Mr. Benavidez, for example, spent weeks searching for the perfect hot dog before settling on a hormone-free beef frank from grass-fed cattle on a California ranch.

Ranchers in Texas, who account for about a fifth of American beef production, are among those seeking export markets for hormone-free beef.

The company uses free-range poultry, hormone-free beef, antibiotic-free pork, organic tofu, and eggs from local free-range birds.

As compensation, the European Union has offered preferential import tariff rates worth $116 million annually for hormone-free beef.

Europeans buy about 400,000 tons of hormone-free beef a year, Mr. Kiely said, most of it from Eastern Europe and South America.

Whenever possible it uses local, hormone-free beef.

Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina agreed to export hormone-free beef to Europe, but American officials refused to go along.

In the meantime, we are conducting negotiations with the United States to find an interim solution which, broadly speaking, would enable them to export greater quantities of hormone-free beef.

Viento, a new bistro in Bingen, opened last spring and features locally raised hormone-free beef, chicken and lamb.

The ranch is expected to produce all-natural, hormone-free, grass-fed beef cattle on the once wooded property, in part to supply a planned chain of restaurants.