Irish beef is known for its quality, tenderness, and delicious, intense flavor. The secret? In Ireland, there’s no shortage of that one special ingredient that makes for great beef: grass. Add to that the space and the love that the cattle get and you just get extraordinary beef.
Grasgevoerd
Irish cattle walk outside on vast meadows on average 220 days a year, 24 hours a day and graze on tasty, juicy grass. Ireland’s climate and soil are optimal for grass growth: high rainfall, mild temperatures, and limestone-rich soil make for a long growing season. Cattle in Ireland can therefore enjoy their delicious daily food of fresh juicy grass for a long time. But they also eat grass indoors, then in the form of hay and silage grass. 90% of the diet of Irish cattle consists of grass. The meat of grass-fed cattle has a delicious intense meat flavor.
Read more about the grass diet of Irish cattle here.
Buitenleven
Fresh green grass, clean air, vast meadows, the rugged landscape, the salty sea breeze… Irish cattle can enjoy this for an average of 7-8 months a year. Or more, depending on the weather conditions and the region within Ireland. They only go inside when the meadows are too wet and are damaged too much by the cattle strolling around. In the meadow, an Irish cattle has an average of 3,000 m2 of grassland at its disposal. So much space also means that the cattle get a lot of exercise. The more cattle move, the better the fat is distributed and the more tender the meat becomes.
Read more about the outdoor life of Irish cattle here.
Familiebedrijven
In Ireland, a staggering 99% of farms are family farms. Farms have traditionally been family property and are passed down from generation to generation. The passion for land and animals is instilled in the younger generation from an early age. On average, an Irish farming family has only 66 cows, which are surrounded with care and love. The cows in Ireland therefore have a cow life as it is meant to be. Thanks to the small-scale way of farming combined with the latest technological insights, Irish farmers have been creating a product of extraordinary quality for many years.
Want to know more? Meet our farmers here.
SBLAS
To guarantee the highest quality beef, the Sustainable Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme (SBLAS) quality assurance system has been created. The SBLAS programme focuses on four areas: animal welfare, animal health, environmental protection and traceability. Farmers must comply with many rules per focus area in order to qualify for this independent quality mark. These rules are in accordance with or often even above the European standard. There are about 50,000 Irish farms that have the SBLAS certificate.
Waarom Iers rundvlees?
In Ireland, there’s no shortage of that one special ingredient that makes for great beef: grass. An Irish cattle walks outside in vast meadows for an average of 220 days a year, 24 hours a day and then eats… grass! The outdoors and grass diet makes for just extraordinary beef, nice and tender with an intense meat flavor.
