What's Actually in Beef Tallow?

The first time someone asked me what's actually in the beef tallow we fry our chips in, I realized "rendered beef fat" wasn't much of an answer. So I went and read the fatty-acid breakdown myself. It turns out beef tallow isn't one thing — it's a specific mix of fats, and the mix is the whole reason we cook with it.

What is beef tallow actually made of?

Beef tallow is roughly 50% saturated fat, about 42% monounsaturated fat, and only around 4% polyunsaturated fat, according to USDA FoodData Central. The single biggest component is oleic acid — the same monounsaturated fat in olive oil — at about 36 grams per 100. The main saturated fats are palmitic acid (around 25%) and stearic acid (around 19%). A 2025 study in the journal Food Chemistry measuring frying performance put beef tallow's saturated fraction as high as 55.63%.

How did we find beef tallow in the first place?

My first experience with beef tallow had nothing to do with potato chips. I was in a small rural town in Arizona and stopped into a local butcher shop because I'd heard people talking about tallow for skincare. Sure enough, there was a little Mason jar of beef tallow on the shelf, so I brought it home. I scooped a little onto the back of my hand, rubbed it in, and my boyfriend immediately looked at me and said, "You smell like a burger." That one Mason jar sent me down a rabbit hole — how tallow was rendered, where it comes from, why quality matters, the ways people have used it for generations. Fast forward about a year, I'm standing inside a potato chip plant watching chips being cooked in 100% beef tallow — one of those full-circle moments. What started as curiosity over a Mason jar became the foundation of the company we're building today.

Why do we cook TIPS chips in beef tallow?

Here's the number that made the decision for us: beef tallow is only about 3% linoleic acid, the omega-6 polyunsaturated fat. Most industrial seed oils are the opposite — sunflower oil runs around 70% linoleic acid. We lead with tallow because that composition is genuinely different from what most chips are fried in, and it's the difference we built the brand on. It's why every bag of TIPS Sea Salt starts with 100% beef tallow instead of seed oil.

What should you look for on your own ingredient label?

Next time you turn a bag over, read the frying oil, not just the flavor. Most chips list "vegetable oil," "canola oil," or "sunflower oil" — all high-linoleic seed oils. A handful list an animal fat like beef tallow. Neither the study nor I are telling you what to eat; I just think you should know what's actually in the pan. If you want the raw composition data, it's public on USDA FoodData Central.

Source: USDA FoodData Central, beef tallow fatty-acid profile; and Physicochemical analysis of beef tallow and its liquid fraction, comparing frying performance with high-oleic rapeseed oil and rice bran oil, Food Chemistry, 2025.