I’m very happy to finally present the Natural Kosher Beef Scorecard and hope my readers will find it useful in making better buying decisions. In this post I’ll be giving some general info to help you better understand the rating system and in the coming weeks I’ll give in depth reviews of the competing brands: KOL Foods, Grow and Behold (G&B), Teva and Tevya’s Ranch. Instead of using stars I’ve chosen the more apropos option of a brisket rating system. It ranges from a “Terrible 1-brisket” rating all the way to the “Perfect 5-Briskets (1st Cut)” ranking. The scorecard also contains two separate reports. The 1st of these presents company info and the overall brisket rating, the 2nd reveals the scores received in each of the different categories. Also the card can now be found anytime by clicking on the Beef Scorecard tab found above. Please note that the scorecard is based on questions asked to company reps as well as my industry knowledge and that the ratings constitute my best personal assessment of the information I’m able to obtain. Much of the design and inspiration for this has come from the Cornucopia Institute’s organic egg and dairy scorecards and I’d encourage those of you who enjoy this post to also visit their site. If you’d like to know more about other brands of kosher beef please contact me and I’ll consider adding them to the scorecard.
| natural_kosher_beef_scorecard.pdf |
No meat company was able to swing a "perfect 5-brisket 1st cut" rating, which is admittedly very difficult to obtain in current market conditions, but KOL Food and the G&B both received high scores with an "excellent 5-brisket rating" for KOL's AT line and a “Recommended 4-Brisket rating” for the G&B beef. On the lower end of the spectrum but still scoring reasonably well was Teva with an “Acceptable 3-Brisket” rating for their highly affordable product. Lastly, at the bottom of the heap are both of Tevya’s Ranch offerings as well as the KOL Foods GR line of beef. These products come from Uruguay, where inhumane practices are used in kosher abattoirs, and all were subsequently deemed unacceptable or terrible. Tevya’s Ranch is actually said to be owned by the Rubashkin family and the way they handled my questions reeked of secretive and shady business practices. In depth individual reviews will follow in the coming weeks but in the meantime take a look at the card and please comment with any feedback or questions you might have.
