When you think of the county fair, you might picture carnival rides, fried food, and blue ribbons. But what about bringing home a freezer full of meat?
When you head to the county fair, you can support young producers and stock up on beef, pork, or lamb. Andy Geiss joins us from Geiss Meat Service in Merrill. He’s also the president of the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors. Geiss walks us through the process of buying meat at the fair and why it matters for your community.
He says before placing a bid at the livestock auction, you should know how much meat you’ll be bringing home and if you have enough freezer space.
A typical upright freezer holds about four cubic feet, Geiss explains. That can store around 140 pounds of meat if it’s empty, i.e., no tubs of ice cream or bags of frozen peas. That’s roughly what you’d get from a single fair pig, which weighs about 260 pounds live and yields about 60 percent of that in meat after processing. A beef animal can yield up to 650–700 pounds of meat from a 1,200-pound animal. In that case, Geiss says you’ll need more freezer capacity if you’re buying a quarter or a half.
After you’ve figured out space and the sticker price of buying in bulk, you’ll enjoy several rewarding factors, Geiss notes.
“The quality of the meat is the best of the best. You know where it comes from. You know that it was properly raised,” he says. “We’ve done some studies too, where if you went to the store and bought your roast, hamburger, steaks… It’s cheaper to buy a quarter or a half of beef.”
While a hog is not all pork chops, and a steer is not all choice steaks, customers do get the benefit of custom processing with their fair animal. Buyers can choose how their meat is cut and packaged. For example: pork chops thick or thin, roasts or pulled pork, fresh or smoked ham, two-per-pack or four-per-pack.
“We try to go through every detail with the customer so they can get exactly what’s best for them,” Geiss says.
Supporting youth exhibitors is another part of the appeal.
“These kids… they learn so many life skills. Getting involved with your local 4-H… is a big part of it,” Geiss says. “I encourage people to reach out and check it out.”
