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From Wall Street to the Texas Ranch: 2025 Women in Ag Winner Kimberly Ratcliff Transforms Beef Production

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 20:11:20 GMT

There are 1,500 miles between Brooklyn, N.Y., and Oakwood, Texas, but for Kimberly Ratcliff, where she grew up and where she’s building her business are connected by community, family and giving of oneself. Today, she works as ranch manager at Caney Creek Ranch and CEO of Ratcliff Premium Meats.

“I’m a businesswoman trying to keep agriculture alive,” she says.

As a shining example of an advocate and agricultural innovator, Ratcliff was named the 2025 Top Producer Women in Ag Award, sponsored by NewLeaf Symbiotics.

“Day to day, I work on the ranch, raising the cattle or expanding the profit lines on the ranch,” she says.

The 2,500 acre ranch was first started with a smaller acreage purchase by her father, Wesley, in 1973 that expanded in 2002.

Business Builder

Five years later, Ratcliff left her career in New York City to join the ranch and work with her father and build their business bigger. Her brainchild, Ratcliff Premium Meats was born.

“My biggest role today is to make Ratcliff Premium Meats flourish, and I want to be more than a meat company,” she says.

Her goal was a social impact company; Ratcliff had the vision for the meat business to bring economic stability and growth while connecting consumers to their meat supply. The bridge she is engineering builds concrete connections with customers, educates them on what it takes to produce nutritious beef while simultaneously creating economic value for the community.

“One of the ways I can help my community grow and sustain their businesses is by buying their animals and selling them through Ratcliff Premium Meats,” she explains. “It’s about telling the true meaning behind where meat comes from and telling the story of the people in the community. I’m not all natural; I’m not organic; I’m not grass fed. I have the economic value of the producers in my community. I want my meat company to be known for that.”

On the supply side, she’s built a network of about 30 cattle producers, of which about 80% are Black or minorities. She monitors incoming orders, surveys producers for animal condition and coordinates with the slaughterhouse schedule.

She’s gone to work to build out markets for the meat, quickly growing beyond farmers markets. Today, the business accepts online orders, has a growing distribution direct to restaurants, contracts with school districts and regularly supplies the local food banks. Ratcliff is now a vendor for Buckhead Meats as well, and in 2025, Ratcliff Premium Meats brought 20,000 lb. of its beef into Texas.

“Ground beef production makes efficient use of cattle selected specifically for grinding, ensuring consistency and quality,” Ratcliff explains. “It’s one of the most stable and dependable categories to source. If I process 20 head one week, I can take a certain volume of the ground beef into the schools, and then have the availability for the other cuts on the website.”

Admittedly, her biggest challenges have been on the distribution side of the business.

She’s successfully forged relationships with the school districts serving Austin and Houston, which includes not just hamburger patties but also giving students presentations on beef production and ranch management.

“That’s the kind of connection I want,” Ratcliff says.

Working with the Feeding Texas’ Local Food Purchasing Assistance program, she’s supplying 8,000 lb. of ground beef about every other week to the Houston Food Bank.

Ratcliff has also dedicated time to doing pop-ups and restaurant events in metro areas including Harlem, Baltimore and Atlanta.

“I’m not concerned about being in grocery stores, and I’m not concerned about being global,” she says. “But if I am in grocery stores and I am global, I want you to know I’m impacting this community. That’s more important to me than worrying about being on the grocery store shelf.”

At this time and juncture in the business, she says she’s not quite the scale that larger distributors seek out, but she’ll continue to be proactive with brand awareness, building relationships and in carving out a spot for her product in the market.

“Our story is about how a business can survive in a community that has a population of 700 people, how it’s thriving and how it’s feeding the world,” she says. “In 10 years, I do believe we will be this company people will look at of saying how rural America looks.”

Finding Her Way

Ratcliff’s journey took a bit of a U-turn in 2007. After seven years at Bloomberg in New York City working in the company’s public relations division, her heart and imagination called her to Texas.

“I saw a need to bridge the gap from the source of our food to the consumer,” she says. “I couldn’t build that bridge in New York, but I could from the ranch.”

Ratcliff says she was welcomed home, but her approach to bringing change to her father wasn’t always received well.

“It took me six months to realize I was doing it wrong,” she says. “I was pushing so hard against the ways he’s done things, but I wouldn’t have the opportunity to build something without what he did and the way he does it. I was bringing change the wrong way.”

Instead, she took a new approach.

“I asked dad to give me a piece of something — let me show him myself. What I’ve learned is the next generation will have to do a lot of show and tell,” she says. “My dad said, ‘As long as you can show me it’ll work, I’ll be your biggest fan.’”

Now more than 15 years later, Ratcliff not only has her father’s full support, but she has also brought in both her brothers part time.

“I’m all about this being a family affair. If we didn’t have family involved in what I do every day, it wouldn’t feel purposeful. That’s something, dad always made me involved in his business every day — no matter what it was. Then your life is personal, and you know you have a purpose.”

Ratcliff acknowledges her mother’s influence and lasting impact on her since her passing in 2019.

“Really from mom I got my outgoingness, socialization, strength and frugalness,” Ratcliff says.

Ratcliff explains while she first saw the opportunity being a non-for-profit, she’s incredibly proud of what she’s built with the business and the social impact it has had.

“What began as a personal venture has grown through shared experience, beyond its original scope,” she says. “Over time, the business has become something built on experience and collaboration, supporting the people and families in this community.”

What It Means To Advocate

Representation and reputation are the foundation of Ratcliff Premium Meats. CEO Kimberly Ratcliff says it’s the story behind her product that has led to its success.

“Agriculture is often undervalued, especially the unique challenges of small family farms and minority farmers,” she says. “This is particularly true for underrepresented communities like Black farmers and ranchers.”

That is what has led her to serve in roles on USDA advisory councils, steering committees with Texas A&M AgriLife, Capital Farm Credit advisory committee, the Independent Cattlemen Association officer role as the treasurer, and more.

“Advocacy is essential because it directly impacts the livelihoods of families, the food system and sustainability of communities,” she says.

This fall, her perspective and voice were shared in a documentary film produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions. She is featured in, “High Horse: The Black Cowboy,” which is currently available on Peacock.

“The producers found me and my story on social media,” she says. “It was important to me to share what I’m building, and the story is deep and rich. I understand the history, and I’m coming home — I want to be the uplifting part of the story.”

Marketing Maven

With her education and professional background in marketing, Ratcliff brought a distinct set of instincts and skills to her entrepreneurism. Her vision was to build an inter-related, community-built business as being stronger than stand alone or isolate entities.

“In the ag community, I need your cattle,” she says. “I need you to keep your land. I need you to have healthy cattle, I need you to have great grass, great soil, I need you to have all those things that will make me successful. So how can I help you with your success so as the end result we can produce great meat?”

Ratcliff sees her role as the storyteller, and she knows she has a unique story to tell. When she first arrived at the ranch, she says neighbors would stop by just to see that in fact she had ‘come home.’ She turned that curiosity into a way to engage the community.

“We threw a lot of parties on the ranch to bring people together, and then we’d do small projects like catch calves, fix fence, fix waterers,” she says.

Ratcliff says how to network was ingrained in her early on.

“My parents never hid what it takes to be a successful business owner,” she says. “And it was about being fair to your employees, investing in your community and giving back.”

To strengthen her knowledge of the industry, Ratcliff enrolled at Texas Christian University’s ranch management program and became its first Black graduate.

“I wasn’t raised here; I don’t know it all,” she says “I’m a bridge builder. I thought of a great idea in running a business, and I have an ability to bring people together.”

And she has found leaning on others’ strengths while letting go of some previous responsibilities has been a balancing act in her leadership.

Roles she’s released includes fulfillment, HR, and even her legacy strength: marketing.

“I hired a marketing firm, and every Tuesday morning do meetings,” she says. “Anyone from my team can be on the call, ranch hands, anyone. That’s my opportunity to connect everyone because they can ultimately help with marketing.”

Ratcliff has also built her social media presence to share the story of beef, its nutrition and preparation ideas. Once a quarter, marketing contractors visit the ranch to film social media content.

“I’d never been on TikTok, but my marketing partners convinced me to try it,” she says. “Our video about the Women in Ag award got more than 100,000 views, 1,000 comments and we got 30 orders for meat.”

(Brayden Crook Photography)

Authentic Self

Ratcliff describes herself as a woman trying to change the way farming looks.

“All I can do is be my authenticate self,” Ratcliff explains. “There’s an importance of putting a woman like me in front of the story of these producers.”

She adds: “Agriculture is going to look different, and we need to accept the changes. Just like life evolves, agriculture will evolve.”

Join a network of leading edge farmers and producers at Top Producer Summit, Feb. 9-11 in Nashville. To kickoff the conference, the 2026 award finalists and winners will be honored. Click here to view the agenda and register.

Texas Rancher Kimberly Ratcliff Trades the Big Apple for Community Beef Business

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 18:31:24 GMT

This is right where Kimberly Ratcliff was born to be, surveying the Bermuda grass and cattle of Caney Creek Ranch in Oakwood, Texas.

“Just like life evolves, agriculture is evolving and I’m excited for this new evolution in agriculture,” Ratcliff said with a smile.

The 2025 Top Producer Women in Ag Award winner says her journey back to the Texas Plains began with big dreams in the Big Apple.

“I ended up going to college in New York City and I really thought New York City was what I wanted,” she says. “I really thought that was the lifestyle I wanted.”

Working at Bloomberg in marketing and public relations she found herself being pulled back to commodities and her days growing up on the ranch.

“That hit me hard because I realized I needed to go back home,” remembers Ratcliff. “I had enough knowledge of how these financial institutions work, but I don’t think the community understands how that affects them.”

Her father and the ranch’s owner, Wesley, remembers the phone call following a recent visit.

“When she got back [to New York], she said, I want to join you. I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no’,” he says. “I can’t pay you even close to what they’re paying up there. She said, ‘That’s not your problem.’”

He also asked her about ranching and whether she understood that aspect of the business. Kimberly had a solution. She entered the Texas Christian University ranch management program and became the first African American to graduate. Then, she moved home and went to work.

“I would get people driving up to the house and they wanted to put their eyes on me to see that I had really come home,” Ratcliff says. “People always say they want to come home, but they never do it.”

“My daughter coming back here honestly, was not something that I was thrilled about,” Wesley said with a half-smile and twinkle in his eye. “She is kind of bossy and I had one boss already: her mama. Now I have two bosses.”

Ratcliff started Ratcliff Premium Meats, a direct-to-consumer beef business, with a story to tell.

“Being a woman in this industry and being a black woman, I think the No. 1 thing I have honestly is the best support system here in my community,” Ratcliff says. “They’re the ones pushing me.”

“I’m happy to see her venture out and try to do something different,” Wesley says. “I would never get into the meat business, but she wanted to. I didn’t have a problem with her getting into it.”

Today, it’s a family affair as she’s also getting help from her brothers.

“In five years, my goal is to have my family - all of my family - working for us,” Ratcliff says.

As demand grows, this family operation is expanding and helping more in their community.

“In the ag community, I need cattle,” Ratcliff explains. “I need them to keep their land. I need them to have healthy cattle. I need them to have great grass and great soil. I need them to have all those things that will make me successful. So, how can I help them with their success?”

She’s sharing that success with local and state food banks.

“The first thing I support is my local food bank,” Ratcliff says. “Every week, every month, I make sure they are stocked with every protein I can provide. I don’t want them ever to have to worry about buying protein externally.”

It’s that kind of heart for others that’s helping her honor this opportunity and her mother, who passed away from breast cancer in 2019.

“She was just fighting because she saw the success that I was having and she wanted to be here to say, ‘I’m proud of you’,” says an emotional Ratcliff. “I know she’s still proud of me.”

A mother who is proud of the work she’s done and difference she’s making in the lives around her.

“This job is really taking us back to the root of what our culture is about,” Ratcliff says. “It started with the small and the large all working together to feed the world.”

Men Charged In Scheme to Relabel 'Choice' Beef As 'Prime'

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:51:51 GMT

Two Brooklyn meat wholesalers were charged this week for allegedly using counterfeit USDA stamps to misbrand “Choice” grade beef as higher-quality “Prime” and inflate the price.

Howard Mora, 67, and Alan Buxbaum, 65, the former owners of A. Stein Meat Products Inc., a wholesale meat processing and distribution company, allegedly ordered their employees to cut the “Choice” label off product and re-label it as “Prime” between 2011 and 2014.

The meat was then sold at inflated prices to customers in the New York City metropolitan area, according to the indictment.

“Customers and consumers are entitled to get what they pay for, especially when the product is food on their tables,” US Attorney Richard Donoghue said.

They pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday afternoon and were released on $250,000 bond each.

Once a thriving 75-year-old family company, A. Stein Meat Products went out of business in October 2014 after it defaulted on its debts. If convicted on the defendants face a maximum 20-year imprisonment.