PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — This week, Booth Creek Wagyu opened its second brick and mortar location in Kansas City area, expanding consumer options for beef.
"We want to protect our product, and make sure that we're getting the highest quality to the consumer," said Jarett Wright, a supply chain expert for Booth Creek Wagyu.
Wagyu cattle were exclusively used for labor for centuries in Japan rather than beef production.
Wagyu builds its energy reserves in the form of intramuscular fat, or marbling.
The breed was introduced to the United States in the 1970s and domestic herds have grown since.
Booth Creek Wagyu's began business in 2020 when founder Dave Dreiling attended his first Wagyu auction.
Now, the brand owns two brick an mortar locations in the Kansas City area.
"We have an investment in our genetics — the way those animals are raised, the way we finish them, and we own the processing piece of it," Wright said.
Booth Creek Wagyu Ranch is located near Manhattan, Kansas.
From a calves birth, it's pasture fed, finished and processed within 20 minutes of its birthplace — an advantage Wright see's over domestic cattle production.
"All of our beef and steaks grade above prime like 95%," Wright said. "It’s all prime and everyone has a different taste of steaks in that prime scale."
Booth Creek Wagyu developed its own scale for rating beef.
- BC 40 — Greatest intramuscular marbling
- BC 30 — Greater intramuscular marbling
- BC 20 — Moderate intramuscular marbling
- BC 10 — Least intramuscular marbling
"A BC 10 steak is probably going to be one of the highest quality steaks you’ve ever had. Everyone has a little bit different flavor profile," he said. "A BC 10 or BC 20, which is still highly marbled, isn’t going to be like that Japanese A5 — that is super buttery, almost to where you can cut it with your spoon. This scale allowed us to provide a consistent experience for our consumers; they can find their spot and eat exactly what they want."
Booth Creek's scale rates its cuts through high definition cameras.
Customers can determine their taste palate through in-house tasting. KSHB 41 tasted a DC 30 Denver Steak during its visit.
Retail employees showed us the natural cooking oils created when the beef is placed on the grill and similar taste qualities when cooked at medium-rare and well done. It's what Booth Creek prides itself on when it comes to knowledge of its product.
"When you buy our meat, I can almost tell you definitely what pasture it was raised in — we own that animal from the time we make the decision on genetic selection, the time it was born on the ranch, to the time it ends up in our freezer here," Wright said. "When you go to the grocery store, they can have high-end quality beef, but you don’t necessarily know where it comes from."
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. agriculture producers have garnered new revenue streams.
Value-added or direct to consumer is a business model Booth Creek Wagyu adopted.
"There's about $0.10 of every dollar you pay at the grocery store actually goes back to the producer. That's the most critical point. They put the hardest work and put the most love in," Wright said. "I'm not saying all the other pieces of the value chain don't, but they're the ones committed to the stewardship of the land, the stewardship of the animal. I think what happened once the supply chain was disrupted a little bit in 2020, people realized there might be a different way to buy beef."
Booth Creek Wagyu welcomes in customers to its new location at 5328 West 95th Street, Prairie Village, Kansas 66207.
The first 100 customers received one pound of ground beef free with a purchase.
For more information on Booth Creek Wagyu, click here.
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KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. Share your story idea with Ryan.