What Is Grass-Fed, Grass-Finished Beef?

Grass-fed sounds simple until you ask what the cattle ate right before harvest. USDA had a standard for the term and withdrew it in 2016. It hasn’t set a new one. 

How do grass-fed and grass-finished differ?

Beef calves nurse on pasture until weaning, which happens at 3 to 7 months, according to the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS). What happens after weaning is where the two words separate.

Some cattle keep grazing. Others move to a feedlot, where rations are generally 70 to 90 percent grain and protein concentrates. Feedlots with 1,000 or more head sell about 88 percent of U.S. fed cattle (ERS, citing the 2022 Census of Agriculture). We cover that number in Where Our Meat Actually Comes From.

Grass-fed describes what the animal ate. Grass-finished means it was still on forage right up to harvest, so a seller who says only “grass-fed” leaves that second question open.

Does USDA define either term?

No. USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) once published a voluntary grass-fed standard and withdrew it effective January 12, 2016, saying it lacked congressional authority to set labeling standards. Since then, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) reviews grass-fed claims on packaging, using the producer’s label and supporting documents.

FSIS’s 2024 guideline on animal-raising claims lists “Grass Fed” as an example. It describes these claims as voluntary and approved case by case. FSIS says it has not set official definitions because practices change and fixed definitions could discourage improvements.

What backs up a grass-fed claim on a package?

FSIS expects documentation, and what it asks for depends on the claim. The 2024 guideline’s worked example is “cage free”, a poultry claim, and it shows the kind of records FSIS looks for:

• a detailed written description of the controls that keep the claim true from birth to slaughter
• a signed and dated document describing how the animals are raised
• a written description of how product is traced and kept separate from slaughter through distribution
• a written description of how animals or product that don’t meet the claim are identified and kept out
• a copy of the certificate, when a third party certifies the claim

FSIS strongly encourages third-party certification, with an independent certifier that audits regularly and is named on the label.

The American Grassfed Association publishes one such standard. Under it, the animals get all their energy from pasture forage from birth to harvest, apart from mother’s milk. Hay is allowed when bad weather or poor forage limits grazing. Grain is excluded. Antibiotics, ionophores and hormones are prohibited, and producers are inspected by an independent third party at least every 15 months. That is one certifier’s standard. A package can carry a different certifier, or none.

What should you ask a seller?

Four questions are worth asking before you buy:

1. What did the animals eat after weaning, and until when?
2. What written standard backs the claim, and who wrote it?
3. Does an independent certifier audit it, and can you read the certifier’s standard?
4. Which ranch raised this beef?

Our post on meat delivery versus the grocery store has a version that works at any counter, with questions on grade and freezing as well.

How does our beef answer those questions?

We sell our beef as grass-fed and grass-finished, and we work with American ranchers.

After weaning. For beef we sell as grass-fed and grass-finished, the animals eat grass and other forage through harvest. When weather limits pasture, such as in winter, ranchers may feed hay. No grain is fed.

Standard and audit. In most cases the rancher is also the certifier, so the claim rests on the ranch’s word. We have no outside audit to show you.

Ranch. One of the ranches we work with is White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, a family farm that describes itself as six generations old.

Ask us the same four questions about any cut. Email support@primal500.com, or see what we sell on the build-your-box page.