I'll take case!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/...f.ap/index.html

Farmers offering up beef in a can



ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- As a five-decade livestock producer, Jim Farmer wants his son and two daughters to follow in his footsteps.

He hopes ready-to-eat beef -- in a can -- is the ticket.

Farmer has joined resources with about three dozen other beef producers, including his son and son-in-law, in creating a co-op that aims to turn 1,000 cattle a year into canned beef. Eventually, the co-op hopes to handle as much as 10 times that.

The specially built plant in Montgomery City, about 70 miles west of St. Louis, has begun production. Canned beef has hit the shelves in some Missouri stores, mostly in tiny towns. While it's too early to say what the demand is, farmers like Farmer are thinking big.

"Our goal is to make an opportunity in agriculture for all of my descendants, if they choose," said Farmer, 64. "Something like this could help make that happen."

To the investors from five Missouri counties, consumers get precooked beef on the go, perfect for outdoor enthusiasts from hikers to hunters and anglers to campers. Given its shelf life of two to five years, the farmers say, the canned beef can be left in tackle boxes or storm shelters.

In return, folks behind the Heartland Farm Foods Co-op Inc. say, participating farmers get a consistent market for their beef while satisfying pent-up demand for the kind of commodity that was commonplace decades ago, before refrigeration.

"It's just another opportunity," Farmer said of the co-op that began processing in mid-December, a couple months after finishing construction of a 4,480-square-foot plant on 10 acres. "If there's no risk, there'll be no gain."

The co-op and its cannery are starting slowly, processing just five cows a week right now.

'Only one ingredient'
Each animal produces about 400 to 500 cans of federally inspected beef from cattle raised without steroid and hormone additives or routine antibiotics, the co-op's general manager said.

"The unique thing about this product is there's only one ingredient -- beef. There isn't even salt," Mark Uthlaut said.

No water. No preservatives. And to Uthlaut, no worries about safety, given that the pressure-cooking, sterilizing canning process rids each can and its contents of harmful bacteria.

"It's completely safe," he said.

The offerings are limited to ground beef and leaner chunk beef, each in 14-ounce cans. Eight- or 9-ounce cans might be coming.

For the time being, the co-op's canned beef can only be found in a few north-central Missouri grocery stores, as well as a handful of convenience stores.

Some retailers are asking $4.99 a can, a cost that Uthlaut knows could discourage some people. "That's why it's so important to do the sampling and show the quality," he said.