Steaks for Troops

Steak For Troops

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report .

Soldiers deploying to serve our country overseas got one last good t-bone steak before they left Washington’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord earlier this week, thanks to Country Natural Beef and several of its ranchers.

Soldiers from the 189th Infantry Brigade and their families enjoyed a steak lunch served by several of the ranchers who produce the beef for the cooperative. Dave Billingsley is the Chair of Country Natural Beef and he participated in the cooking and the serving of the steaks.

Billingsley: “It was a really special time to give those troops a great piece of beef that most of them probably don’t get that quality most the time. They particularly enjoyed it.”

So why do these ranchers, most who are in the thick of calving season, donate the beef as well as their time to serve soldiers headed overseas?
Billingsley explains.

Billingsley: “We feel it is very important to support our troops. They are what allows us to operate our free enterprise in this system. And also many of us probably didn’t serve ourselves and so this is one of ways we help do that as well as being active citizens in our communities.”

Country Natural Beef has been supporting the Steak for Troops Program since 2009 and provides several steak meals for deploying troops each year.

This vertically integrated cooperative is made up of more than 100 ranch families in mostly the Pacific Northwest. It provides meat to more than 55 grocery stores in Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

For more information on Country Natural Beef, go to www.countrynaturalbeef.com.

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.