Olive Wagyu Farm

Olive Wagyu Farm is a beef farm outside Putten that breeds purebred Wagyu cattle and sells their meat frozen from its farm shop on Fridays.

From early June to early November most of the cattle graze in the Arkemheen-Eemland nature area, where the calves are born in the field and stay with their mothers as long as possible. Otherwise they live in a large open deep-litter barn (potstal), where the manure builds up into a soft, warm bed and the wind blows through. Their website says the cattle are fed 90 percent on grass from the farm's own land; the steers also get olive pulp, which the farm says raises the omega-3 and omega-6 in the fat, and the feed includes local wild herbs such as thyme and basil. The cuts, from steak, rib-eye, entrecôte and bavette to burgers and stewing beef, are vacuum-packed and frozen after regular slaughter by the farm's house butcher.

The farm shop is open every Friday from 10:00 to 17:00, with extra opening days before Christmas. You pay in cash or by payment request, and the meat isn't delivered. A few times a year the farm holds Wagyu tastings.

Redshank, lapwing and black-tailed godwit nest in the Arkemheen polder where the cattle graze, and the farm keeps a beehive and has owls on the yard.