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So the trio invested in heard of 22 red miniature Hereford cattle in the spring of 2024. At the time, they had no plans other than doing some grilling and selling some to their neighbors.
“The intention at first was to fill our own freezers,” Strong said, “and then to sell halves and quarters and wholes.”
Miniature Herefords are not common around here, so some travel was required to acquire their herd. One of
those
trips
was to Orange City, Iowa, where the seller mentioned that he made beef sticks out of his mini Herefords and sold them through the local FFA. He gave his visitors from Dodge County some samples.
While they tasted good, they didn’t know if getting into the snack food business was a wise move.
“When they brought that idea back from Iowa,” Ferguson said, “I was like, ‘Yeah, great idea, but when you go into a convenience store there is so much competition on that. Man, I just don’t know.’”
The group gets its beef processed at Prenzlow Meats in Snyder. But to sell snack foods commercially, the meat has to be slaughtered and processed in a federally certified shop, which they found at the Blair Meat Market.
The first batch of beef sticks and jerky came back in February.
“We were like, well, we can do a certain amount and just give it a shot and see what happens,” Ferguson said. “We’ll put it in certain places and see if anyone will eat it.”
They first put their snacks in Lee’s Market in Scribner. It sold all right. To sell all the product they had on hand, they decided they would need to add more outlets. So about a month after introducing it to Lee’s, they added a second location at Liquid Courage in North Bend.
“When I told (wife) Bethany that we put them in Liquid Courage,” Ferguson said, “she was like, ‘I didn’t think you guys were going to get real serious about this.’”
It was in North Bend where things really began to take off. Ferguson set a mini-fridge filled with beef sticks and jerky on the counter at Liquid Courage. He came back the next day and was surprised by what he saw. Or rather, what he didn’t see.
“I called these guys and told them, ‘I can’t believe this, but I just filled this the other day and it is almost gone,” Ferguson said. “Then it was at least once a week filling it.”
They decided golf courses would be a good place to sell Caviar Beef snacks, but before they could expand further, they had to make sure they could keep up with demand.
The cattle are fed for about six months before getting to the appropriate size. Once they are taken to the butcher, they are hung and aged for 21 days. In all, it takes about five weeks from delivery of the animal to the finished product. It’s been a balancing act trying to find the sweet spot between having too much product on hand and running out.
“We’re learning,” Poppe said, “trying to figure it out.”
A third selling location, the North Bend Golf Course, was added on Old Settlers weekend in late June.
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