FIRST LIGHT FOODS USA INC

FIRST LIGHT FOODS USA INC

ONE EVENING IN 2006, three friends who lived in New Zealand got together to ponder a question. New Zealand had some of the world’s best grazing pastures. It also had some of the world’s best cattle. And yet, like everywhere, it was almost impossible to get a truly great steak. The problem was people. There was a near conspiracy of meat packers, middlemen and volume resellers who had spent decades cutting corners and taking short cuts in the name of margin. Farmers were poorly paid. The only incentive was to produce cheap steak, but not good steak.
Those three friends—Jason Ross, Gerard Hickey and Greg Evans—set out to do something very simple: Raise the best cattle on the best land. Period. They enlisted some of the country’s best farmers, who had the best grazing land—which, for a country famous for green pastures, is saying something. On this land they put Wagyu cattle—the Japanese breed best known as “Kobe beef,” which produces extraordinarily marbled, succulent beef. They called their company First Light, because dawn breaks first on the rich, deeply mineralized soils of New Zealand before rolling west across the rest of the globe

It was exciting, but it was also risky. Achieving Wagyu’s incredible potential for marbling requires the right feed. The Japanese fatten their Wagyu on a blend of barley and rice straw, which creates its famous lacework of fat, but the flavor is mild and can be too rich. In the US, so called “American Wagyu” often comes from massive feedlots. No one had ever tried fattening these cattle on grass. No one knew if it was even possible.

To be honest, it wasn’t easy. Slowly but surely, over numerous generations of beef, we did it! And the result is not only happy cows, producing healthy beef with astounding Omega 3s, but an unparalleled flavor. “For most people, it’s like a Eureka moment,” Jason says, “When that sweet, nutty, deep flavour hits your senses, they realize this is on another level. This is the real deal.”

20 years later and we’re just getting started.

Animal utilization
Nose-to-tail eating is the philosophy of using every part of the animal in food preparation, letting nothing go to waste. Aside from its appeal as a more traditional diet, it’s also one of the most economically and environmentally friendly ways to work with and consume meat. There is a vast array of vitamins and minerals in organ meats such as liver, heart, kidney, and spleen that you just can’t get from eating muscle meat alone. Some people even refer to these types of food as nature’s multivitamin. These items are the true “superfoods” that have allowed humans to thrive throughout history, which is why we created our wagyu and elk organ supplements.

Raising Wagyu cattle on grass is like most things in life — easy when you know how.
Our ingredients include great genetics, carefully designed systems and processes, quality feed all year round and most importantly, finely tuned specialist grass farmers. Here, you’ll get to meet some of them and learn what makes them tick, why they’ve chosen First Light and what they enjoy about working with our team.

But first, a little bit more about our animals. Back in the beginning, we started out with full blood Wagyu cattle and quickly worked out they are not well suited to a 100% grass-fed system. Today all First Light grass-fed Wagyu cattle are the progeny of full blood Wagyu bulls across one of two cow herd systems — traditional (predominantly Angus) beef cows, and New Zealand dairy (Friesian/Jersey cross — otherwise known as ‘Kiwi’) cows.

We looked all over the internet and couldn’t find any information on raising grass-fed beef cattle, so we decided to create some ourselves, and have shared it with you here.

2006

FRESH, FROZEN, HEALTH & BEAUTY CARE, OILS & VINEGARS, PET