It was a hot summer day when I headed up to see the California ranch that provides Mishima with their excellent American Wagyu beef. Just outside of Corning (which if you are not familiar is by Orland and Red Bluff. Got it? Thought so.) This is pristine California grassland with the coastal range on one side, the Sierra Nevada's on the other and in the shadow of Mt. Shasta to the north.

This ranch is a 6500 acre bovine playground that is vertically integrated from birthing to processing. Shane Lindsay, Owner/Marketing Director of Mishima Ranch, explained to me that the cattle are bred, born, weaned, fed, and processed under the supervision of one operation. This really means quality controls can be implemented much easier and that the same philosophy can be maintained from start to finish. Alex Lindsay, Operations Manager and Nori Kandi, Ranch Manager met me and took me through the whole ranch operation.

BREEDING:

I found out that how Wagyu is bred really can affect quality. When you cross a 100% Wagyu bull with a lets say an Angus heifer (Angus by the way is the most common American cross breeding animal for Wagyu) you get an F1 progeny, if you take that F1 and cross it with a 100% Wagyu bull you now get F2 which is now ¾ Wagyu. Mishima Ranch goes as far as this so you are getting at least 50% Wagyu and a lot of the times 75% or more. Problems in quality happen when F1 are crossed with other F1 and so on thus diluting the Wagyu bloodlines and resulting in an inferior product. You will not get this type of breeding or product from Mishima Ranch. The bull lines are always Wagyu and that 'ain't no line of bull' if you know what I mean!

Me at the Wagyu ranch

The ranch's pristine Northern California grasslands

Nori Kandi & Alex Lindsay

Alex Lindsay pointing out the ranch's humane calf weaning area

Nori showing us the 6500 acres of grazing land

F1 Wagyu cattle scoping us out

Japanese Wagyu bull

FEEDING:

Many producers of Wagyu beef will carb load their cattle with basically junk food, literally- some will get piles of uneaten French fries and other potato products. I ate some of the feed that goes into Mishima's rations, stuff like rolled oats, rolled corn, rice bran, pistachios, grape stems and skins, almonds and almond hulls, grass and grain hays. This looked pretty good even from a human perspective!

After starting their life on grass these cattle finish on this high quality feed. With this type of management and feeding program no wonder Mishima's cattle do not get any antibiotics, no added hormones, and not even an anti-microbial in the form of an ionophore is used. The whole process from start to finish keeps health problems to a minimum.