1/4 Pastured Pork Bundle PREORDER Deposit (FALL PICKUP)
This is what we desire to feed our own family and our beloved staff, and we are serious about what it means to say, "This is food!" Our pigs thrive on our rotated wooded silvopastures and certified organic grain. A large percentage of their diet is forage. In addition to being passionately pastured and fed a locally milled, certified organic ration, our pigs are also loved. We love them enough to take care for each one. They are not numbers on a spreadsheet to us. We don't believe that running a farm at a scale that feeds others means that we have to abandon our homestead-y ways. Every. Single. Animal. is given TLC if (s)he needs it, loved and cared for as if that were the only animal we have. We love these animals. We love what we do. And we love offering this no-compromise food to you. You are eating the story of the food you consume. Participate in a story that nourishes you.
This Berkshire pork is like nothing else you can get in this region. In fact, there’s very little pork in the whole country that is raised where this level of detail is given to every aspect of the pigs’ lives.
"Isn't pastured pork 'beyond organic' anyway," you say? Yes, and no. While the National Organic Program doesn't have rotated pastures with living green material as a required part of certified organic pig's diets, they do make sure that the pigs are not fed a GMO, chemically raised ration, which most pastured pigs are fed. And even if the feed is certified non-GMO, that does not mean chemical-free! The reason GMOs were created to begin with is because the pre-GMO chemicals were so bad. We believe with our whole hearts that land should not be poisoned in any way, your family should not be poisoned in any way, and thus we will not buy conventional or non-GMO grain for our pigs. Only certified organic will do.
The difference is something you will absolutely taste even if you haven't had pastured Berkshire pork before. Our feed is different, and our commitment to rotated pastures borders on religious.
Uncured Molasses Bacon/Jowl Bacon
Breakfast Sausage
Loin Chops
Porterhouse Chops
Sirloin Chops (boneless)
Country-Style Ribs
St. Louis Ribs
Boston Butt Roast (bone-In)
Neck Bones (makes great slow-cooked BBQ)
Fat
You will be charged today a $375 deposit. We will send you an invoice before pick-up with your remaining balance once we receive the hanging weight. You will get APPROXIMATELY 72% of the hanging weight back in packaged cuts. We have to do it this way because you are buying 1/4 of an animal, and that means we charge you a "rail" price, as that is what this way of processing requires by law.
If you are asking, "what happens to the remaining 28% of the hanging weight and why doesn't it end up in my packages?" The answer is that it's mostly water that evaporates as the carcass "hangs" to tenderize and make it into retail cuts. Bone dust, fat trimming, boning, grinding, and moisture loss account for this unpreventable
waste. If you feel like that number isn't fair, well, it's the reality of buying a part of an animal. FWIW, we lose an even greater percentage when the animal leaves the farm as a whole animal and we don't get the hide, head, feet, blood, guts back. A full 45% of what our farm and efforts raised leaves the farm and doesn't come back, even as compost. It's why your support of us will one day lead to our building our own processing facility so we can keep everything the land gave and give what isn't edible back to the land.
We will happily accept the soup bones and fat back as a donation to the livestock guardian dogs (they will thank you!!) but you have to buy all of those things as one package because you are not buying meat, but half of an animal that we are processing for you as a service. We will have it ready for you at our on-farm store this fall. Any Saturday between 11a-3p our on-farm store is open for your pastured pork bundle pick-up!