DALLAS — Verde Farms came into the grass-fed beef space in 2005. 

So, when Dana Ehrlich, chief executive officer of Verde Farms, saw several different signs from the larger players at the Annual Meat Conference embracing grass-fed, that was an encouraging signal for the company heading forward.

Ehrlich sees consumers pushing meat companies and customers to provide more variety of grass-fed meat in retail locations and online.

“Consumers want to do the right thing for themselves, and customers want to do the right thing for consumers and are sometimes getting pushed to do that,” he said. “They’re looking at brands as shorthand for all the responsible things to do.”

One of the manners to capture new and existing customers was a recent rebranding and packaging update by Verde. Ehrlich sees this as a crucial way to catch people’s attention when choosing between grass-fed products.

In the last five years, the company has made a greater push for retailers but has seen similar packaging throughout the space. Using its research and development for packaging, the company wanted to find out what was driving people to buy organic and grass-fed and what they wanted to know about it.

Verde Farms decided to move to an illustrative packaging that emphasizes the grass with bright colors along with the sunrise coming over a field.

“When you see the packaging, we wanted to really evoke beef from a better place,” Ehrlich said.

Since its beginning, Verde developed strong supply chain relationships with Uruguay, Australia, the United States and other global partners. Those years of progress led to Verde Farms opening its own processing facility in Mullica Hill, NJ, in November 2019.

The plant received USDA Organic and level 2 SQF certification and processes frozen and fresh beef into vacuum-packed products. By the end of 2023, Ehrlich expects to have 95% of the production internal at the facility.

“We have a ton of control capacity capabilities that we’ve built in the facility,” he said.

Dana Ehrlich, CEO of Verde Farms (Source: Verde Farms)  

 

Ehrlich said that after making the initial steps with grass-fed nearly 20 years ago, he’s now seeing consumers push retail meat buyers into making more purchases so products like Verde are readily available.

“The buyer community is starting to turn over and as we get younger buyers that are more aligned with the consumer, I think that’s really helping as well,” Ehrlich said. 

Verde Farms can access many of its ideal consumers by being a part of the Amazon Fresh network.

With the rebrand has also come big steps in marketing. Verde Farms will look at pushing digital and social media advertising, trade and store advertising to show off their product.

One example Ehrlich said, was having short video clips of how to cook with beef. 

Putting an emphasis on excellence remains critical for Verde Farms with its marketing push.

Another attribute Verde Farms wants to share is its push for regenerative agriculture. With regenerative agriculture, companies work to get the meat product out but also help with soil quality and water retention. 

Ehrlich and his team work with the Savory Institute, Land to Market, to work directly with raw material producers to bring transparency and traceability to the entire value chain.

“We spent a lot of time sourcing better cattle and pushing our supply partners to increase the quality,” Ehrlich said.