Ex-Okla. rancher teams up with cattle farm to do something 'no one else is doing' in RI

PORTSMOUTH – Who knows, the beef you can purchase from the Slate Hill Cattle Co. might just be the same type of meat that Captain Von Trapp and his "Sound of Music" crew savored at the lakeside family estate in Austria eight decades ago.

Dennis Welch, co-owner of Slate Hill, located at Cloverbud Ranch on Jepson Lane, said his grass-fed, vaccine-free cattle herd represents, to the best of his knowledge, the only Pinzgauer cattle in Rhode Island. The domestic cattle breed from the Pinzgau region of Salzburg, Austria, is known for its heartiness and for its taste and tenderness. According to the Slate Hill website, the breed evolved in the Swiss Alps, possibly as early as 500 A.D., first appeared in known documentation from the 1600s, and did not arrive in the United States until 1976.

Welch and co-owner Patrick “Martin” Beck breed and raise and their Pinzgauers on 150 grassy acres leased from Paul Zurlo, chief operating officer for Ventures and Crypto Venture at Bain Capital in Boston. Zurlo happily doubles as a weekend grass cutter at Cloverbud.

'Something unique that no one else is doing in Rhode Island'

In addition to being hearty and tasty, the chestnut red and white Pinzgauers, Welch added, are aesthetically pleasing to look at.

“We chose them for all those different reasons,” Welch said during a Cloverbud tour. “We kind of wanted to do something unique that no one else is doing in Rhode Island. So as far as we know, this is the first time this breed has ever set foot in the state.”

Slate Hill cattle are vaccine-free. Their low-stress life is all outdoors. Their diet is all about grazing. No grains. No corn. The lone exception is the very occasional treat of beer mash, which is good for their digestion and a big help in getting the cattle into the corral stress free.

Why grass-fed matters

Beck said that to develop the so-called yellow fat or yellow marbling, which provides such a fine taste, the steer (a castrated bull) must be grass-fed and must live at least two years before slaughter and processing at a USDA facility. The yellow fat comes from the carotenoids in the grass and clover.

The Slate Hill steer lifetime model calls for 24 to 36 months. Sometimes they live longer. That's in contrast to the industry's standard grain-fed, hurry-up approach.

“The typical ranching model,” Welch said, “is to get them fattened up as soon as possible. It used to be 18 months. Now they're even trying to get it down to 12 months.”

Slate Hill's Pinzgauer herd numbers about 40. Welch said they envision growing it to about 70.

How Slate Hill Cattle Co. was started

A former longtime Aquidneck Island resident, Welch, 42, of West Greenwich, has seen his life come full circle. He grew up in Oklahoma and worked on large cattle ranches. An engineer, he moved to Rhode Island in 2006 and met his wife, Crystle. He currently works full time as an IT engineer at Naval Station Newport.

One fateful day in 2018, Welch, gift certificate in hand, showed up at Beck's Cloverbud Farm. The two men struck up a friendship. Welch began working in exchange for meat. He invested in steers at Cloverbud. He showed Beck, a former landscape architect, the advantage of breeding instead of buying calves. This year, they formalized their partnership and rebranded to Slate Hill Cattle Co.

“Dennis, we really fulfilled some weaknesses in each other,” said Beck, a 61-year-old Hopkinton resident whose father was a veterinarian. “I really needed a partner.”

Slate Hill uses rotational grazing, moving the herd to a new paddock every few days. If the grass gets too short, the cattle are at risk of ingesting harmful parasites. Once the grazed grass has been allowed to grow back, it needs to be trimmed. The best grass is below the seed sprout at the top of the blade, and seeds in the cattle's eye can cause dangerous pink eye.

Welch has zero complaints about the acres and acres of rich food beneath his cattle's hooves. “As you can see, we've got great coastal grass here that a lot of farms out West don't have,” he said.

What Slate Hill Cattle Co. produces and sells

Slate Hill sells to restaurants locally as well as out of state. Beck makes occasional runs in his freezer truck to New York City, where a couple of chefs are big Slate Hill fans. Some weeks, Beck said, he puts 1,000 miles on the freezer truck.

Welch estimated that 95% of Slate Hill's customers love mature, all-natural, grass-fed beef and are willing to pay the high price for it. A single rib-eye steak costs $28, and flank steak $20. The beef is sold in small and large quantities.

Slate Hill, the owners say, strives to use as much of the processed animal as possible. Organs and lean bull meat are offered in a “budget box,” appealing to those who like venison and elk. Such meat also winds up as a jerky, popular as dog food but also fine for human consumption. Beck said this cryo-sealed meat can sit in a golf bag for six months and still be fine as a snack.

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Slate Hill uses beef tallow (rendered fat from around the organs) to make balms that it says are excellent for both cooking and for skin care.

Coming from a large cattle range background, Welch said that operating a small ranch provides a deeper satisfaction. He and Beck are involved in all facets of the Slate Hill operation – the breeding, buying and care of cattle; land management; the selling of finished products – from A to Z.

“We sell our beef. We see our customers every day,” said Welch, a former Mt. Hope High School track and field and cross-country coach and still a personal endurance coach. “Where at a Walmart or Stop & Shop, once that beef leaves the ranch and goes off to those places, those ranchers never see their customers. We interact with our customers every day. We see them. We know them by name. They're our friends, neighbors. And so we want to make sure they're coming back and that they love our beef.”

“I couldn't imagine doing anything else,” Beck said. “It's a second career for me.”

To learn more about Slate Hill Cattle Co. or to order, visit slatehillcattlecompany.com. Ordering and pickup can also be arranged by calling either Beck (401-230-4027) or Welch (401-603-9741).

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Slate Hill Cattle Co. is only RI source for grass-fed Pinzgauer meat