After a meal that included one of Mar Muntanya’s most popular protein offerings — Campfire Elk Loin — Andrew Sargent, the restaurant’s chef de cuisine, and I were chatting about the Utah-based source for the meat. We were briefly interrupted by a woman who travels internationally for business and stays periodically at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Salt Lake City. She told Sargent that she has tried elk carpaccio at many other restaurants but her unequivocal favorite is the preparation at Mar Muntanya. The plate includes shaved Utah Gourmet Elk, accompanied by the house-made sourdough bread, rosemary cream, mushroom and manchego cheese that befits the restaurant’s themes of blending northern Spanish culinary notes with Utah touches.
In Utah, elk has consistently been a favorite, according to Trevor Ortman, executive account manager of Wasatch Meats. For example, at Glitretind, the Stein Eriksen Lodge restaurant, elk has regularly appeared on the menu, along with locally or regionally sourced bison, lamb, and pork. One recent first-course dish is guajillo braised elk short rib, accompanied by a poblano salsa verde, arrowhead cabbage slaw, queso fresco. Log Haven’s elk strip loin is served with balsamic roasted carrots, almond-farina cake, whipped goat cheese, a blackberry version of a bigarade sauce, and candied shallots. Elk also has been on the menu at the Hotel Monaco’s Bambara restaurant.
Mar Muntanya’s presentation is simpler, echoing some parts of the indigenous animal’s diet. The elk loin (pictured top) is served over a Yukon gold mash with a blackberry demi glacé, nice-sized bits of Iberico bacon, and a sage crumb made from herbs from a terrace garden that Tyson Peterson, the executive chef, has maintained to add home-grown elements to the menu offerings.
The restaurant is one of Wasatch Meats’ regular customers for Utah Gourmet Elk, which explains why the meat has a subtle sweetness as well as a texture that is just as good as a fine filet mignon cut. However, don’t waste time trying to find Utah Gourmet Elk’s website or online presence (because it doesn’t exist). It is a collaborative of family-owned ranches spread throughout the state that raise elk which graze naturally on Utah pastures. Wasatch Meats is just one of three wholesalers in the entire U.S. who receive Utah Gourmet Elk. The other two are in Wyoming and Tennessee.
Ron Greene used to be an elk rancher who now operates the network for providing elk from Utah ranches to this select trio of wholesalers. He said in an interview for Gastronomic SLC, that the focus is on ensuring that whoever is the end customer for elk (that is, chef and restaurant) is committed to using not just prime steak and loin cuts but also the lesser cuts, trimmings, and bones. At Mar Muntanya, elk appears in other menu items: as one of three protein ingredients in a shepherd’s pie, in diced form for a tartare plate, and as one of three proteins in one of the restaurant’s newest lines of housemade sausages. Brunch diners also will find chicken-fried elk steak with a Bilbao chorizo gravy and blistered shishito peppers. Lunchtime patrons can enjoy a patty melt featuring a burger made with elk, bison, and Wagyu.
While elk and bison have been standard game meat offerings on some Utah menus for many years, there has been a recent surge of demand for elk, as more restaurants, especially those in the Salt Lake City metro area, have become more adventurous and experimental. “Already, we had been selling just as many bison burgers as we have done with beef,” Ortman said.
However, the challenge is managing a limited supply against the robust uptick in demand for elk. Wasatch Meats reported that, in 2023, the numbers were down 8% over 2022 in purchases. ”This can be affected by order dates year over year, so I think that it could easily be called flat,” Ortman added. This year, the story is different: up 62% over 2023. However, local supply availability at best can only satisfy 10% of the demand.
The largest source for elk comes via New Zealand, where elk and venison (red deer) were introduced in the 1850s and the populations thrived because there were no alpha predators on the island. It was in the 1970s when ranchers began to trap the animals and harvest them, which led to the farm-raised elk that has become popular. Ranchers quickly became adept at translating the operational parameters of the beef livestock industry to elk and New Zealand established itself as an exporter of quality game meat. Now, it falls within the five top New Zealand products in terms of annual export volume.
Meanwhile, the road to domesticated elk ranching in Utah was paved in the 1990s. However, the number of Utah farms that can supply elk meat, fed on natural pasture grazing and with very little or no feedlot grain, continues to shrink. Wasatch Meats receives from Utah Gourmet Elk the meat, bones, and everything from about 10 to 15 elk twice a month, during a period stretching from mid-May to the end of summer in September.
“We basically sell out of the majority of the Utah Gourmet product that we get as soon as we receive it,” Ortman said. “On some of the cuts, we could easily double to triple what we order, and still run out.” As a comparison, while elk is found on menus in barely under 1% of the restaurants in the U.S., that number has more than doubled within the last four years. In terms of market adoption, interest in elk is considered currently to be in the inception stage. Thus, it is worth noting how Utah restaurants and bars have incrementally embraced elk as a menu protein option.
With the significant buildup of new apartment complexes in Salt Lake City’s central business district which has radiated outward toward nearby neighborhoods, several restaurants have discovered that customers are gravitating toward menu items listing elk as the centerpiece protein. The price point is comparably reasonable in terms of not being much more expensive than some other proteins, unlike Wagyu, for example. “We’re seeing trends where diners are willing to spend a little more money for elk, which they see as an adventurous choice but also as one where they can enjoy a protein native to Utah,” Ortman explained.
One of the most popular items on the menu at Felt Bar and Eatery is an elk burger with candied bacon. At Ramen Ichizu, located in the city’s Central Ninth neighborhood, an occasional special of elk ramen has been so successful that chef Mike Harrison is considering putting it on his permanent menu. “And, I would happily take whatever I can have from the animal,” he said, adding that he would use bones, trimmings, and other cuts to prepare the soup base for the ramen dish. Harrison spares no nuance in researching the provenance of every ingredient he uses in his ramen kitchen to ensure its quality and propriety for his recipes, and is hoping to join the regular receiving end of Utah Gourmet Elk products.
Twenty years ago, there were still a good number of ranchers in the Utah Gourmet Elk program but those numbers have dwindled. For the business model to be viable, wholesale and middleman buyers must be willing to take as much of the animal as possible. “Everyone wants the sexy cuts such as strip loins, tenderloins, and rib racks but for those who are willing to use as much of the local meat available from the whole animal, they are more likely to be the best customer match for the Utah product,” Ortman explained.
No doubt, the New Zealand elk product consistently has excellent quality. For much smaller local producers, the challenge of ensuring consistently high standards of quality entails just as many factors, but on a more intense and concentrated scale. Ortman commends the Utah Gourmet Elk network for going the extra mile to make the local product as consistently high in quality as possible.
The ranchers raise indigenous Rocky Mountain Elk and are mindful of not changing the breeding patterns. These elk naturally graze on large pastures. Greene ensures impeccable standards from the participating farmers, knowing that individual chefs who are buying local elk from a wholesaler such as Wasatch Meats do not have the liberty of hand-picking the livestock animal while it is still alive. Utah Gourmet Elk is monitored rigorously by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the animals are tested regularly to ensure there are no signs of disease, such as chronic wasting illnesses that make game animals especially vulnerable. Also, the meat that eventually ends in the kitchens of participating restaurants meets the most rigorous public health standards.
This is significant because the animal’s environment is maintained as naturally and as close to their counterparts in the wild. So even in the infrequent instances when the animals do not have access to natural pasture grazing, the animals will not be given usual livestock feel of grain, corn, or barley but foods that mimic as near as possible their natural diet. So, in Mar Muntanya’s preparation of elk loin with accompaniments such as blackberry and sage components, they parallel the things the animals ate while grazing.
Ortman added that the advantageous difference in flavor between ranch and wild elk occurs because the animals in the wild experience more stress, especially when they avoid areas that are prime grazing grounds because of the presence of hunters. Or, they find it more difficult to get sufficient feed and water during droughts, a weather phenomenon that has become more common in recent decades in Utah and elsewhere in the Intermountain West.
The ranches are spread across the state but the product is always assured of superior quality, Greene said. The elk culled for processing are cows between the ages of three and five years. He added that the meat from cows is much tastier than bulls, which are more vulnerable to stress. All of the animals are processed at a Fillmore, Utah plant and inspected by the USDA. “We have never had one rejected,” Greene said.
The diet includes grazing naturally on pastures with alfalfa, sagebrush, aspen, and pine trees. The animals also will be given supplemental vitamins in pellet form, depending on the results of testing the soil to identify any nutrients that might be missing but are essential to the animal’s diet. While the calves in the domesticated environment might be smaller in the autumn than those in the wild, they end up being much healthier and bulkier by the end of the winter because they do not have to endure the harsh effects of the weather as the wild elk face. “Our calves never get too fat because they have a solid diet and have plenty of space to roam and graze,” Greene said.
Valley Game and Gourmet in Tennessee was the first wholesaler who contacted Utah Gourmet Elk, Greene said, and for eight years, the Tennessee-based wholesaler purchased everything they had available. Meanwhile, after discovering that there was a plant in Fillmore that processed elk, Wasatch Meats soon came on board and asked for cuts from the whole animal. The Jackson Hole wholesaler was also interested in cuts other than the prime selection that many would typically target for use in restaurants. Because of the limited and exclusive availability, Greene said this is why their business is limited to meat wholesalers who are not “cherry picking” through the range of cuts that come from a female elk which can weigh up to 500 pounds.
Chefs, restaurant customers, and others in the food and hospitality industries are acknowledging the tremendous sweat equity that elk ranchers put into providing a product of superior quality. “It is not the business opportunity for making a big profit,” Greene said. He added that while he and his family no longer raise elk, he decided that establishing this network would help keep the local elk industry going as well as those ranchers who are committed to providing the livestock for the product as long as it is available. Pragmatism dictates Utah Gourmet Elk’s operating philosophy and that admirably has included not raising rail-weight prices post-pandemic, unlike with other meat sources.
In fact, Greene and his colleagues have been so meticulous and scrupulous in their product quality efforts that customer complaints are nonexistent. One of the strongest testaments for Utah Gourmet Elk’s quality comes from The Brew Pub of Zion Brewery, which is located in Springdale, Utah, at the base of Zion National Park. Abigail Hardy, general manager, says that during their peak seasons (mid-February to June; September through the third week of October; Thanksgiving week, and the Christmas-New Year’s holiday period), the pub will serve 120 elk burgers daily. The burger is served on a bun made at Muddy Bees Bakery in Hurricane, Utah, and with Amber sautéed mushrooms, fried onion tanglers, Utah fry sauce, and Swiss cheese.
Zion Brewery has been using Utah Gourmet Elk for more than a decade. So far, in 2024, the elk sales have hit 18,602 units, up 7% over 2023. Hardy has nothing but praise for Greene. “He is so kind, caring, and an honest businessman. We are so blessed to have a partnership with him for all these years,” she said. Hardy added that his commitments to honesty and transparency are unsurpassed in the industry. “It really speaks to how much product we use,” she noted. In fact, Zion Brewery is introducing another elk dish, with the meat going into their bangers and mash entree. “So many of our customers are excited to discover elk and when we tell them that this is real elk coming locally, they are over the moon about trying something new,” Hardy said.
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I am a native of Toledo, Ohio, having received my Ph.D. in journalism and mass communication from Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism in 2002. In addition to teaching at Utah State University and the University of Utah, I have worked extensively in public relations for a variety of organizations including a major metropolitan university, college of osteopathic medicine, and community college.
When it comes to intellectual curiosity, I venture into as many areas as possible, whether it’s about music criticism, the history of journalism, the practice of public relations in a Web 2.0 world and the soon-to-arrive Web 3.0 landscape, or how public debates are formed about many issues especially in the political arena. As a Salt Lake City resident, I currently write and edit a blog called The Selective Echo that provides an entertaining, informative, and provocative look at Salt Lake City and its cosmopolitan best.
I also have been the U.S. editorial advisor for an online publication Art Design Publicity based in The Netherlands. And, I use social media tools such as Twitter for blogging, networking with journalists and experts, and staying current on the latest trends in culture and news. I also have been a regular monthly contributor to a Utah business magazine, and I have recently conducted a variety of editing projects involving authors and researchers throughout the country and the world, including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Lebanon, Cyprus, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan. I’m also a classically trained musician who spent more than 15 years in a string quartet, being involved in more than 400 performances.
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