In the early 1900s William Henry Mahnken resided in Lafayette County Missouri. He lived on the family farm and raised his own cattle. It started simple, just to produce beef for his wife and four sons. Grandpa Mahnken had an eye for good breeding and would select only the best for his family. Cattle would be free-range grazed on lush Missouri pasture for much of the production process. When the time was right to bring the cattle to their full weight and tenderness (called finishing), the cattle were driven daily to the barn where they would be fed fresh all-natural feeds, returning to pasture in the evening. As these cattle were not confined and never left the farm they were kept disease-free and very healthy, the all-natural way.  There were no such things as antibiotics or hormone implants. Of course in those days there were no sale barns, large commercial feed yards or mega packing plants which now all use mass-production concepts to trade, feed, kill and process beef. USDA inspectors and graders were not required then.  Grandpa and his family were not concerned about animal diseases, contaminated meat, fat or cholesterol. These problems simply didn’t exist. Cattle were raised and fed on the farm the old-fashioned way. At just the right time a young animal was harvested and processed right there on the farm, which assured safe, healthy and delicious family beef.
Grandpa taught his son, my father, Marion Henry Mahnken how to produce beef in this traditional way. However, as industrialization began to creep into farming my father began to adopt these more modern farming techniques, and eventually began a confinement-style feedlot operation. I later inherited this operation and built it into one of the most successful in Missouri. Along the way, I was president of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association in the early 90’s. Missouri, by the way, is the second largest cattle producing state in the USA. Things were going well until big business began to consolidate and squeeze out little operations like ours. So economics and a heath crisis of my own drove me to find a new way of ranching. And what I found was a Legacy.
It turns out that the answer was in the legacy that my Grandpa Mahnken had left: Raising cattle on the free range and supplementing with a high-protein, high-fiber ration. We discovered that our cattle were healthier, more nutritious and more delicious than the more “modern, industrial” methods. We had the meat tested at the Iowa State University and found out that it was more nutrient rich than ever.
Now, we are ready to share the ‘Legacy’ with you.  After 25 years in the cattle industry I personally select the producers, who after many years of production, have developed just the right genetics to participate in the “Missouri Legacy Beef” program.  The cattle are all source and age verified by the State of Missouri.  Cattle are never given any antibiotics or growth hormones.  According to the program specifications, calves are kept on grass, free-ranged and fed a balanced, low-starch, high-fiber and antibiotic-free ration on the farm.  All production practices are verifiable and monitored by me.  At just the right time of finish, I select individual animals for harvest, which are processed by a USDA-inspected, state-of-the-art and local Missouri processor.