This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Patrick Montgomery, a former Army Ranger and the founder of KC Cattle Company, an American wagyu farm. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I thought I’d spend my whole life in Special Operations as part of the First Ranger Battalion — but when life had other plans and I left the Army in 2014, I certainly didn’t expect to become a wagyu rancher.
I went back to school at the University of Missouri, planning to become a large-animal veterinarian. I loved the hands-on work, the adrenaline of working with farm animals, and a career where I could stay connected to the outdoors.
But when I started running the numbers for opening up my own clinic — six figures of student debt for a $60,000 salary — it just didn’t add up. Around that time, I was also taking entrepreneurship classes. I found myself drawn just as much to balance sheets and business models as I was to anatomy charts, and began thinking of building something of my own.
In 2016, after a job interview left me feeling like I’d be selling my soul to a defense contractor, I called my wife and told her I was either going to start a company or return to the military. She didn’t miss a beat and asked me what kind of company we’d be starting.
That’s how KC Cattle Company was born — an idea rooted in my twin passions for animals and business, even though I had almost zero ranching experience.
Learning the hard way
I spent the next few years making what I called “tuition payments at the school of hard knocks” while I figured things out the hard way. I interned at vet clinics, worked on research farms, and learned from anyone who would let me tag along.
Eventually, I bought 420 acres of land about 45 minutes northwest of Kansas City and started raising a few dozen head of cattle. Now we run about 200 animals on the ranch, with partnerships across the country, many of them with fellow veterans.
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At the time, I didn’t know much about wagyu beyond that it was premium beef with an incredible marbling score. The Japanese use a grading scale from 1 to 12, where US “prime” beef barely hits a 4. Our average wagyu now ranks around 7, with some cuts scoring as high as 10. It’s beef that genuinely melts in your mouth.
Wagyu cattle are expensive to buy, feed, and raise. They take longer to mature and yield less beef than other breeds. Still, I believed that if we were going to charge a premium, we had to produce the best beef in the country — and treat our animals right along the way.
A happy cow makes better beef. That’s something you can see in the way they behave. When our cattle are lying down and chewing their cud, it’s a sign they’re content and healthy.
We don’t use cattle prods or horses to move them — anything that adds stress hurts both the animal and the final product. Our approach isn’t as rigid as Japan’s, but it’s far superior to most traditional American practices. The result is high-quality beef raised ethically, with respect for the animal and the environment.
Going viral — and being unprepared
By 2018, I’d shifted our focus from restaurant sales to e-commerce. I thought online retail might help us reach more customers, but we struggled to stand out — until one day, everything changed.
When “Food & Wine” named our wagyu hot dog the best in the world in 2019, we went from shipping 20 orders a week to 12,000 overnight. We were completely overwhelmed. The next day, I remember thinking, “Okay, now we have to figure out how to keep up.”
Then the pandemic hit. When major meatpackers shut down and grocery store shelves emptied, our small operation suddenly became a lifeline for people looking to buy high-quality beef directly from the source. KC Cattle Company exploded in popularity, and for two years, business was booming.
When the pandemic subsided — and inflation hit — everything shifted again. Feed prices spiked. Fuel costs climbed. Consumers began to pull back on premium purchases.
For a while, it felt like we went from being a pandemic success story to fighting just to survive. But that’s where my Ranger mindset kicked in: You don’t quit — you adapt.
Out of that pressure came my second company, Valor Provisions. I realized America’s food system was fragile, and small farmers were being squeezed by geography, logistics, and a lack of marketing power. Valor Provisions connects those producers — from veteran-owned pork farms to Montana cattle ranches — to customers nationwide at prices that compete with grocery stores. It’s about building resilience in our domestic food supply.
Riding the $3.5 billion wagyu boom
When I started KC Cattle Company, wagyu beef felt like a niche market. It’s now projected to surpass $3.5 billion by 2026. Demand for premium, traceable, and ethically raised beef is skyrocketing — and we’re right in the middle of that surge.
We’ve also leaned into what KC Cattle Company does best: premium wagyu for special occasions, corporate gifts, and loyal customers who value the story behind their food.
Meanwhile, Valor Provisions is growing fast, helping American producers capture their share of this expanding market.
In the military, 1% of Americans serve to protect the other 99%. In agriculture, it’s the same — about 1% of the population produces food for everyone else. That sense of service drives everything I do.
To me, food security is a matter of national security. If we can’t feed our own people, everything else becomes irrelevant.
I never set out to become a rancher or run a wagyu company. But I did set out to build something that mattered: to support veterans, strengthen American agriculture, and prove that passion and perseverance can make up for inexperience.
