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How to Buy High Quality Meat From Small Farmers

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Nowadays, more people are interested in eating for optimal health and sustainability for reasonable prices. Food inflation is no joke! Have you ever wondered how you go about buying meat directly from farmers?

Doing so is one of the best ways to get involved in your local food community!

This approach not only ensures you are getting fresh, high-quality products, but it also supports local farmers and promotes environmentally sustainable practices.

However, if this is your first time purchasing food outside of a grocery store before, it can be confusing to know where to start! That’s why this guide is here to help.

Let me teach you all about buying high-quality meat from passionate small farmers and how to do this in a way that can suit any budget!

Local beef, free-range chicken, pasture-raised pork, and my personal favorite–the American Bison! Whatever you’re looking for, there’s a farm out there that can help.

This is a long guide, so I suggest reviewing the Table of Contents below if you’re just looking for the answer to a specific question.

What is Farm-Direct Meat Buying?

Farm-direct meat purchasing is when a consumer goes to the farmer directly to purchase their meat, usually in bulk–however, there are more and more buying options being offered all the time, and I will get into many of them later on in this article.

There are many ways to do this. Most commonly, you will buy a share (fraction) of an animal.

A quarter (1/4) share is probably the most common, and a quarter cow usually yields about 100-lbs of meat (but again, this varies quite a bit because all animals vary in size).

You can also buy a half share or even a full animal if you have the space. Some farmers also offer an eighth share, too.

​This method of food sourcing helps you achieve the highest quality meats for a lower price than what you’d get at premium grocery stores.

For other buying options, see the “What if I Don’t Have Lots of Freezer Space?” section.

A herd of cows in a pasture.

Benefits of Buying Meat Direct from Farms

Quality & Freshness

Farm-direct meat purchasing allows you full knowledge and control over the quality of your meat. You can purchase from your favorite farms and fill your freezer with high-quality meat that can last several months.

You’ll be able to pick up your meat right after it’s packaged and get it in your freezer for peak freshness.

Health Benefits

Reduced Use of Antibiotics & Hormones

The first health benefit is that the meat from small farmers has a reduced use of antibiotics and rarely any added hormones (I’ve never heard of a small farm that uses hormones, but I’ll never say never. Always verify!)

While you want farmers to care for sick animals with medication as needed, the factory farming system relies on irresponsible antibiotic usage to compensate for unsanitary, overcrowded conditions which stress out animals and weaken their immune systems.

Antibiotics also increase feed efficiency which can help animals grow faster, churning out more meat more quickly.

The overuse of antibiotics in meat can lead to many issues, including the increased risk of antibiotic-resistant superbugs and a possible impact on human microbiomes from the residue left behind in the meat, not to mention it is a sign that animals aren’t being treated well.

For more information about the dangers of overusing antibiotics in food animals, check out the NARMS fact sheet from the CDC.

Higher Nutrient Profile in the Meat

The act of raising animals in a less stressful environment alone can raise meat quality. Buying meat directly from farmers mean you get a say in what kind of animal welfare conditions you’re willing to support.

But outside of that, animals raised in a traditional setting eating biologically appropriate diets, such as grass-fed beef or other pasture-raised animals, are higher in many vitamins and minerals.

The fatty acid profile of the meat is also more favorable for optimal human health, either being lower in overall fat or having a better balance of fats, including more unsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids than conventionally raised meat.

Green Infographic sharing main health benefits of locally raised meat including reduced antibiotics and hormones, higher nutrients, and improved animal welfare.

Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is a hot-button topic these days. Small family farms are usually more sustainable in their practices.

First, consider the reduced carbon footprint with a much shorter supply chain. I just picked up some beef the other day that was raised an hour from my house and butchered right nearby!

Many small farmers also raise meat traditionally with grass-fed/pasture-raised systems, implementing rotational grazing and other regenerative farming practices to give more back to the land than what they take.

Supporting the Local Economy

Buying locally raised meat from small farms keeps your money directly within your community, fostering local jobs and supporting a more stable food system.

Being less reliant on global supply chains is never a bad idea after what the world has experienced in the early 2020s!

We have seen the price of groceries roller coaster crazily during our lifetime. While small farms aren’t immune to price fluctuations, knowing how to source food locally is invaluable for your family’s stability.

Animal Welfare & Transparency

As mentioned in the “Health Benefits” section above, there are many animal welfare concerns with factory farming.

Now, I would be remiss to acknowledge that factory farming developed for a reason. With nearly 8 billion people in the world to feed, we need an efficient way to feed them.

While I don’t believe the food industry is immune to greed, I also don’t think the entire system is set up the way it is because of greed. It was set up this way to solve the problem of feeding many people with limited resources.

The problem is that factory farming is shortsighted–it is not sustainable due to the multitude of issues I’ve already mentioned, along with the fact that it uses too much land, energy, and water without making up for what it consumes.

I won’t pretend that the global food supply is an easy problem to solve. Believe me, it is much more complicated than we can get into here.

While some degree of factory farming is needed for our current demand in the food system, if enough people can support family farms by shifting to buying meat directly from farmers, we can reduce the overall amount of factory farming needed, or even encourage farming corporations to start changing their practices.

How Can Consumers Find Farmers to Work With?

Search Engines

You can always start with a simple search using a search engine.

Queries such as “(Your State) Beef Farms” (or pig, bison, etc) can help generate a list to start with.

From there, you can visit their websites and search for reviews to gather more information.

Farm-Direct Groups on Social Media

Farm-direct groups on social media are one of my favorite ways to find farmers to work with, and it usually turns up more results than a Google search. It’s also a great way to clarify that farms meet the parameters you’re specifically searching for.

Using Facebook (or another social platform with a groups feature), you can search “Farm Direct (Your State)” in the search bar. Make sure you are looking under the groups tab after you hit search.

If you live in Minnesota, here is a link to the Minnesota Farm Direct Facebook Group.

Even when I search “Farm Direct ____” and fill in other states, I’m always able to find something. It may not be directly titled “Farm Direct” but it will be clear in the description if it is what you are looking for.

Some groups are labeled “(State) Farm to Table” or “Shop (State) Farms.” Many states have more than one group–join as many as you’d like!

The benefit of these groups is you can find more offerings than just meat. Whether you’re looking for vegetables, dairy products, honey, etc. you can find many local food offerings.

While I can’t list something for every single state in this post, I assure you the search is easy to do. The image below shows my Facebook groups search bar and what I find when I type Farm Direct Minnesota (my state).

This is showing the facebook groups search feature showing how to find a farm direct group via search.

Online Directories

Another option for buying meat directly from farmers is online directories where you can search by zip code. This is not an easy way in my opinion, but it is an option.

These directories are not always up-to-date and are often cumbersome to sort through. They may require more searching beyond the directory to verify findings.

However, if you’re not a social media user and perhaps are having a hard time getting all your options with a search engine, then a directory can be a great place to look!

The USDA has an On Farm Market Directory that could be helpful for you.

Many times, states will have their own directories, too, and these are more user friendly than large scale directories.

Here is the link for the Minnesota Grown Directory. There is a search bar for you to type in exactly what you’d like and see what farms return in the results.

Evaluating Prices: Is Farm-Direct Meat Cost Effective?

Think Apples-to-Apples

Before I get started, I want to make it very clear how important it is to make an apples-to-apples comparison when buying meat directly from farmers.

I mean, you could buy a solid wood Amish-made oak dresser for a fair, but substantial price… or you could go to Ikea and buy yourself a dresser made out of particle board that you have to assemble yourself and may last a year if you’re lucky, but you save a good chunk of money upfront.

One of these is better quality than the other. One of these is much more ethical. And one of these will ensure you don’t need to spend additional costs down the line on repairs or replacement.

We have become so obsessed with our own pocketbooks that we don’t care who gets exploited as long as we can save a buck. This is a rant for another day.

So, if you look at the price for a small regenerative farm that raises grassfed animals slowly on a natural diet and think its a “rip off” because you can go on down to the bargain store and get yourself a pound of factory-farmed discount meat for half the price, then you’re not looking at the big picture.

With Quality Matched, the Price Can’t Be Beat!

You can find a farmer for any type of meat you prefer. For example, if you are primarily a price shopper, you can find farmers that use economical feed and other cost-efficient practices and get a steal of a price.

You will find that when you consider everything you are getting, you are often getting a much better price over your local grocery.

The benefit of supporting a small farm over a store like Walmart is you can guarantee the meat is from one animal, you’re supporting your local economy, and the animal welfare situation is likely 10x better than factory farms.

Buying meat directly from farmers also cuts out the middlemen. If Walmart or the like are still cheaper, remember that stores are still making money on the discounted meat somehow–rock bottom prices are not a good sign for quality or ethical business practices.

You can also better guarantee that the meat meets your standards.

For example, I prefer grass-fed meat. It can be hard to verify that labels are accurate in the local grocery store (as often even meat labeled grass fed isn’t actually grass-finished, which is the important part!)

It is much easier to verify that a small, local farm actually does what they claim. You can ask the farmer directly. Some farmers are even willing to invite you out and give you a tour if you’re so inclined.

This type of customer service and peace of mind is priceless.

How Does Meat Pricing Work?

When buying meat directly from farmers, you typically pay a blanket price for the hanging weight, which is a fraction of the live weight. The animal’s hanging weight is what the weight is after it has been slaughtered, but before it has been cut up.

The hanging weight is NOT how many pounds exactly you will get. Each animal is different, but a ballpark estimate for how many pounds of meat you can expect is about 60% of the hanging weight. The weight discrepancy is due mostly to bone loss and water loss during the dry aging process.

This is the most common pricing model, but some farms do it differently, so ask your farmer what to expect for a price range for your share. You won’t know the price down to the penny until the butcher finishes the job.

Then you also have to factor in the cost of processing. The butcher usually charges this separately, so you pay directly when you pick up your meat from the butcher shop. The butcher will sometimes collect a check to pay the farmer, but sometimes the farmer will have you pay another way, such as on their website.

While paying by hanging weight may mean the cheapest cuts of meat, like ground beef, end up priced a little higher, all of your expensive cuts such as roasts, filet mignon, NY Strip, etc end up priced much lower than what you would pay in the store.

Price Compare Multiple Farms

Even once you compare apples-to-apples, similar farms can still vary in pricing. Each farm may have different overheads or resources affecting their pricing.

There are a lot of things that go into pricing meat, so it will help you to contact multiple farms and compare pricing to find one that fits more easily into your budget.

How to Order Your Meat

1. Choose Your Farmer

After doing your research via the methods above and talking to a few different farmers to get enough information, make your selection for who you would like to order from.

The farmer will have most likely shared with you how they prefer you order. You may need to call them again or simply go to their website to fill out a form.

2. Confirm Preferences with a Phone Call

Every farmer I’ve worked with has called me after ordering to go over the order info, answer questions, give me a timeline for when to expect my order (it can be several weeks or even months out for some farms!), and discuss customization options (or if they let the butcher handle that, they should let you know when to expect a call).

The farmer or the butcher will explain the customization options, such as how big you want your packages of ground meat, how many steaks you want in a package (even how thick you want those steaks!), how big you want the roasts, if you’d like soup bones, dog bones, etc.

The coolest thing about buying meat directly from a small local farm is that you get it EXACTLY how you need it! It’s wonderful!

Being that we are a family of 5 and value eating a high-protein diet, I like to get my ground meat in 1.5-lb packages. 1-lb just doesn’t cut it anymore.

I used to get roasts cut on the smaller side, but with growing kids, we go for large roasts now.

3. Pick Up Your Meat

Once the meat is ready to go, either the farmer or the butcher will give you a call and let you know how to pick it up.

Sometimes, the farmer will get it from the butcher themselves and meet you somewhere.

Other times, you pick it up directly from the butcher shop.

Either way, I recommend putting a couple of coolers in your car to help keep the meat cool on your way home, especially if you had a bit of a drive to pick up the meat.

These are assorted cuts of butchered meat on a light background with knife, garlic, herbs, and salt.

Don’t Forget to Research the Butcher

A great experience with buying meat directly from farmers requires more than the perfect farm. It also requires the farmer to have a great relationship with a phenomenal butcher.

A perfectly good animal can be ruined by butchers that are trying to rush the process–cutting hanging time short and not following other best practices.

So often people think that if they just find the “perfect farm” they’re set. But that’s just part of the equation.

You should find out what butcher the farm uses and also look into their satisfaction rates by customers. Part of the cost of purchasing an animal is also paying the butchering fee.

It is not always a case of “cheaper is better”–I know many people think butchering is a straightforward process, but it isn’t, and many times you get what you pay for.

I’ve personally experienced what it’s like to get meat processed by butchers that I have been less than satisfied with. And when you’re buying hundreds of pounds of meat at a time, that is NOT FUN.

I’ve experienced a range of issues–quality issues like tough, off-tasting meat to minor annoyances such as having nothing labeled. When you’re paying hundreds of dollars for tons of meat at once, these issues can be incredibly frustrating.

Sometimes farmers will use multiple butcher shops depending on wait time and availability. This is why you can’t rely on farmer reviews alone. You must find out which butcher they plan to use for your animal and do a bit of research to make sure they have satisfied customers, too.

So moral of the story: find out the name of the butcher shop the farmer uses and do your research on them, too!

This is a infographic summarizing the steps to buying locally raised meat.

What if I Don’t Have Lots of Freezer Space?

If you’re interested in buying meat directly from farmers but don’t have a lot of space, consider some of these options:

Buy a Small Share

If you don’t have a lot of freezer space (but have at least a little bit!), then you may want to explore buying 1/8 share of an animal.

If you are buying beef, then this may be around 50-lbs of meat. It sounds like a lot, but you can easily fit this in a standard freezer attached to a refrigerator (as long as it’s not already packed full with other stuff!)

I recommend eating the items in your freezer down as much as possible before your meat order is ready to ensure you have plenty of space.

This is a lower freezer drawer on a refrigerator showing a bundle of farm fresh meat.

Split Your Share

If you don’t have a lot of space and can’t directly purchase 1/8 of a share, find a friend, family member, or neighbor who would be interested in splitting your quarter share with you.

Buy a Bundle on Their Websites

More and more farmers are now offering smaller bundles for sale on their websites. You can find options such as 10, 20, 50-lb assortments of different types of meat.

Many of these farmers will also allow you to buy individual cuts on their websites, although these will be more expensive than buying a share.

Visit A Local Farmer’s Market

While most farmers markets are focused on produce, many medium or large-sized markets also have meat vendors. This is a great way to try out small quantities of locally-raised meat.

Be aware that pricing is usually a little more expensive when you’re buying individual cuts like this. The best pricing will always be in bulk via direct order.

Join a Meat CSA

Many farmers have a CSA option for their meat products, too! CSA boxes are delivered on a schedule and change seasonally with what’s offered.

There is typically less choice involved in a CSA box, but if you love trying new things and aren’t too picky, these can be a great option.

Meat CSAs can be found the same way you find a farm: via search engine, farm-direct Facebook groups, or local farm directories.

You Won’t Regret Buying Local Farm-Raised Meat

You won’t regret buying local meat. Once you try it, it’s hard to go back to grocery store meat.

It definitely becomes a way of life and a culture of eating in your home. Nothing beats knowing that your food is high quality, healthy, and ethical.

If you don’t have the space or budget for a larger purchase, visit your local farmers market to see what you might find there. Remember that how much meat you get in a share will vary based on the final size of the whole animal.

If you have any further questions about buying meat directly from farmers, please leave a comment below! I respond to every comment. Make sure you click the box to receive notification of replies by email so you don’t miss my response.

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