South Dakota Beef Producer Clears Up Social Media Misinformation About Grocery Store Beef Quality

Troy and Stacy Hadrick, beef producers in South Dakota, say the recent social media claims slamming the quality of grocery store beef is likely coming from some ranchers who are being deceptive and are pushing consumers to purchase beef from their farms instead.

A lot of times, you can’t always believe what you read online or on social media—especially when it comes to the quality of the beef that you’re buying at your local grocery store.

“They will just spread this crap that the grocery store beef is bad. It’s full of fillers, it’s full of water, it’s not healthy, and can make you sick,” says Troy Hadrick, a beef producer from South Dakota (shown above with his wife Stacy), who says that recent social media posts slamming grocery store beef are likely coming from some ranchers who are being deceptive and want you to buy your beef directly from their farms instead.

“It’s ridiculous, one, that I don’t care what if you’re trying to tout your own product, your own personal beef line, but man, the last thing you ever want to do is sit here and try to scare people about the beef at the grocery store because most people aren’t going to pay attention to the details. All they’re going to see is something, you know, ‘well, I saw rancher say that the grocery store beef is bad, and so I’m just not going to buy it.’ It’s the farthest thing from the truth, and it doesn’t do our industry any good whatsoever,” says Hadrick.

Those social media posts show grocery store beef with different coloring. Hadrick says there are valid scientific reasons meat turns darker, and that doesn’t affect the product’s safety.

“All you see is some random picture. We have no idea how the beef has been handled, whether if it’s fresh, if it’s been frozen, if it’s been out in the air, or whatever,” says Hadrick.

“So, a couple of things have happened. One, the color of the meat isn’t necessarily an indicator of anything safety-wise or quality-wise. You could take fresh, never-frozen ground beef and, if you wrap it up and you put it in a plastic wrapping and remove all the oxygen out of that environment, that meat becomes darker because what happens is oxygen interacts with that lean tissue, and that interaction is actually what makes that bright cherry red color that you associate with fresh beef. You can take fresh beef and wrap it up in a clear plastic container, and you’re going to see it get darker. Not because the quality is going bad or it’s turning rotten, it’s just the fact that you’ve taken it out of an oxygen environment,” according to Hadrick.

Also, when it comes to the social media claims that grocery store beef has fillers added to it, Hadrick says, that’s illegal.

“If the package is labeled ground beef, it is illegal for there to be water added to it, and it’s illegal for any other fillers to be added to it,” says Hadrick. “The only thing that you can add to ground beef is seasoning, and then it has to be labeled as seasoned to ground beef. The only other thing you can do is if you’re buying beef patties and it says beef patties, sometimes you can add stuff to that too. But if you’re buying ground beef, then it has to be ground beef. Folks who claim that that’s happening, I mean, if they’ve got proof that that’s going on, they should report it because it’s illegal.”