Our First Year
2021 marked our first official year of selling Witte Belted Beef. There was so much excitement, anxiety and even a little stress leading up to our first delivery, but luckily everything went off without a hitch! Chipper and I really could not have asked for a better first year. We were completely blown away by all the love and support we received from everyone. Thank you to all our customers who took a chance on Witte Belted Beef! We are beyond thankful and grateful and look forward to serving you in the future!
Starting a new business is never easy. This was not necessarily a new business for us, but this was our first year selling Witte Belted Beef. We have raised and sold commercial beef our entire lives, but when you enter a specialty market, like selling Belted Galloway beef, it adds a little more stress to the equation. The biggest struggle we had was trying to convey how good this beef actually is, and that it is a healthier beef. People usually equate healthier, as not as flavorful, or not as good as the original. That is not the case with Witte Belted Beef. Our commercial beef is really good (I mean really good), but we feel that Belted Galloway beef just takes it up a notch in tenderness and flavor. The health benefits are just the icing on the cake.
When I started this business, I truly thought raising cattle would be my favorite part, but chatting with my customers and delivering beef to them has been so much fun. I am a people person, so I enjoy the social aspect of taking orders and delivering beef. It was a little bit of a learning curve, but I feel like everything worked out well. I do have some ideas for the future to make things go a little smoother behind the scenes.
Mailing beef definitely caused me some stress and anxiety. I am not an anxious person, maybe a little high-strung, but not anxious. There is nothing like putting perfectly good beef in a cooler with some dry ice and ice packs then throwing it in the mail. The first beef package I mailed took a little longer than expected to arrive. I think I checked the tracking status fifty times the day it was supposed to arrive. I was already anxious just mailing the beef, let alone the beef not showing up when expected. Once I realized it was going to be a day late. I kind of went into panic mode because I knew by now the dry ice was gone, so I was hoping the ice packs would hold out to keep the beef frozen. It arrived the next day around noon. Luckily all the beef was still completely frozen. Thank goodness! The second beef package I mailed was less stressful and went exactly as planned. I think it is safe to say we can mail beef now.
Since our deliveries, we have received wonderful feedback from our customers, along with some pretty tasty looking pictures. All the beef pictures you see on this post were sent to us from our customers. We love hearing how much our customers are enjoying our beef. If you’d like to read what some of our customers have to say, you can read more on our testimonials page. It is very encouraging for the future of Witte Belted Beef and reassures us that we made the right decision moving forward with this little business endeavor. We are hoping to continue to increase our beef production in the coming years to serve more people. I feel like I am stuck on repeat saying this is a dream come true, but it really is. Being a cattle producer and being able to deliver our beef from farm to table is huge! We know exactly where our beef is going, and we get the satisfaction of hearing what people think of it. It really means a lot to us that people gave us a chance. Our first year was better than we could have ever expected. We look forward to serving our customers through 2022 and beyond! Our Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 reservations are open now.