It's very interesting how much the price can fluctuate in the same store (50%) so the margins are decent I suppose.
I'm not ignorant to the way much livestock in the world is treated/fed/etc. and I'm aware of the US corn lobby, for example. But coming from Ireland I'm still constantly surprised at how unusual people seem to find grass-fed cattle.
"Grass-fed" isn't a term we use / recognise here, because... it's implicit. Kerrygold is the mass-produced, big-brand butter, and yes it is grass fed. Just like everything else.
That said, this makes me curious about the other listed brands. I'm assuming grass-fed is the norm (northern-?)Europe-wide, so most of the above (being French???) should also be?
It does not involve hormones, but it does involve afaik a very specific feeding regime, both times and content - and the content has no grass.
The resulting milk, as you would expect, is similar to making love in a canoe.
Americans, on the other hand, perfects cheap meat yield. That involves feeding corn to cows, not grass.
A Canadian guy I met once, who grew up on a farm, said their cows were grass fed but a few weeks before slaughter, they would switch the feed to corn, because that way the meat tastes less grassy - making it excellent quality (because grass) and excellent flavor (because no grass). Wouldn’t know myself being vegetarian for a few decades now.
Japan seems to be generally good at doing this sort of thing (taking a premium product and trying to improve scientifically), see e.g. whisky, wagyu, etc. but as far as I've heard they primarily import dairy.
And at the same time how sad most of the meat was relative to US standards.
Similarly: Iberico ham -- the pigs are fed acorns several months before slaughter.