We Obtained Big Beef's Leaked Q3 Memo (Satire, But the Numbers Are Real)

Editor's note up top so nobody gets confused: the memo below is satire. I wrote it. There is no Beef Czar. The statistics inside it, however, are real, and that is the entire point of the bit.

Last night I was sitting at my desk, doing some research about how to fix the air conditioning in my wife's new '99 Suburban (old cars are amazing, you get a vehicle AND a full time hobby).

When I heard a knock at the barn door.....

It was getting dark outside, but I could just make out a figure in a trench coat.

The figure was tall, thin, and seemed.....scaly?

I started walking to the door, but as soon as I stood up the figure stooped down, slid an envelope under the door, and vanished just as quickly as it appeared.

I am no stranger to beef industry related hallucinations and I've learned not to trust what I see after a long day of inhaling petrochemicals, but this time there was physical evidence.

Inside the envelope was this, extremely real and verifiable, document.....

MEMORANDUM (INTERNAL, DO NOT DISTRIBUTE)

TO: All Staff, Protein Velocity Division
FROM: Beef Czar Gary Moltman
RE: Q3 update, Project BEEF BLITZ

Team,

Fifty years ago, a steer took a leisurely 21-24 months to reach slaughter weight. Today, thanks to your tireless work, the standard animal unit gets there in under 16.

That's 5 to 8 entire months of unproductive "living" eliminated from every animal. Take a moment. You've earned it. But only one moment, multiple moments are extremely inefficient.

Q3 highlights:

Days-to-burger is down to a record low of 441!

The feed division's new ration is performing beautifully, we've reached a calories-per-nutrient ratio that was thought to be completely impossible just a few years ago.

Genetics has identified a promising line that may skip the pesky "calf" phase entirely.

The Wet Aging Department is trialing a new strategy that could bring Retained Water up 25% and Total Flavor Factor down to just 0.7 (0 is the iceberg lettuce that's making everyone poop, 10 is the barbacoa at the place down the street that we went to for Steve's birthday, you know the one where the owner's abuela does all the cooking overnight using old family recipes? That place rules.....)

And of course R&D is working hard on lab grown meat, which, while incredibly energy inefficient, solves our core problem by never being alive in the first place. Plus it will free up so much farm land for data centers.

Looking ahead: The council has greenlit the 14-month steer for 2028, and of course our moonshot: the 12-month cow.

Generations of my reptilian family normal beef businessmen have worked on this goal, and seeing it so close at hand brings a tear to my human eyes that definitely blink vertically not sideways.

Keep up the great work. Steak dinners for the whole leadership team (we just got half a cow from some farm that gave us a free chest freezer with it, the beef is AMAZING, and you can't really afford NOT to take a deal that good when you see it).

Wow.

What a simultaneously incriminating AND oddly specific document.

That Free Freezer deal he landed on sounds amazing, I wonder what farm he's talking about?

Hold on.

Our Fake General Counsel is informing me I need to publicly state that this memo handed to me by a scaly man in a trench coat is satire.

But the numbers in it are real

21+ months in 1977, down to under 16 today. All made possible by sacrificing any notion of quality, or nutrient-density, or flavor.

The only things I invented are the funny parts.

(If you want the same story without a fictional reptile in it, here's how cattle age at slaughter dropped by a third. And for who actually runs this industry, here's the Big 4 Meatpackers explained.)

The other end of the spectrum

On the other side of the spectrum, our steers live 24 to 30 months, on pasture, with no chemical interventions, gaining weight at the speed grass grows. When it's ready (and we hand select each animal), it is properly dry aged and shipped right to your door.

Which is probably why the Beef Velocity Leadership Council orders it for themselves....

Sorry, couldn't help myself......

Actually our customers are hundreds and hundreds of real families who love our beef so much that they come back to refill their freezer every year.

If you'd like to join them, you can reserve a Beef Share with a free chest freezer here.

Your Farmer,

Josh