YOKEL \’yō-kǝl\

• (according to Webster): a naïve or gullible inhabitant of a rural area or small town.

• (according to us): a slave to the industrial model of producing cheap, nutrient-deprived food.

How it all got started

Matt jumped ship from his steady income in April 2009 to start Genesis Beef. He grew up farming, ranching and being involved in many facets of agriculture; so starting a beef company was not a completely blind venture. The biggest hurdle before us was the limited supply of processing facilities that had the proper level of licensing to enable us to resell our product. Once we connected with facilities with the proper licensing, customer service was the next issue. The few available to us were so backlogged with business that ours had very little value. Our processing was either done their way or no way, no exception. After we butchered our first set of steers we instantly knew that the next step in our business had to be getting our processing in our own hands, we just weren’t satisfied with the quality and service out there.

And that’s where the dream of what is now Local Yocal began…

Our first and foremost desire was to provide a much needed facility to serve the growing number of small producers. Quality grass-fed beef cannot be produced on a large industrial scale and in order to meet the growing demand for the product small producers need the means to be successful, and processing is a large factor. We want to encourage camaraderie amongst producers – to work together to see the industry grow.

In addition to providing quality processing, our desire was to be able to serve FRESH grass-fed beef to consumers.