Originally Posted by JBord

Sure, as some people have mentioned. There is also some branded beef in our markets, but more often they tend to be special order. The ranking method, while confusing even to most Americans, is at least based on somewhat independent standards (although you can see the beef lobby has had some influence in the naming - the top 3 levels all sound like the best quality). Brand buying is probably more common with poultry (Perdue, Jenni-O, etc.) or pork (Smithfield, Honey Baked). As a side note, I find it interesting that restaurants will mention on their menus that they source their meat from Niman Ranch, like it's some type of small boutique farm. While it used to be, it now consists of about 700 farms, and I believe is owned by Perdue. I'm not knocking the quality of the meat, just pointing out that there is brand power even in meat.

I had a very similar experience and also haven't bought them in about 20 years. But we also don't eat a lot of steaks around here - at home anyway - and more often tend toward flank steaks when making at home. So I haven't even considered Omaha in years.