In part I we talked about grilled or baked marrow bones. For the rail beef guys/gals there is a market for any of the 25 bones in your sides. Other than the marrow bones as a cooking bone you have meaty neck bones, and round joint bones or knuckle bones for soup after the marrow bones are cut. Incidentally you can get a few more marrow bones from the fore-shank and arm bone. Actually any small bone with meat on it can be sold as soup bones. And even today many people all over the world make their own beef stock from scratch. Its easy and healthy but you must bake the bones first then boil to get the full rich flavor.
Bones for dogs;
There are feather bones or rib cartilages for tea-cup size dogs; cut ribs bones and the patella bone(one of the hardest bones) for small dogs; I always bought full femur bones for my boxers as well has arm bones and also the ends of the fore-shanks when I worked for the Packers. I was in the Dollar General today and they were selling smoked cooked femur bones for $10 bucks a piece. Now I know you can't cook them. That would be up to the customers to do. So they have to be told how to do that. Simply grease a cookie sheet or roasting pan with whatever and bake at 450 for an hour. If they want they can season the bones with any kind of flavor.
Now here is where a supermarket has it all over the pet food chew industry. In the pet food chew industry (beef bones or hide chews) the raw material they start with (beef cattle) comes from "dead-stock-animals". Animals that have not been stamped suitable for edible consumption by the USDA. Some Packers call them condemns. Cattle that are hauled long distances and are weak may die in transit. If an animal dies on a truck it cannot be used for human consumption. Some animals die in the holding barns too, same situation. The IIC (inspector in charge) will do an ante mortem and postmortem on these type cattle. Selling dead stock animals is legal as long as the animal has not been condemned for something really serious. Those animals can't even be rendered and must be taken to a land-fill for proper disposal. Trust me on this, the documentation done on dead stock cattle is well monitored by the government and the packing plants. It is very controlled.
One more thing, most of the dead-stock-animals I am talking about are not beef cattle although it happens to beef cattle too but the condemn rates are very, very low with fat cattle. However, the largest amount of dead stock comes from the dairy type cattle where the condemn rates are much, higher.
But for you supermarket meat people you can proudly say that your fresh beef bones and fat have been federally inspected and passed just like the meat we sell. That is a huge marketing-plus especially since we are in a "Green Wise Era". Yea, this is a big marketing tool to sell your bones to the folks that will do or buy anything good for their pets.
You will never ever see a pet food chew with federal inspection stamp on it. And trust me on this; no smart packer will sell their fresh fat and bones to pet food chew companies. And if they do, that pet food chew company will have to pay a higher markup over what the packer is getting for his rendered material.
Ok now you've got the ideas, but what every you do don't price yourselves out of the market place. Start out with low prices and (remember you have been giving the stuff away). When you get your individual marketing plan moving then you will create demand for your waste-products. When that happens you can slowing move your prices up.
One-more-thing. 20 years ago I had a small pet-food-chew business. I only sold one item and it was a success. Back-strap tendon. They are so easy to dry and dogs love them. You can dry them at room temperature but I did give them a little heat to hasten up the drying process. I would dry rub them, dry them and sell 4 four inch pieces for $2.00 a package. I put the 4 pieces in a plastic bag and made my own label. Today they are $2.00 a piece.
I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS QUOTE FROM PABLO PICASO "Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
