Officials of Gebbers Cattle boast their Black Angus herd enjoys grazing on mountain pastures and eating supplemental feed mostly raised on their farm.

Antibiotics aren’t used within 120 days of processing, and growth hormones are prohibited at the Brewster, Wash., ranch.

When Gebbers sells its beef through a unique, Seattle-based online marketplace, called Crowd Cow, customers appreciate the transparency about the ranch’s operations and are willing to pay a premium after hearing the Gebbers story.

Gebbers is among nearly 20 ranches, primarily in Washington state, that supply Crowd Cow, www.crowdcow.com, which targets consumers who prefer a detailed description of how and where their food is produced to basic certification labels, such as “grass-fed” or “organic.”

“It’s a transparent look at a ranch that’s taken good care of the stock and really cares about what goes into the stock,” said Rich Hutchins, Gebbers’ marketing manager.

Crowd Cow uses a crowd-sourcing model — allowing customers to buy specific cuts from a featured cow until the entire animal is sold. Crowd Cow slaughters animals at a participating processing plant nearest to the supplier and mails the meat packed in dry ice to buyers in 15 states.

Crowd Cow meat is all dry-aged, which co-founder Joe Heitzeberg explained reduces water weight but tenderizes beef while concentrating flavor.

Heitzeberg said his service enables ranchers to reap the benefits of selling directly to customers without the hassle of attending farmers’ markets and building a customer base. By sharing featured ranchers’ stories and production practices, Heitzeberg said Crowd Call also fetches higher returns for ranchers whose practices may appeal to certain customers but don’t fit within the parameters of a niche-marketing label. He argues labels can’t “communicate subtlety.”

“I talk to ranchers who have great genetics and a great story and history, but they’re auctioning their livestock off,” Heitzeberg said. “We’re saying, ‘You have to have all of the facts,’ and we’re respecting that consumers are pretty smart if you lay it all out.”

Crowd Cow sold its first cow about a year and a half ago. The idea for the business came from a friend who annually bought 500 pounds of beef to split with someone else. Buying in such great bulk wasn’t an option for Heitzeberg, whose wife is a vegetarian. Heitzberg’s friend and fellow Crowd Cow co-founder, Ethan Lowry, jokingly suggested that they crowd source a cow. They emailed 100 friends with the concept and sold every cut of their first cow within 24 hours.

“People don’t want to buy 500 pounds of meat, and they don’t have the freezer space,” Heitzeberg said.