Oklahoma Farm Report’s Stevie White got to talk with Vickie Roop at the Best Beef Competition a few weeks ago. Roop raises unique Piedmontese beef on her ranch in Okarche, Oklahoma.
She competed at the inaugural Oklahoma Best Beef Competition and has been invited back every year since. “This is a great event to get out in the public and have them taste our locally sourced beef.”
Her niche beef product is produced by a breed of cow originally from the Piedmont region of Italy. She first tasted the beef in 2018 while attending a wedding in Italy. She loved the flavor and after learning about the other health benefits, she began replacing her own Angus/Charolais crosses with Piedmontese cattle. By 2019, she had 14 head and is now up to 32 mama cows that produce 17 to 20 steers each year.
She explained the uniqueness of the breed she chose. “Piedmontese is a double-muscling breed, but they have an inactive myostatin gene that maintains tenderness and juiciness despite the double-muscling, while also producing less fat and more Omega-3s, ounce-for-ounce, than salmon. It is truly the healthy beef.”
Less fat means lower cholesterol and Omega-3 fatty acids are well-known for benefitting heart, brain, eye, and joint health. Beef is high in iron, so Piedmontese beef allows consumers to enjoy that part of beef without many of its other reputed downsides.
Roop sells beef directly from the ranch and more information can be found on their Facebook page, SER Ranch.
