Seventh-generation Kentucky landowner Laura Freeman knows a thing or two about building a beef business around sustainable farming practices, having launched and sold an organic brand with her name and likeness, Laura’s Lean Beef, in 2008. More than 40 years after launching that brand, her latest beef venture, Mt. Folly, is gaining consumer interest in a challenging market by focusing on regenerative farming practices and accessible price points.
Incorporated in 2017 and located in Winchester, Kentucky, Mt. Folly Enterprises is focused on building local food systems through its various products, including a Mt. Folly beef brand and a farm-to-bottle distillery business, Regeneration Distilling Co. Mt. Folly Farm is a 1,500-acre plot of organic farmland dedicated to organic row crops and Angus beef, where cattle are pasture raised and grain-on-grass fed.
Also, Mt. Folly’s beef products are certified by Savory Institute’s Ecological Outcome Verification program, a process to measure the health of grasslands and livestock systems. As part of its grazing practices, Mt. Folly ensures cattle have at least one acre of land to graze upon, sometimes closer to two acres per animal, Freeman noted.
Mt. Folly worked with retailers to ensure consumers can buy the beef at an accessible price point, Freeman noted. Currently, Mt. Folly’s 80/20 and 90/10 ground beef is available in Kroger stores across Kentucky, Southern Illinois, and Southern Indiana.
The beef company made “sure that the retailers weren’t going to take a higher margin on what they perceive to be rich people beef than the beef for everybody, and so that was to me a fall on the sword thing, and Kroger right now is being great with that. Our ground beef is $7.99, which is damn good,” she elaborated.
Price remains the number one purchase driver for consumers. A survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers found that 70% of shoppers said that price was their main purchase driver, and 90% were adjusting buying habits because of higher food prices, according to a Zappi report from earlier this year.
Building a beef business amid industry headwinds
Freeman is building a beef brand during a challenging time for the cattle industry. In 2025, the beef cattle herd reached its lowest point in 56 years with 27.9 million head of cattle, compared to the peak cattle herd size of 45.7 million head in 1975, according to USDA data.
Also, Kentucky beef producers are facing a host of challenges from drought conditions to many feedlots going out of business, Freeman noted.
Most of the eastern half of Kentucky is grappling with dry conditions, and the western half is experiencing a combination of dry condition and moderate drought with pockets of severe drought, according to U.S. Drought Monitor data from Nov. 5.
Proximity and availability of a packing plant is another major obstacle for emerging beef businesses. While it used to cost $300 to 400 to process a head of cattle, today it can cost almost $1,000, Freeman noted.
On top of the challenges that go into producing beef, Mt. Folly faces greater competition on store shelves than when Freeman started Laura’s Lean Beef. Social media has become an important avenue for attracting customers, replacing traditional media that helped build Laura’s Lean Beef, Freeman noted.
“I kind of invented branded beef, but now if you walk in the grocery store, there are eight brands, so it makes it harder to differentiate,” she elaborated.
