Creekstone Farms is a popular brand of premium beef in the supermarket, but also with famous barbecue restaurants and on the live-fire cooking circuit. They made their name with American Black Angus beef.

By leading with great product, they’ve managed to have significant growth. They were sold by private equity firm, Sun Capital, to Japanese conglomerate Marubeni in 2017 for $170 million when they had $651 million in revenue. Since then, they’ve increased their production capacity by 75% and their last reliable revenue figure in 2022 had them at $1.15 billion.

It’s a complex operation to grow the business like that while also releasing new products and maintaining quality. To do that, they’ve appointed Andrew Baltz to the role of COO.

I am happy to be stepping into this role and look forward to continuing to support Creekstone Farms with their mission.

Andrew Baltz, Chief Operating Officer of Creekstone Farms

He joined Creekstone Farms in February of 2024 as an SVP and General Manager. An achievement he lists in his LinkedIn profile is growing daily processing capacity from 2,100 to 2,500 head. Prior to Creekstone, he was with Tyson Foods in various engineering roles for over 13 years.

Having a new COO isn’t the only exciting change at Creekstone Farms this year. At the end of March, they unveiled Irodori Wagyu. They arrived at the new type of Wagyu by crossing their Wagyu cattle with Black Angus cattle, rather than with dairy cattle. The result is a product with richer marbling that they say renders at a lower temperature.