We just returned from a fantastic trip to visit some of the farmers who supply our meat. It is really important to us to know where the ingredients for our products come from, so we went to see the animals, check out where and how they are raised, and talk to the farmers about their practices. We even ate some grass from the lovely pastures at one of the ranches!
We travelled through the Columbia River Gorge and across the Oregon border to Idaho, where we met up with Don and Virginia Wilkinson of Pasture Proper. While in Idaho we visited several farmers who specialize in grass fed beef. We then continued back to Oregon and through Bend, where we stopped at Pine Mountain Ranch, where Alan Rousseau raises grass fed buffalo, elk, and yak. Finally we drove through some lovely snow to the Eugene area, where we met up with Reed Anderson of Anderson Ranches and Petrene from Sweet Briar Farms. A really great trip and we will be posting lots more about each of these special farms in the coming weeks.
The main thing we discussed on this trip was grass. PPC only purchases 100% grass fed, pasture raised beef, bison, and lamb. There are tons of reasons why grass fed is the way to go - Chris is working on some posts to tell you more about this. But if you are excited about grass, this really is a beautiful time of year. As Don Wilkinson said with obvious glee on a balmy Boise evening, "The grass is growing!"
