From Fryer to Face Cream: The Beef Tallow Boom

Origins on the Internet: The Influence of Tradwife Culture

In 2024, the term “Tradwife”, shorthand for “traditional wife”, popped up everywhere on social media platforms. Micro-influencers producing slow-paced, aestheticized homemaking and cooking content spearheaded the movement, with accounts like @ballerinafarm and @naraazizasmith amassing over 10 million followers each. They went viral for videos showcasing elaborate recipes cooked from scratch, using whole food ingredients, often single-origin and fresh from farmers markets, stripped down to the most minimal ingredients possible.

The massive amounts of attention on these creators are evidence of a cultural shift that’s increasingly gained traction: after the scientific revelation of the health risks associated with processed foods, a pivot toward ultra-clean eating. Clean to the point of utilizing every inch of produce and animal, including the fats. Hence, the insurgence of beef tallow. Beef tallow is a rendered form of beef fat that’s slowly heated to separate impurities. What’s left behind is a shelf-stable fat that solidifies at room temperature and melts when heated.

Historical and Market Context

For years, the average home chef’s pantry was filled with standard cooking oils of the canola, coconut, and vegetable variety. But in 2015, the FDA released its final determination that Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHOs), including the aforementioned few, are not Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), going even further to say that cutting out PHOs from processed food could decrease thousands of heart attacks each year. Consumers were shocked and desperately in need of an alternative. Since then, beef tallow has grown immensely popular, and its 9 billion dollar market size is projected to grow at a rate of 7% from 2025-2030.

Applications in the Kitchen and the Bathroom Sink

But who is driving the tallow craze? The market is majorly driven by the rising consumption of meat products, coupled with the growing usage of tallow by the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry (GVR).

It makes sense that the current consumer interest in natural, organic foods has finally reached the edible oil sector. Brands like Banza, Siete Foods, and Fishwife have revolutionized single-ingredient eating for pastas, chips, and fish, respectively. But a natural, clean option has yet to be popularized in roasting and frying. Beef tallow, possessing higher shelf stability and natural preservatives, might just be the winner. It promises longevity and sustainability without the extra added trans fats. Even snack brands are beginning to use tallow in their cooking processes. MASA, a new tortilla chip brand, uses grass-fed beef tallow to fry its chips made of naturally grown corn.

On the other hand, beef tallow is proving useful in the cosmetic cabinet as well. A Nara Smith TikTok video with over 3.5 million likes follows her husband as he creates an at-home moisturizer using, you guessed it, tallow, alongside other natural products like beeswax and jojoba oil. Tallow contains fatty acids and vitamin content similar to human skin lipids, helping to restore the skin barrier from damage. But it doesn’t stop at moisturizer. We’re seeing brands like Primally Pure use the ingredient in a line of soaps, body butters, lip balms, and sunscreens.

How Brands Are Expanding the Market

Opportunities for the beef tallow market are actually clearer than suspected, they might be right under our noses, or in other words, in our comment sections. Nara Smith’s at-home moisturizer video received comments from mainstream skincare brands Cera Ve and La Roche Posay. With the latter even writing, “Not gonna lie, I’m taking notes 👀👀.”

The next step for tallow is to gain trust with established companies, possibly even integration into skincare formulas and substitution on the cooking line. For instance, in January 2025, Steak 'n Shake, one of the key market participants in the quick-service restaurant industry in the U.S., announced that it plans to incorporate natural beef tallow in its restaurants across the country (GVR).