help! there's something blue in my burger!
- Hi Bräu Beef Co.
- Dec 9, 2025
- 2 min read
Let’s set the scene: It’s burger night.
You’ve got a package of Hi Bräu Ground Beef fully thawed, your grill fired up, and your secret seasoning blend ready to go. You know this pasture-raised, dry-aged beef is going to make a better burger than anything in the grocery store.
Then it happens. You crack open the package and spot something… blue. Tiny specks in the beef. You pause. Is it mold? A packaging issue? A glitch in the beef matrix?Do you toss it? Panic? Call the neighbors?
Not so fast, friend. This happens occasionally, and we promise, it’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing.
what are the blue spots in ground beef?
If you've ever seen small blue or purple specks in ground beef, especially from a pasture-raised or direct-from-farm source like Hi Bräu, it's not mold, plastic, or some weird grass residue.
It’s actually USDA inspection ink.
Every single Hi Bräu steer is inspected and certified by the USDA before it's butchered. Once a carcass passes inspection, the USDA uses a purple, food-grade, vegetable-based ink to stamp the outer fat of the animal. Think of it as a quality check with a veggie-based stamp of approval.
That fat is later trimmed and blended into our ground beef to achieve that perfect lean-to-fat ratio (without overloading you on grease). Because the USDA stamp is on the outside fat, it occasionally ends up in the grind as a few tiny bluish flecks.
why you’ll never see this in grocery store beef
Good question.
In industrial meatpacking, processors know that many customers don’t know what the ink is, and might throw the meat away. So, to avoid customer confusion, they just cut off and discard that outer fat entirely.
Yes, they throw away perfectly good, USDA-inspected fat. Wasteful? A little. Flavorless? Definitely.
At Hi Bräu, we believe in using every edible, flavorful part of the steer and wasting less in the process. We trust you to understand what you’re eating. And we’d rather keep that fat in your beef, where it belongs.
so, is blue Ink in ground beef safe to eat?
Absolutely.
The USDA inspection ink is:
100% food-safe
Made from vegetable-based dyes
Edible and harmless
A sign your beef was properly inspected and approved
It’s also extremely rare—you might only see it once in a while, depending on the grind and fat blend.
If you see blue specks in your ground beef…
Don’t toss it.
Don’t worry.
Do keep grilling.
Those tiny blue flecks are just proof your beef was USDA certified, and handled with care from pasture to plate. Now season that patty, grill it to perfection, and enjoy the best burger of your life (with a fun story to boot).