North Carolina Rising

Farmhand Foods

While there is more interest and demand for fresh, locally grown food, when it comes to connecting farmers and consumers sometimes forging those relationships can be challenging. Farmhand Foods in Durham developed a business to make it easier to get fresh meats to local markets. In turn, Farmhand is helping North Carolina livestock family farms stay in business.

Rogers Cattle Farm in Roxboro is one example. On the rolling hills of their 250 acre farm you won"t find animals in confined spaces eating a corn diet, instead you"ll see them grazing in the pasture. Owner Johnny Rogers believes consumers don"t like the idea of growth hormones and antibiotics used in industrial farm animal production. While it takes only about 8 months for a corn fed cow to be ready for harvest, pasture raised beef take about two years.

"I think people are thinking more about local foods because they just want to know where their food comes from. They want a connection to the process," says Rogers.

Growing the cattle is the easy part for the Rogers farm, what can be a challenge is finding markets for their products and that's where Farmhand Food acts as a conduit to forge those relationships.

"Farmhand Foods has really been great for us because they really helped us reach markets with our product that we really didn't have time to reach," says Rogers. "It allows us to do what we do best which is grow high quality beef and lamb in our case and we count on Farmhand Foods to get that product to market."

Farmhand Foods Co-Founder Jennifer Curtis says the business model has allowed her to develop a network of producers all of whom raise their animals on pasture without the use of antibiotics or added hormones. "They supply us with the animals. We pay and have them processed and we do the legwork to market and distribute the products."

One place where Rogers' farm products show up is at the Bull City Burger restaurant in Durham. Owner Seth Gross says helikes to describe his restaurant as a fine dining burger joint.

"We make everything from scratch. We make the mayonnaise, the mustard the pickles, the buns two times a day, grind our own meat, and make our hot dogs. That’s what sets us apart is working with pasture raised beef, 100 percent."

At first Seth thought starting his restaurant would be easy--find some local cattle farmers and buy cows--but he didn't need the more expensive middle cut meats, like filets and porterhouse steaks to grind into hamburger and that's where Farmhand Foods was able to step in and help.

"The biggest challenge for farmers and a business like ours that's connecting farmers to local markets is utilizing the whole animal well," says Tina Prevatte, Famhand Food Co-Founder. "So we need to know we can sell every part of that animal every week in order to be profitable and scale the business."

Gross says if Farmhand Foods didn't come along he's not sure his restaurant idea would have survived. "I know we're very dependent on each other in a very good way and the farmers as well, I mean they're right now they're calving counting on me being there in two years to buy those cows. That's a big commitment on their part and mine"

Another Farmhand Food partner is Haywood Leigh, a forth generation hog farmer, he says the partnership with Farmhand has allowed him to stay in business.

"Before Farmhand food came on board with the commercial growers and everything they were pushing the small farmers out which is what I am," says Leigh. "Farmhand Foods came on board and it gave me a way to keep going. It gives me a good price for my product and also I feel I'm helping the consumer get a good product."

When it's time for harvest the animals leave the pasture and eventually end up at a processing facility. Farmhand Foods relationship with those processors is another important component for making their business model work. In Beaufort County, Acre Station Meat Farm offers custom butcher service. And with the interest in fresh, locally grown meat growing it's made a big difference for their business.

"Richard Huettmann/Acre Station Meat Farm: "Probably five years ago we only had 5-10 farmers ," says Acre Station co-owner Richard Huettmann. "Now we're up to 50-60 farmers and also that means we're able to hire more folks here where we were at 7 or 8 here five years ago now we're up to twenty folks."

Curtis says Farmhand Foods is trying to recreate opportunities for farmers to sell their products locally and make a living doing it. "I love working with farmers it's true long ago I really was a vegetarian my mother is just laughing that I'm in the meat business, but to me being able to help North Carolina pasture based livestock producers get their products to market that's what I'm passionate about is helping fix this broken part of the food economy."