Beef tallow is only the latest stop on the trail that Stagecoach Meats in Wiggins, CO, has traveled over the past half-decade.
The journey began in 2020, when Kris and Jessica Musgrave and their friends Stacy and Travis Cowan purchased a custom exempt plant in the small northeastern Colorado town to process cattle that the Musgraves raised on their nearby ranch. As the Covid-19 pandemic-related disruption swept through the beef industry, the four soon recognized the need for a USDA-inspected facility in their area.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture helped them kick-start construction of a new facility with a Farm-to-Table grant, and funding provided through USDA’s Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grant supported some upgrades needed to obtain the USDA Grant of Inspection. They are now finalizing work with the Morgan County Economic Development Corporation to refinance their loans through USDA’s Meat and Poultry Intermediary Lending Program.
The grants and loans have been helpful, but diversification has been key to Stagecoach’s success. Stagecoach makes a complete line of sausage, jerky, and meat sticks, and launched a line of smoked and dehydrated pet treats in 2024. That’s when the journey into beef tallow began.
“We noticed that making treats resulted in the bottom of the dehydrator being covered in a layer of beef tallow that just got thrown out,” Kris explained.
Jessica and Stacy were aware that cosmetic beef tallow was growing in popularity and began conducting some kitchen table R&D on potential opportunities.
“Stacy and I spent about eight months studying beef tallow,” Jessica noted. “Tallow has very good skin care qualities. We also found that essential oils and fragrance oils all add different attributes, but they also have different regulatory requirements.”
The Musgraves and Cowans are committed to the highest quality in all aspects of the Stagecoach business. Tallow was no exception. They experimented with making both edible and cosmetic tallow and discovered that a multistep process is required to obtain consistently high quality.
Kris said they start with wet rendering, where the fat is cooked in water and salt. The water helps cook any remaining meat particles, which are then extracted by the salt. They follow that with a dry rendering process to remove the water. Finally, they filter the rendered tallow several times through a 0.01” mesh screen to remove all remaining particles.
They also make their tallow strictly from suet fat.
“Not all fat is equal,” Kris said. “Suet fat makes the best quality product, so that’s what we use.”
Their tallow trail took an unexpected turn after the Stagecoach team participated in a Florida food and beverage trade show as part of a Colorado Department of Agriculture-sponsored delegation.
Among the visitors to their booth was someone specializing in connecting companies with celebrities for endorsements. “We started talking to him about our jerky and just happened to mention that we were getting ready to launch some beef tallow products,” Kris said.
That led to a connection with professional golfer John Daly, who was interested in launching a line of beard and skin balm products. The agreement developed with Daly required more production than Stagecoach could produce in-house, so they spent several months finding a co-packer to produce the volume and meet their quality standards. Daily Smooth Beard and Skin balm products officially launched earlier this fall.
Stagecoach continues to make its own branded line of edible and cosmetic products in the Wiggins plant. Their capabilities and expertise are also a valuable service offered to customers that use Stagecoach to slaughter and process beef for their private labels.
“We’ve even had customers come to us to make tallow for local restaurants,” Kris said.
With diversification increasingly crucial to the survival of smaller processors, the Stagecoach team will continue to look for opportunities to utilize every part of the animals they process…even if it starts with something they scrape off the bottom of a dehydrator.
Note: The Musgraves and Dr. Jennnifer Martin of Colorado State University will join Flower Hill Institute Regional Directors Chris Roper and Dave Carter at Noon MDT on November 11th for a one-hour online roundtable. Click here to register for Tallow Tales: Opportunities and Pitfalls in the Beef Tallow Marketplace.
