Why our meat is different

No. Tekorá uses no growth hormones or steroid implants at any point in the animal's life.

In several countries, estradiol, trenbolone, and zeranol implants are legal and common for accelerating finishing. The European Union banned them in 1989. Paraguay permits some, but we don't use any. Our cattle gain weight at the pace pasture allows, not at the pace a feedlot demands.

• Directive 96/22/EC, EU hormone ban ↗
• FDA, Steroid hormone implants in cattle ↗

No. Antibiotics are used only to treat individual sick animals, and those animals are removed from our supply.

Prophylactic antibiotic use, giving antibiotics to healthy animals to prevent disease in crowded pens, is a primary driver of antimicrobial resistance, a global public health concern recognized by the WHO. Rotational pasture raising removes most of the justification for that practice. If an animal gets sick, we treat it, but that animal leaves the Tekorá program.

• WHO, Antimicrobial resistance ↗

No. We use no mRNA vaccines. The only vaccines we administer are those required by SENACSA: foot-and-mouth and brucellosis in breeding females.

There are currently no commercial mRNA vaccines approved for Paraguayan cattle. If that changes, we'll continue to decline them unless they become mandatory. We publish the exact list of what we do use: foot-and-mouth vaccination (twice yearly, SENACSA-mandated) and brucellosis RB51 in breeding females. That's the full list.

No. Our cattle eat pasture, not grain. With no sprayed-crop feed in the chain, there's no glyphosate exposure route.

Much of the glyphosate-in-beef issue stems from feed: corn and soy sprayed with herbicides. Because our cattle eat only pasture, they sidestep that chain entirely. We also don't use glyphosate on the ranch for pasture management, weed control is mechanical and rotational.

No. Our cattle are 100% grass-finished. No corn, no soy, no silage, no derivative of GMO crops, ever.

In many markets the "grass-fed" label permits grain-finishing in the final weeks before slaughter. That practice erases most of the nutritional benefits (fatty-acid profile, CLA, omega-3). Tekorá is grass-finished: pasture start to finish.

No. Our cattle never enter a feedlot. They live on rotational pasture from birth to harvest.

The CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) model is efficient at moving cheap meat to market, but it introduces stress, density-driven disease, and the need for prophylactic antibiotics. Our model is the opposite: low stocking rate, rotated pastures, clean water, natural shade.

Risk is low for pasture-raised on non-contaminated soil. We test soil and forage annually and publish the results.

Cadmium, lead, and arsenic can reach meat via forage contaminated by nearby industry, groundwater, or agricultural sludge. Our ranch sits far from industrial zones; we still test soil and pasture yearly at a certified lab. Results publish on /traceability.

Exposure in pasture-raised ruminants is structurally lower than in feedlot cattle eating processed feed, or ocean fish.

Microplastics enter the food chain primarily via processed feed (bags, silo bags, containers) and industrial water. An animal eating open pasture, drinking uncontaminated groundwater, and never touching formulated feed has a much shorter exposure path. We don't claim "zero microplastics", that's unverifiable, but we eliminate the known routes.

No. Because we don't administer routine antibiotics, there's no withdrawal period to manage. Treated animals exit the program.

In industrial beef there's a "withdrawal period" between the last antibiotic treatment and slaughter so residues fall below legal limits. The system works on paper, but management errors happen. We dodge the problem at the root: no routine use means no residues to manage.

No. Our animals eat only pasture. They've never consumed meat and bone meal or any animal byproduct.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is linked to feeding ruminants with meat and bone meal, a practice most countries have restricted since the 90s, but not fully eliminated. We go beyond the regulation: our animals consume only pasture and mineral salt.

We reduce risk at source: pasture-raised cattle show lower E. coli O157:H7 prevalence, and we keep a strict cold chain from slaughter.

Studies in the Journal of Food Protection and USDA research show grain-fed feedlot cattle carry higher rates of pathogenic E. coli than pasture-raised cattle, due to rumen pH differences. Our slaughter protocol includes mandatory SENACSA veterinary inspection pre and post-mortem, chilled quartering, and continuous 0–4°C cold chain to your door.

• USDA, E. coli prevalence studies ↗

We don't use feed. Period. Our animals eat only local pasture. That risk route is structurally eliminated.

Paraguay imports significant amounts of formulated feed from Brazil, with documented contamination episodes and quality variability. Because we use no formulated feed, that risk category doesn't exist for Tekorá.

No. Our ranch operates on established fields with no recent deforestation. We'll document the soil history with dated satellite imagery.

Paraguay is on the international radar for cattle-driven deforestation, particularly in the Chaco. We work fields opened decades ago; we do not participate in or finance frontier expansion. We'll publish archival satellite imagery showing soil-use continuity.

We comply with SENACSA and publish what we do beyond what's required. Full protocol on /how-we-raise.

SENACSA regulates Paraguayan beef production and slaughter, but its controls are minimal compared to USDA or European systems. We meet the requirements and publicly detail everything we do above them: feed, handling, vaccination, transport, slaughter. The audit is public transparency.

What we choose not to use: hormones, routine antibiotics, grain, feedlot, chemical treatments, meat glue. What we do: pasture, low stress, traceability, public transparency.

The list above reads as 25 "no"s. But the "yes" is simpler: raise cattle the way the animal's biology and the soil's ecology permit, and tell you exactly what we did. If you have a question not covered here, message us.