Begun in 2012, Linz Heritage Angus started with ten young cows and their calves. Now, located in Byars, Oklahoma, the ranch is comprised of more than eight hundred mama cows. While attending the Cattlemen’s Congress, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays met up with Owner and CEO Fred Linz to talk about the family business that includes Blue Branch Ranch and Meats by Linz.
Linz said, “The whole idea was to create a ‘conception to plate’ program for our restaurant partners where we have control of the product all the way from the beginning to the end. We do a lot of business in the white tablecloth industry between independent steakhouses and chain restaurants, hotels, country clubs, cruise lines, you know, anything in the white tablecloth center of plate proteins.”
Meats by Linz was started in 1963 by Linz’s grandfather, Marty Linz, making Linz’s son, Zach who runs the day-to-day operations, the fourth generation of Linzs in the business.
“Currently, under our umbrella, we have the meat processing: we just moved into a brand-new facility at the end of June in Hammond, Indiana,” Linz explained. “Going on two years ago, we acquired a 10,000-head feedlot in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Then, the ranch that we moved to Byars, OK in 2021.”
Linz’s ranch focuses on producing quality Angus bulls for large-scale cow calf operators with Angus-based herds. Cattle Procurement Manager Anthony Randall works with the operators on a calf buy back program to purchase the calves with Linz’s genetics back. The calves are transported to the RF (Timpas) Feedlot in Colorado to grow them. The fat cattle are currently being processed in Hastings, Nebraska, before the raw product is delivered to the facility in Hammond, Indiana.
“The beauty in our Calf Buy Back Program is we try to negotiate in private treaty form,” Linz said. “If for some reason, we can’t come to an agreed price, they let us know when they take them to the sale barn and we will be there bidding on those animals. We try like heck to get them bought, but if we don’t, that customer is getting premium dollars for their calves. Also, when we harvest those calves, we collect the harvest data and feed it back to the producer. We want to perfect these genetics so everybody wins.”
When the meat moves to the end user, it has a great story to tell of a four-generation strong family business and a product with high-end consistency that can be traced back to the bull that produced it.
“It pretty much sells itself,” Linz said. “If we get the opportunity to sit down and talk to a new customer, tell them our story and show them our product, and on top of that, if we can bring them to the ranch so they can step in it, they can smell it, they can touch it and understand everything that goes into that steak on the plate and how many things can go wrong from conception all the way to the rail. It is educating the consumer. Making them a partner. Once they see it, they understand, and they take a lot of pride in serving that type of product in their establishments.”
According to Linz, after the customer visits the ranch, they are proud to return home and tell others that they know exactly where their product comes from because they just returned from there.
“For us, it is wanting to separate ourselves from the norm. I don’t know any other steak-cutter in the world that truly does what we do from the beginning to the end,” Linz shared.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
