside the center of the muscle, and the more and finer the streaking, the higher the marbling level.  USDA Prime beef is the juiciest and most flavorful beef possible – and available at Tony’s Markets.


USDA Choice

Most graded beef falls into this huge category and includes beef of little marbling to beef with ample marbling.  This category is further segmented into ‘Low, Mid or High/Premium Choice’.  Only about 10% can make the High/Premium Choice grade.  All our steaks are High/Premium Choice, or USDA Prime.


USDA Select

This low quality grade was previously ungraded and sold as ‘Generic’ beef.  USDA Select beef is a very low grade and not recommended for grilling.  To improve quality, it’s often mechanically and/or chemically tenderized by injection and vacuum machines (these enhancing methods can add up to 20% weight).  We do not offer USDA Select beef.

Beef Branding

Marketing a beef brand is common these days – skipping the facts and using a nice sounding name makes it confusing for customers (which is good for bulk retailers).  One well-known example is Certified Angus; thanks to extensive national marketing, it's become synonymous with quality in the minds of most.  What most folks don't know is that the Certified Angus Program has nearly 2-dozen quality levels – from very high grade to not so great.

We do not advertise a brand at Tony’s.  Instead we select beef based on our own set of quality standards, some of the most rigid in the industry!

RECIPE
Rib Eye Steaks with Gorgonzola and Port Wine Sauce


4 Rib Eye Steaks, Premium grade and aged 3-4 weeks
2 TBS minced garlic (optional)
1 TBS olive oil
2-3 TBS Tony's Euro-Crust or Z Blend Seasoning
4 TBS gorgonzola cheese - room temperature
Garnish: fresh blackberries or raspberries and mint sprigs (optional)


Port Wine Sauce:
1 cup instant demi-glace (More Than Gourmet brand)
1 TBS olive oil
1/4 cup minced shallot
1 cup Port wine
1 TBS butter


Combine garlic and olive oil and rub over steaks. Sprinkle with seasoning to taste. Preheat a medium high grill.


Cooking Outdoors:
Grill over direct heat heat, cooking to rare / medium rare. Remove to a plate. Crumble gorgonzola with two forks and sprinkle over steaks - tent with foil and rest for 5-10 minutes.


Cooking Indoors:
Preheat oven to 375° and preheat a heavy oven-safe skillet or grill pan over medium high heat (cast iron is ideal). Mist pan with oil and brown steak well on the first side. Turn, transfer to oven and finish cooking to desired internal temperature (115-135° internal suggested for rare to medium - can also be cooked from start to finish in the pan over medium heat). Remove from oven, transfer to a plate, top with gorgonzola and tent with foil. Rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.


Meanwhile, prepare demi-glace according to package directions, set aside. In a saucepan, saute minced shallots in oil until soft. Add Port and reduce by half. Stir in demi-glace and simmer several minutes to marry, keep warm, or rewarm when ready to serve. Swirl in butter immediately before serving.


Serve steaks drizzled with Port wine reduction sauce. Garnish with dark berries and mint or oregano sprigs if desired. - Chef Mick (michaelangelo) Rosacci, www.TonysMarket.com -- www.TonyRosacciCatering.com
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Wagyu beef at a shabu shabu restaurant in Japan - a few seconds in simmering water, a dip in sauce and it eats like buttah!
American raised Wagyu Beef (Kobe) is also available at Tony's Markets.

About the author: Chef Mick (Michaelangelo) Rosacci is the Corporate Chef and co-owner of Tony’s Markets in the Denver Metro area. Mick also teaches cooking on Denver’s Channel 7 News and Dig In, a local gardening show on FOX. For more recipes and our very best deals, visit www.TonysMarket.com and join the Culinary Club.