The Sonoma County Meat Buying Club brings locally raised and managed beef, pork and lamb back to the table.
What could be greener than supporting one’s own local food producers? Or protecting the open-range land that makes the North Bay bucolic and lush? Born of the growing Community Sponsored Agriculture movement (also known as “organic box produce”), the Sonoma County Meat Buying Club (SCMBC) brings pig, cattle and sheep ranchers into the growing sustainability efforts.
Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) refers to a revolutionary and directly sustainable organic, seasonal vegetable marketing concept. Produce CSAs offer subscribing members a cornucopia of seasonal fresh vegetables, direct from local growers, boxed and available for regularly scheduled pick-up. Subscribers are guaranteed the best selection of produce, always in different combination, as crops ripen and are harvested. In the case of a meat CSAs, such as SCMBC, Marin’s Clark Summit Meat Club or Point Reyes’ Marin Sun Farms program, poultry, beef and pork is butchered, prepared and delivered direct from local producers.
Through a simple subscription program, SCMBC delivers a protein-based version of a CSA to eager consumers. Imagine feeding your family quality meat, raised free range in Marin and Sonoma counties. “What could be more sustainable,” asks University of California Cooperative Extension’s livestock and range management farm advisor and SCMBC co-creator Stephanie Larson, “than buying a product that’s been raised and pastured locally, where animals are humanely treated their entire lifecycle?”
SCMBC was launched in February as a one-year study by Larson’s team, which includes co-creator Lauren Gwinn, club coordinator Jacqueline Rotlisberger and research field assistant Andrew Wilbur, as well as partner and co-creator, Marissa Gugianna, who is proprietor of Sonoma Direct, the USDA-inspected cut-and-wrap facility used by the club. Larson says the first goal for SCMBC is “to develop a sustainable CSA and have it run on its own. Perhaps a cooperative or a nonprofit entity will step up and take over the operations, but we want to make sure we’ve covered all the bases” in this first year.
The SCMBC relies on the highest standard of CSA—in this case, meat raised free-range on a consistent, healthy and proven diet of Sonoma County hay, grass, corn and grain, without hormones or antibiotics. The reality of meat as a food source is that it requires an entire cycle of life, complete with nurturing, management and butchering. Cattle are butchered in Petaluma, hogs transported to the nearest Northern California facility in Modesto and lambs processed in Dixon.
The concept of SCMBC and its suppliers is the preservation of each animal’s quality of life as well as the quality of its contribution to the human diet. These aren’t farm animals relegated to a feed lot hundreds of miles from where they were born. These are creatures raised by neighbors in the familiar North Bay towns of Valley Ford, Santa Rosa, Point Reyes and Windsor. “They’re humanely raised for food consumption,” Larson explains. “People who choose to eat meat know the product they get through SCMBC comes from animals that were cared for throughout their lives.”
Food for thought
Kim Fetzer, part-time culinary instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College, graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and meat-buying club member, is enthusiastic about SCMBC for a lot of reasons.
“I teach two culinary classes at Santa Rosa Junior College and I heard Chef Roger Praplan [of La Gare Restaurant and also an instructor with SRJC] talking about this meat program,” Fetzer says. “Meat that’s grass-fed and hormone-free is hard to find. It’s in limited supply.
“I decided to join and try it out myself,” she continues. “I pick up seven pounds a month, and I’ve been happy with the cuts. I like the beef, pork and other products, like duck, that are available.
“I got some goat that was wonderful, and I cooked it according to the recipe that was in the box. ‘Goat Barbacoa,’ [it’s where the term “barbecue” originates].”
Eventually, she says, “Roger put me in touch with Stephanie Larson, who agreed to talk to my culinary survey class. These students learn about culinary history, where we’ve been and where we’re going,” adding, “They have to understand where food comes from, not just how to prepare it. If they’re thinking of a career in culinary arts, the reality of being a TV chef isn’t the only option. It’s about putting time and energy into this choice.”
Adventuresome in the kitchen, Fetzer was curious about grass-fed beef, like Bill Barboni’s herd, raised in Pt. Reyes and supplied to club members. “You can tell the difference, but cooking it takes practice. Grass-fed beef is much leaner with a more pronounced flavor. Most Americans have only eaten corn-fed beef, and it’s the corn that makes the beef fat-marbled.”
Because grass-fed beef is leaner, it takes less cooking time. If you prepare it as you would corn-fed, Fetzer warns, it’ll likely be tough and overdone. “When I first cooked it up, it was very dry. You have to sear it faster or marinate it,” she explains. “But the flavor is so much better than what you get at the supermarket, and it made me want to continue to supplement my diet with it. My husband noticed an immediate difference in the flavor.”
Ranchers as conservationists
Marty Albini is a second-generation Sonoma County sheep rancher and a third-generation cattle rancher. With about 550 sheep and lambs and 70 cattle, Albini carefully tends his stock on his land in Valley Ford and Bodega. He sells to Sonoma Direct, a Petaluma-based wholesale lamb and veal processor, which is the distributor for SCMBC members.
“What lamb I see in the supermarkets is usually chops and leg of lamb around Easter,” Albini says. “The meat buying club gives people an opportunity to sample a variety of lamb cuts. They also know where the meat’s from, and they don’t have to buy a half or a whole lamb” as customers would buying directly from growers.
“Through the club, people know the meat is coming from local ranches—it’s not imported from New Zealand or other parts of the United States. These are grass-fed, free-range lamb fed no hormones or antibiotics.”
Albini raises his flock as milk-fed and typically takes them to market between six and 10 months to ensure tenderness, although some sheep are taken to market later and butchered as mutton, a popular and staple part of the diet for many Middle Eastern families who live in the area.
The lamb and sheep on the Albini Ranch are a Dorset-Suffolk crossbreed, which are well-suited to their coastal climate. “They thrive in this area, and the wool is a sought-after medium grade. We supply to a local business for mattress pads and comforters,” says Albini, giving an example of another local sustainable agriculture cycle in the North Bay.
With increasing interest in quality, locally raised stock among consumers and restaurateurs, Albini says there’s a move among the region’s ranchers to open a facility in the county to butcher lambs locally, rather than trucking the animals to Dixon, the closest processing facility. That would bring the butchering of all locally raised stock home to Sonoma County and further reduce the carbon footprint.
Preserving family-owned ranches
Rick Olufs, owner of Olufs Ranches in Windsor, thinks a lot about his carbon footprint—and began his management style long before the approach grew mainstream. His Angus and black-white face cows come from the dairy side of a family-based company, which he’s diversified into hay operations and other related agricultural interests, including a consumer-direct pumpkin patch.
“We purchase barley byproducts from Russian River Brewing Company; we recycle unsold pumpkins for feed; and after Halloween, we chop our corn maze for silage for the herd,” says Olufs, who’s been ranching since he was in grade school and took over operations from his father 30 years ago.
“Twenty years ago, we were producing custom beef, but there wasn’t enough demand. It’s picked up in the last two years,” he says. “Stephanie Larson talked to me about the meat buying program” as a way for smaller ranchers to sell smaller cuts of meat requiring USDA packaging inspection. “We’re now trying to market to restaurants and some stores that want locally raised high-end cuts,” he adds. These larger orders from commercial customers mean more middle cuts are available to SCMBC members; it’s more economical and less wasteful. (When members commit to a specific order that includes high and middle cuts as well as ground meat and sausage, the ranchers can raise animals according to known demand for a more direct, sustainable market. Members can also add available specialty items—including duck, rabbit, Italian sausage, butter and eggs—to their orders.)
Olufs believes this new, broader-spectrum approach allows growers more self reliance, flexibility—and a shot at being successful in the custom beef market. “Most ranchers are land rich and money poor. This program is valuable because buying local keeps the small ranchers in operation and maintains open rangeland for the next generation,” he says.
With their tradition honored and treasured, local farmers and ranchers can continue to celebrate a way of life that’s fast disappearing across all landscapes; it’s the life Olufs knew growing up on a Sonoma County ranch. He’s so enthusiastic about the buying club that he hopes to share the healthy, home-tested recipes his grandmothers, Ann Lunceford and Sophie Olufs, and his mother, Marianne Olufs, used for preparing nightly meals for their families.
“We ate beef every night, and the art of cooking it has gotten away from us today,” he laments. “Life is so busy, and people are so distant [from slow cooking] they don’t know how to do it.”
Quality meat a growing concern
For today’s wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, the sensibility and the sustainability of the Sonoma County Meat Buying Club and organizations like it is undeniable. Like chef and culinary instructor Fetzer says, “It’s a good program, because it gives people an opportunity to eat something that tastes good while helping out people who produce quality meat. It keeps them in business and keeps the carbon footprint low.
“You see the horrors of how beef has become such a commodity and how it’s raised. I’ve thought, ‘Gosh, how can I buy hamburger meat knowing that?’
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” Fetzer says, “every little bit I can do.”
While the meat buying club remains small in scale, Larson says she’s been surprised by the demand. “Our first delivery was 50 orders, then 100, and now almost 150 orders are filled monthly and delivered to collective drop sites,” she says. “It grew that fast and, while it’s leveled off somewhat, we went into this not knowing how many members we’d get.”
Larson says about 80 percent of the single monthly orders are small, amounting to a total of seven pounds of pork, lamb and beef; 15 percent of orders are for 15 pounds and only 5 percent are 25-pound orders. Price per pound ranges from $5 to $15. Each box includes pre-packaged, frozen selections of lamb and a rotating variety of beef cuts, from hamburger to filet mignon. The box also contains a SCMBC newsletter and recipes from some of Sonoma County’s best chefs, who give menu selections of seasonal vegetables (available through local produce CSAs) to accompany the main course.
Becoming a club member is as easy as 1-2-3:
• Join SCMBC through the Cooperative Extension by going online at http://ucanr.org/SoCoMBC, calling the extension office at (707) 565-2621 or stopping by the Santa Rosa office. A three-month commitment is required.
• Choose your monthly order in increments of seven, 15 or 25 pounds total of frozen and packaged beef, pork and lamb.
• Pickup is once a month at your choice of one of four locations.
Ranchers supplying the SCMBC include beef ranchers Albini, Olufs, and Bill Barboni; and pork producers Jube Begley, Ben Terry, Mark Pasternak and the Gleason Family. Sheep suppliers include Joe Pozzi, Chris Cornett and Albini, all of Valley Ford, and boer goat producers Nancy Barlas and Paul Lewis of Petaluma.
Range to Plate
On September 6, Larson and SCMBC producers hosted a dinner at the Santa Rosa Junior College Agricultural Pavilion to celebrate the bounty of Sonoma County ranchers. Called “Range to Plate,” the feast was the second in what planners hope to establish as an ongoing series. Proceeds from the event will go toward establishing an endowment that will fund scholarships for local animal science or culinary students attending a California college or university.
On the menu was more than just a meal, even more than a philosophy. With a simply stated mission to “increase public awareness of locally produced meats and to improve the sustainability of Sonoma County’s natural resources,” the Range to Plate dinners are meant to address a growing concern about where and how our beef, pork and lamb is produced, raised and managed. And the September meal offered a great co-mingling of Sonoma County ranchers and farmers with local chefs, small business owners, the media, community supporters and other local organizations.
Fifteen selected chefs prepared tastes of their “specific species of local range livestock” for more than 200 paying guests with the goal, explains Larson, to “provide ranchers…with a greater audience to market their meat.
“Ultimately,” she adds, “we’d like to create stronger relationships between local producers and chefs. Exposing and assisting in the marketing of fresh, locally grown products is the emphasis of [the SCMBC] project—as well as promoting careers and opportunities in agriculture locally.”
The first step in the recently released Sonoma County 2020 Vision action plan calls for increasing access to affordable, healthy food and encouraging people to eat nutritiously. The action plan was formulated over a nine-month study period under the direction of Health Action, a body established by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. The Sonoma County Meat Buying Club just might become one of the program’s cornerstones, straight from the farm and the ranch.
