In the heart of Nephi, Utah, where the peaks of Mount Nebo stand sentinel, Korey Wright is redefining what it means to be a modern cattleman. What began as a childhood dream in Draper has evolved into the Bar W company: a sophisticated, vertically integrated powerhouse with control over multiple stages of its supply chain.
Today, Bar W is a comprehensive soil-to-plate operation that manages every variable of the beef journey from the nutrients in the dirt to the steak on the dinner table. For Korey, this isn't just about business efficiency; it is about providing consumers with something increasingly rare in a globalized market: absolute confidence.
The Vision of Vertical Integration
The story of Bar W Beef is inseparably linked to the community of Nephi. Korey Wright grew up in Draper with just a few cows, but dreaming of owning a cattle ranch. In his early 20s, he purchased a farm from Bill Howard in Juab County.
Korey and Bill ran around 50 head of cattle together until Bill’s passing. Since then, Korey has acquired several different farms, including summer and winter ranges. At its current scale, his farms run between 1,000 and 1,200 mother cows and grow all the crops necessary to feed them.
Expansion didn’t stop with the Bar W cow herd. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Korey noticed a problem with beef supply in Utah that didn’t match the volume of cattle being raised locally.
"When COVID hit, you could see that there was a real lack of supply for beef locally," Korey recalls. But he knew the Bar W ranch and others like him were still growing cattle and taking lower returns despite record-breaking beef prices in stores. Supply chains were breaking, demand was up, but products couldn’t reach shelves fast enough. The missing link? A lack of independent processing facilities to prevent industry bottlenecks.
This realization led Korey to build a state-of-the-art processing plant in Nephi. The Bar W plant is designed to be a one-of-a-kind facility that ethically processes cattle. It’s a place where customers can be proud to take their animals and purchase beef products.
Bar W opened the doors to its processing plant and integrated storefront in late 2024. Today, the facility processes Bar W-raised and finished cattle and also serves the community. Their doors are open for local ranchers to bring in their own beef for processing, providing a much-needed local option in a market where appointments can often be booked months in advance.
Opening the processing plant was just the start of Bar W’s vertical integration. The operation has seen even more exponential growth by adding infrastructure. Bar W now includes a beef cattle feedlot with a 5,000 to 6,000 head capacity, and the new local dining staples, Bar W Steakhouse and Bar Dub Grill, serving local Bar W beef.
This extraordinary vertical integration has become a hallmark of the Bar W brand. By managing the entire operation, from the feedlots and harvesting to retail and restaurants, Bar W ensures total traceability of their beef and hopes to provide an ethical and sustainable quality beef source for the region.
A Shared Vision: IFA Collaboration on the Bar W Operation
Central to the Bar W evolution is a deep-rooted collaboration with Intermountain Farmers Association that ensures every step of the process, from agronomy, nutrition, and animal health to community outreach, is handled with intention.
Precision Nutrition in the Feedlot
Once Bar W cattle move from the range to the feedlot, the technical side of nutrition becomes the primary focus. The relationship with IFA shifted into high gear as the feedlot expanded from 1,000 head to its current capacity of 5,000 to 6,000 animals.
Wayne Brinkerhoff, an IFA feed specialist who has known the Wright family for nearly 17 years, oversees the grain shipments that power this growth. IFA’s collaboration with Bar W includes weekly deliveries of up to four loads of flaked corn and two loads of Dried Distillers' Grains (DDGs) to Bar W’s feedlots every week.
These ingredients are delivered from IFA's South Region Feed Mill, located just south of Nephi. The proximity of IFA’s mill to Bar W’s feedlot ensures consistent and reliable feed ingredients. Korey notes that having a local, reliable source like that is indispensable. “IFA and the co-op have been really serviceable to us,” he says. “We get our co-op grains from IFA; they're close, the grain is incredibly fresh, and it works really well in our feed.”
This freshness and consistency are vital for achieving the high carcass merit Bar W is known for. "If you can make that ration as consistent as possible as the cattle consume it, it's going to show in the carcass merit itself," Korey explains.
The feeding philosophy at Bar W is one of patience; it also happens to produce more ethically sourced meat. Rather than pushing the cattle to grow as fast as possible, they employ what Korey calls a "slow churn". By allowing the animals to grow at a more natural rate, they achieve higher primal yield rates and better marbling when the cattle finally reach the rail.
Beyond feed ingredients, IFA supports herd health by servicing their veterinary and vaccination needs. Jared Buhler, manager of the Delta IFA Country Store, helps track vaccination programs, keeping the Bar W team on schedule so that the cattle have what they need when they need it.
“[IFA] keeps us up to date on the new stuff that's coming out that'll better our operation and help us take it to the next level every time,” Korey says. “There's a variety of different people at IFA that take care of almost our whole operation in that way.”
It Starts with the Soil
For Bar W Beef, quality is not just a goal for the final product; it begins below the surface of the earth. IFA’s partnership with Bar W ensures that the foundation of the beef (the forage, feed, and crops) is built on the right soil.
Bar W Companies include a network of farms in the Nephi and Millard County areas that grow forages and crops to support the Bar W cow/calf, feedlot, and equine sides of the operation. At this foundational stage, Jared Buhler and the IFA team play a critical role.
"[IFA] takes soil samples every year, and they make sure that we have the right fertilizer and the ground is prepped right," Korey says. Scientifically tested and prepped soil ensures that once seeds are in the ground, the crops continue to yield and consistently produce.
Ground-up care includes pest management, which affects plant and soil viability. A few years ago, Bar W lost an entire pivot’s worth of crops to grasshoppers. IFA's expertise has helped Bar W stay on top of spraying programs with "amazing results," ever since, Korey says.
Bar W Pop-up Events at IFA Country Stores
Korey’s ultimate goal for Bar W is to provide Utahns with a locally raised, locally processed beef source. IFA has helped them do just that.
Beyond the feed and fertilizer, IFA has partnered with Bar W for pop-up events at IFA Country Store parking lots across the state, from Northern Utah to St. George. These events allow Bar W to get its beef directly into consumers' hands.
“I think what the IFA co-op provides fits our vision as well as theirs because it's all local,” Korey says. “Our goal is to feed Utah and to figure out how our businesses can best do that.”
Supporting Local: The Double Down Bull and Horse Sale
This local-first philosophy bleeds into every aspect of the Bar W operation. The annual Double Down Bull and Horse Sale exemplifies local collaboration between Bar W and bull and horse producers.
The Double Down Sale hosted by Bar W is a special sale featuring 50-60 quality bulls raised by local producers and horses consigned by Bar W and other local trainers and owners. Korey, who doesn’t raise seedstock bulls himself, says that he likes supporting these local producers and the producers who purchase bulls from the sale because he knows the quality genetics that come out of that sale.
“We're looking for great carcass merit and I can really support a lot of the producers that come in and buy bulls here when I know what bulls they're putting on their cattle and we've bought many, many of the producers' animals that bought bulls from our sale,” Korey says.
The sale is also a chance for Bar W to showcase the equine side of their operation. "If you have cows, you've got a few horses,” Korey says. The Double Down Sale is a great place to find quality two-year-olds and older rope horses from the Bar W program.
IFA hosts a luncheon to support the Double Down Sale, and the local producers present. Jared and the Delta team, alongside the South Region Feed Mill staff, provide a tri-tip and full lunch spread for the producers who attend, bonding growers in rural Utah.
“The more we can build in Utah locally with our producers, just like IFA has done, the stronger our own economy can become and stand on its own,” Korey says about supporting the local ranching community. “Those partnerships, I think, are amazing, and that's what builds rural Utah and the farming communities.”
Looking Forward to the Future of Bar W
After five or six years of being in "build mode," Korey is ready to focus on fine-tuning the business to reach its full capacity. “Our goals moving forward are just to fine-tune the businesses we have to work at their best capacities,” he says.
Bar W continues to prove that when you start with the right inputs, provide the best nutrition, and maintain a commitment to traceability, you can produce a product that Utahns can trust. IFA is proud to be part of the Bar W journey and excited to support Korey, his family, and team as they continue advancing all their operations.
Written by Mikyla Bagley, IFA Content Writer, and originally published in the IFA Cooperator magazine (vol. 92, no. 2) Summer 2026.
Mikyla Bagley is a fifth-generation rancher actively involved in her family’s cattle operation. She holds a deep respect for the wisdom and management practices of the farmers and ranchers who have crossed her path, both because of her family operation and otherwise. A deep desire to remain connected to the agriculture industry drove Mikyla to earn her BIS in Agriculture Science and Communication from Southern Utah University. She continues to be involved in her family’s operation while using her degree and life-long experience as IFA’s Content Specialist sharing the experiences and wisdom of IFA experts and Co-op Members.
“The agriculture community is filled with genuine and hard-working men and women whose passion for their lifestyle deserves to be shared. I look forward to helping highlight both their stories and expertise alongside IFA.”
—Mikyla Bagley