Our Story

We are Otonabee Farms-Honest Grade Meats. Otonabee Farms has been in our family for three generations since 1975. Being a health conscious family ourselves we believe that everyone should know where their food comes from and be able to trust the farmers whom produce the food for their families; this is why we created our honest beef business “Honest Grade Meats”.

Our black angus cattle is 100% grass fed and is never finished with grain. Spring-Fall our herd is out on our pastures enjoying fresh organic grass. We do not use fertilizer on our pastures as the cattle do a wonderful job themselves!

In the winter due to our climate our cattle gets fed hay (yes, hay is just dried grass), which we produce ourselves organically without any chemicals.

Cows do not need grains or corn as they are natural herbivores. A lot of cattle farmers sell their beef as grass fed even though they finish them off with corn or grain to get that extra weight onto them.

Our herd is hormone and antibiotic free. We don’t use antibiotics to make up for bad management. We care about what we eat and so we care about how we produce our food.

We never buy calves; all of them are born and raised on our farm. Our calves stay with their moms for the first year while they nurse before we separate them when the new calves are born.

A grass fed cow takes longer to mature in weight than one that is grain fed but we believe in taking our time and doing this the right and honest way.

While we are not organically certified, we are organically minded. In our opinion actions are more important than labels in this industry and these standards allow us to produce the highest quality of meat for your family.

We respect our animals and offer our herd the most organic and stress free life out on the pasture in the sunshine until we have to sacrifice them.

We use a local butcher shop where our beef is dry aged for a minimum of 14 days. We slaughter once a month and our cattle live anywhere from 16-30 months of age before we sacrifice them. By slaughtering only once a month we can always guarantee fresh beef and it allows us to fill any custom orders.

Why Black Angus?

The Spuce Eats puts it best:

Angus beef develops with better marbling than most cattle. Marbling is the amount of intramuscular fat. Most people agree that marbling improves flavor, tenderness, and keeps meat moist while cooking (especially at high temperatures). Beef is graded based on marbling with the highest degree of marbling reserved for the Prime grade (Prime represents less than 3 percent of all beef produced). Angus frequently grades better on the USDA scale, but that doesn’t mean that Angus is a grade of quality or that anything you buy labeled Angus is going to be better than any other cut. (Source article).

Currently we are shipping on Wednesdays to Peterborough and surrounding areas as well as to the GTA. Same day delivery!

We offer local pick up here at the farm by appointment only.

Honest Grade Meats supports local businesses and orders all supplies from Canada.