Cheese Guide



Brandt Beef – The True Natural, is a single family owned, premium natural beef producer that is dedicated to sustainable practices and serves the upscale restaurant and retail markets.

Aside from Brandt's commitment to sustainability, all natural practices, complete source verification, and being a single family owned operation, Brandt holds the Master Chefs' Seal of Excellence and is the only beef producer to date that does. Brandt's practices, vision, and passion fall in tandem with DEAN & DELUCA's.

Both Brandt and DEAN & DELUCA are committed to bringing the highest quality foods to the market, and creating a gourmet experience for our customers.



Brandt Beef received the Master Chefs’ Institute Seal of Excellence for its commitment to producing a superior culinary product. To date, Brandt Beef is the only beef producer to receive the Seal of Excellence. To obtain the Seal, the Master Chefs’ team put Brandt Beef’s natural products through more than 120 tests, including blind testing versus three competitive brands. Testing focused on Brandt Beef’s primary use as a center-of-the-plate item in an upscale foodservice establishment. Tests were conducted on 22 different cuts of Brandt’s meat utilizing a variety of different preparation techniques and cooking methods. Brandt Beef consistently achieved first place rankings in the all-important categories of taste, texture and tenderness.

 

Brandt Beef utilizes a source verification and total asset visibility system to source verify and guarantee the safety of its 100 percent natural beef products. Datastar’s Global Track™ system is the only fully integrated source verification system in the industry and provides an audit trail of information by cataloging data at various points along the supply chain, including farm, ranch, processing plant, testing laboratory, transport vehicles, storage facilities, supermarkets and restaurants.

The system enables Brandt to provide the complete history of each product, from birth to consumption, in the bar code on its packaging. This product history also contains data from nationally recognized food safety laboratory Silliker, Inc., which tests samples from every Brandt Beef combo bin before any products are shipped. The source verification system can even minimize the social, economic and environmental costs associated with an outbreak for each organization across the supply chain. If contamination does occur, the system can pinpoint where contaminants entered the supply chain and isolate the problem immediately.

Brandt Beef maintains a “farm-to-fork” philosophy which involves raising its animals humanely and naturally without hormones or the use of antibiotics. It also provides education and recipes to chefs and consumers to promote the use of the entire animal. This commitment to sustainability also includes being responsible stewards of the land.

  • Brandt Beef employs crop rotation practices to maintain healthy soil for growing the alfalfa for its animals’ feed.
  • Brandt Beef composts its animals' waste to enrich the land. Utilizing the compost has allowed the Brandt family's farming operation to nearly eliminate the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Local farmers even purchase the compost to use in their own farming.
  • Brandt Beef uses flood irrigation to attract native birds which act as natural pesticides by eliminating unwanted insects from Brandt's fields.
  • Lady bugs are released on Brandt’s fields to naturally combat aphids.
  • Brandt Beef works with the Imperial Valley's burrowing owls, which act as natural predators that rid the fields of pests.

    • Burrowing Owls: Brandt Beef currently has 15 "owl boxes" on site which are 80 percent occupied by the Imperial County's burrowing owls. The owl boxes are placed four feet underground. The owls, which are about 10 inches in length, occupy these boxes and are natural predators of field mice, insects and other pests. The owls protect Brandt's fields from pests, while the Brandt family provides a home to these owls which are on California's watch list of endangered species.

    Since our founding more than 30 years ago, DEAN & DELUCA has been committed to sourcing the world’s finest handcrafted products and artisan foods. As such, our café menus offer the most authentic representations of the traditional Italian espresso drinks that have won the admiration of coffee lovers around the world. Our skilled baristas are devoted to the craft of coffee, and they take pride in hand-crafting every drink to order with care, precision, and your satisfaction in mind. Our new coffee menu, in addition to our rotating selection of Single-Origin coffees and Signature Blends, includes these traditional Italian espresso drinks: