Meg Grevemberg believes that the key to improving a community’s well-being is food.
That’s why she and partner Gus Darnell started Little Flock, a chicken farm dedicated to sustainably raising organic and pastured poultry. They’re the brains behind Community Meat Company, a cooperative for locally-raised beef, chicken and pork. The farm and meat co-op are the products of their passion for quality food. It’s also an effort to engage with a larger movement to establish healthier communities, both through the well-being of people and the health of the local economy.
The Community Meat Co. is a sustainable meat co-op operating under a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model. When a customer joins the CSA, they help fund the operation by contributing to upfront costs. In turn, customers receive a share of the meat each month. Once a month, shareholders meet Meg and Gus on the patio behind Normal Bar, a favorite Athens watering hole. They come with insulated bags and coolers, then tote home a selection of meats, ranging from prime cuts of steak to everyday eats like ground beef and sausage. The element of surprise keeps shareholders busy finding ways to cook unfamiliar cuts of meat. One shareholder, Amy Bramblett, has jumped into learning new cooking techniques after fourteen years as a vegetarian. “It's been really interesting for my husband and me to learn about cooking meat,” she said. “It's like watching The Three Stooges do a science experiment in our kitchen. We are both pretty good veg cooks, so we are having lots of fun learning to grill, roast, braise, etcetera.”
If you don’t know how to roast a whole chicken, here’s your opportunity to learn. Meg and Gus will even dole out tips on how to prepare and cook the meat.
Little Flock started when Meg and Gus returned from nine months in Indiana, where they worked on a farm raising cattle, hogs, turkeys, chickens and rabbits. Here they saw firsthand the benefit of following the seasonality of pastured animals and the struggles that come with raising animals as your livelihood.
So as first time entrepreneurs, Meg and Gus knew their success would depend on equal parts farming chops and business savvy. They’ve learned to work around the unexpected obstacles. Because of the cold weather continuing into March, there was a delay bringing the chicks out into the pasture. This meant that without the extra time to graze, the chickens didn’t reach their full weight in time for the first meat pickup. Meg and Gus had to tell customers that there wouldn’t be any chicken in their first shares.
“That gives us an opportunity to say, ‘well chicks can’t survive the cold’,” he says. Gus sees this as a teachable moment as a progressively minded farmer and entrepreneur. Customers are able to learn about the constraints of farming humanely raised poultry, such as weather, temperature, and grazing needs. Understanding that our favorite foods aren’t available locally year-round garners a certain level of appreciation for the diversity of meat and produce available in each season.
Although considerations of cost and convenience deter many people from buying locally grown food, the CSA model offers a new way for people to participate. You gain assurance for your dollars—the prices are comparable to what you might find for organic meat in the grocery store, but you achieve the peace of mind of knowing precisely where the food came from. Still, not everyone prioritizes locally grown, grass fed and pastured meat over conventional grocery store offerings that come at a cheaper price.
If consumers look at the long-term benefits of spending money on good, local food, they may change their minds. When consumers buy food grown locally, they support healthier economies and communities.
Local food is often healthier environmentally and nutritionally. The Harvard School of Public Health estimates that most of our food travels about 1,500 miles to our grocery stores. The distance and time traveled results in an increased carbon footprint and lasting environmental impact. Our food can also lose nutrients in the process. Because local food is handled by fewer hands, the FDA has even advised consumers to buy produce at local farms because it would reduce the risk of food-borne illness.
“It goes back to education,” Gus said, “trying to switch people’s priorities so they value food.” Meg has seen a change in perspective for many the Community Meat Co. shareholders who have grown more invested in their food.
“This is it,” she said, looking around to the open pasture of Little Flock farm, “One by one, each person that comes into the CSA, sees our card downtown, or has a friend that joins...when it’s happening where you’re at, people that you know start getting involved, it makes you care more.”
Amy is one of the shareholders spreading the word about the CSA to her friends and family, promoting the idea that we should support local food.
“Local farming is so important!” Amy told us. “Not only is the money we spend going directly back into our community, we know where the meat is coming from and are assured of its top quality. It doesn't have to travel far to get to us. The animals are treated well. It's good for us because we get to partake in a wonderful product, and we want our community to thrive.”
“We need more farmers,” Gus said. “The more farms there are, ideally the more customers you’d get. The more variety you have, the more options you have, the more people feel like they get to choose.”
Meg and Gus know that not everyone can grow their own food or raise their own meat. But we can make choices about what we eat and the kind of farming we promote in our local communities. For those who want the freshest meat with solid animal welfare and quality standards, there’s Community Meat Co.
Story by Alyssa Stafford
Photographs by Paige French
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4540
http://chge.med.harvard.edu/topic/local-and-urban-agriculture
http://georgiaorganics.org/news-center/smarter-food-system
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/newfarmers?navid=newfarmers