The Great Grocery Store Scam

At Freeman Farms in Missouri, our co-op cattle are proudly born and pasture-raised right here in the USA.

I'm about to ruin your next trip to the grocery store.

Here's the scam: That beef labeled "Product of USA" could actually be from Brazil, Australia, or anywhere else in the world. As long as it gets repackaged on US soil, companies can slap that patriotic label on it.

>Legal? Yep. Honest? Not even close.

It's basically a shell game – foreign meat walks into a US processing plant and poof – it's "American" now. Like letting the fox build all the chicken houses.

Just four massive companies control 85% of the beef supply in America. Only 12 plants slaughter half the cattle in the entire United States.

Since Big Meat killed Country of Origin Labeling laws in 2015, American cattle farmers' share of retail prices has crashed from 51.5% to below 37%. Meanwhile, foreign meat floods our markets wearing an American disguise.

Revealing the truth behind meat labeling and how the repeal of MCOOL misleads consumers while undercutting U.S. farmers.

This monopolistic deception has devastated American farmers across the board. We've lost 91% of our pig farms since 1980, crushed by the same rigged system. With cattle inventory at its lowest since the 1950s, these labeling lies aren't just hurting individual ranchers – they're killing our food security.

Here's why you'll rarely find true local grass-fed in grocery stores: They're trapped buying from the Big Meat monopolies, and building an alternative takes massive investments that almost no one else is willing to make. A few weeks ago, I shared what it takes (millions in cold storage, processing partnerships, logistics) to connect 40 small farms directly to you. While grocery stores stay locked in Big Meat's system, we're trying to build something different. It's not easy, and we're still learning as we go. But every week, with your support, we get a little closer to proving it can work.

A glimpse of this year’s herd at Falling Sky Farm, part of our co-op in northwest Arkansas.

The industrial machine has every advantage - cheap imports, deceptive labels, monopoly power, and enough lobbyists to keep Congress looking the other way. But we've got something they don't: farmers and eaters who give a damn. Every week, more folks skip the grocery store lies and choose transparency. We're not just competing - we're building the future of food, one honest transaction at a time.

The question isn't just where our meat comes from anymore - it's whether we'll have any US ranchers left to raise it at all.

That's why we're making the investments that help farmers like us sell direct. No shell games. No magic tricks. Just honest meat from farms you can actually know.

So skip the grocery store lies and get to know a farmer.

Your farmer,
Cody