Why this steak costs Sh7,000

When he jetted into the country five years ago, Tom Dobler, was not coming in for beef business, but lack of good steak across the country made him decide to experiment on the cattle he was handling.

Working at the Morendat Farm in Naivasha as livestock and forage manager, he decided to try different feed for the black and white Boran cows at the ranch.

After months on the new feed, one of the steers was slaughtered. Armed with the T-bone steaks in a cooler, he headed out to the Fairmont ‘s Norfolk hotel in Nairobi.

With the then chef and general manager, they grilled and tasted the steak, beginning the journey to get the perfect piece of steak.

“We saw the gap in the quality of beef and working with Tom’s expertise and our people, we came up with specially bred steers for our hotels,” says Fairmont group executive chef Karan Suri.

The steak served at the Fairmont is from steers that are a cross of Aberdeen Angus and local breeds, mainly the Boran. “The meat from the Boran cows does not taste as good,” explains Tom.
John Muriithi, the executive sous chef at Sankara Hotel in Nairobi, works with steak that’s been aged for 21-days. The beef, also from a cross of Angus and Boran steers is a staple on the menu. “We get our beef from Morendat. It is not a hundred per cent pure Angus,” he says.

Five years ago, aged beef was a little-known, if not entirely foreign, concept in Kenya.

The expertise and the supply for premium beef was not readily available.

Now, restaurants and hotels with stars to their name boast of aged beef on its steak menu.
Restaurants and hotels including Chef Kiran Jethwa’s Seven Grill, the Fairmont group, Sankara, Hemingways, and Brew Bistro are some of the clients sourcing their aged beef from Morendat. The beef is usually aged for 14 to 21 days or longer depending on the client’s needs.
DRY AGEING

The ageing process is not a common practice because in dry ageing, the water loss from the carcass results in weight loss.

“If you slaughter a cow that is roughly 150 kilos, after the ageing process, it may drop to about 130 kilos, so most local farmers choose not to age the meat,” explains Chef John.

At the farm, the slaughter house has three cold rooms. The first is for the initial draining of the fresh carcass for about 48 hours.

The ageing process is then done in cold rooms at around one to two degrees Celsius for up to 21 days.

“The beef is handled by only four people, one of whom is a Muslim as our meat is Halal,” explains Tom. The steers are slaughtered one a time after being stunned to prevent them from being agitated, which usually makes the beef tough as a result of tightening muscles,” he adds.

With 15 clients who order for six different classes of meat, the farm delivers 30 steers every week. “We are meeting only a third of the demand,” says Tom.

The cost of premium beef, however, does not come cheap. A kilo of the meat will have an initial cost of Sh625 to Sh925, depending on the class of beef inclusive of the bones.

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