Riley Hoesly is taking a familiar piece of her family’s New Glarus meat-processing heritage and turning it into something new: Hoesly Heritage Tallow, a handmade skincare business built around rendered beef tallow.

The product grew out of a simple winter-break experiment after Riley and her family saw beef tallow discussed as a skincare ingredient. Her father, whose family operates Hoesly’s Meats, had access to the raw material.

“I came back from winter break, and we kind of started playing around with it,” Riley said. “Dad was like, ‘I have all of this stuff. I could give you whatever you need.’”

Beef tallow is rendered beef fat, traditionally used in cooking, soap making, candles and skin care. Riley said the tallow she uses comes from the suet around the kidney, sourced through the family business, Hoesly’s Meats, and processed by hand until it is clean and pure enough for her products.