Buying Meat Directly From a Farmer: What It Really Looks Like

Buying meat directly from a farmer gives you the chance to know where your food came from and who raised it.

At Hillview Livestock, the meat in our freezers starts with animals we have cared for, fed and watched grow on our farm.

If you have a question about what our animals eat, how they are cared for or why we do something a certain way, you can ask us. We are the ones caring for them every day.

Buying meat directly from a farm is different from buying meat at a grocery store. The way meat becomes available, how packages are sized and even how restocks happen all start with the animals themselves.

If you have never bought meat directly from a farmer before, here is what you can expect when buying from our farm.

One Animal Gives Us Many Cuts, But Only So Many of Each

When one of our animals is ready for processing, that animal gives us a certain amount of meat.

With beef, for example, ribeye steaks come from the rib section along the upper back of the animal. Tenderloin comes from a long, narrow muscle that runs along the inside of the back, close to the spine. Once those areas have been cut into steaks, there is no other part of that animal that can be turned into more ribeyes or tenderloin.

Pork works much the same way. Each pig only gives us so many chops, roasts, ribs and other cuts.

Our chickens are different because we sell them as whole birds, so our supply depends on how many chickens are ready and processed at that time.

Ground meat works differently. Meat from different parts of the same animal can be ground together, so one animal gives us far more ground meat than it does any one specific cut.

That is why some cuts are much harder to keep in stock than others.

To give more customers a fair chance at those cuts, we sometimes set a maximum amount each person can purchase at a time.

We could sell every ribeye to one person when we have them available, but then no one else would have the chance to order any.

As a business, we need to make sales and pay our bills, but we also want to serve families consistently. When supply is limited, we would rather give more customers a chance to enjoy those cuts than have one person clear them out.

How Our Restocks Work

Our restocks depend on when animals are ready and when processing can happen.

We do not have cattle or pigs going to the butcher every week, and our chickens are raised and processed in groups.

That means we do not always know exactly when a sold-out product will be available again.

We also need enough freezer space for all that meat once it is processed.

If we know when something will be available again, we will tell you.

If we do not know yet, we will tell you that too.

As Hillview Livestock grows, we hope to have more animals becoming ready at different times throughout the year. That should mean more regular restocks over time.

We are still working toward that.

Why Two Packages May Look Different

Even two packages of the same cut can look different from each other.

Take pork chops as an example.

Two chops from beside each other on the same pig may look very similar. As you move farther along the animal, the bones change shape and the amount of meat around them changes too.

By the time you compare the first chop to one cut farther down, they may look quite different even though they are both pork chops.

Animals also vary from one another.

Genetics, growth, feed and body condition can all affect what the finished meat looks like.

The butcher also cuts each piece by hand and trims the meat before it is packaged, so there can be small differences there too.

All of that means there will naturally be some variation from package to package.

If you ever have a concern with something you bought from us, tell us.

We are human. Mistakes can happen.

If something is our mistake, we will own it and do our best to make it right.

You Can Choose a Package Size That Works for You

All of our meat is sold by weight.

When the meat comes home from the butcher, we weigh the packages and add our labels before listing them online.

If we have several roasts available, for example, you may see different weights to choose from.

One might work better for two people while another may be a better size for a larger family or gathering.

Your next roast may not weigh exactly the same as your last one, and that is normal.

Our chickens are sold as whole birds, so their weights will vary too.

Why Orders Have to Go Through Our Website

All meat orders have to go through our website.

A Facebook message does not update our website inventory.

If someone messages asking us to save two packs of bacon, our website may still show that bacon as available. Someone else can still purchase it online.

Now we have promised the same meat to two different people.

Keeping orders in one place helps us keep our inventory as accurate as possible and gives everyone a fair chance at what we have available.

This is part of why we started our Sunday 8 PM meat releases when our supply was especially tight.

We had long-term customers, new customers and only so much meat to go around.

The Sunday release was the fairest system we could come up with at the time.

A lot of Hillview Livestock has grown that way.

We try something, learn from it and make changes when we find a better way.

How Delivery Works

When you order from Hillview Livestock, your order is delivered on one of our delivery days.

We plan our routes so we can get several orders where they need to go on the same trip.

Driving two hours for one order would make delivery too expensive for both the farm and the customer.

Putting several stops together allows us to offer delivery farther from the farm while still making the trip work.

Buying meat directly from us may take a little more planning than stopping at a store on the way home, but we do our best to make delivery work for as many customers as possible.

You Do Not Need to Know Everything About Meat

If you have never bought meat directly from a farm and have no idea where to start, that’s okay.

We’re glad you’re here.

You do not need to know every cut or exactly how to cook everything.

Ask us questions.

If we know the answer, we will tell you. If we don’t, we will tell you that too.

Someone once asked Kierstyn the best way to cook a certain cut and she didn’t know. She told them she could ask her Grandma because she knew Grandma would know.

We still Google recipes.

We still call family for input.

Selling meat does not magically make us chefs.

If you are not sure where to start, choose something familiar to your family. You do not need to start with a cut you have never heard of or completely change the way you cook just because you are buying meat directly from a farm.

Start with what you already enjoy, and go from there.

We Are Learning a New Side of Farming Too

Kierstyn has been around cattle her whole life, but the farms she grew up on were cow-calf operations.

The cows had their calves, raised them through the summer and the calves were generally sold through the auction system.

We still run a cow-calf operation, but now we also keep some of those animals and continue raising them until they are ready for butcher.

We have also added pork and chicken to what we raise and sell.

That means there is a whole other side of farming for us to learn.

Raising the animals is only part of it.

We are also learning more about finishing animals for butcher, processing, cuts, inventory, freezers, websites, deliveries and answering your questions.

There are parts of farming we know well because we have been around it for years, and there are parts we are still learning.

We would rather be honest about that than pretend we know everything.

Farming your whole life does not mean there is nothing left to learn.

Why Buy Meat Directly From a Farmer?

One of the biggest differences is knowing who raised your food.

With Hillview Livestock, you can ask where your meat came from, how the animals were raised and why we make the choices we do on our farm.

We can answer those questions because these are the animals we care for every day.

That also means we can tell you more about what went into raising them. If one of our animals gets sick and needs treatment, we treat it. We care about their well-being while they are here, and we care about the food they eventually provide to us and other families.

There are also parts of the process we can trace very closely. Our ground meat comes from the individual animal being processed, so we know which animal it came from.

We also believe in being honest about what we know and what we don’t.

If you ask us something we don’t know, we will do our best to find the answer that applies to our farm and our practices.

Buying from Hillview Livestock also supports our family farm and keeps more of that money moving through businesses closer to home.

Different families have different budgets, priorities and things they care about when buying food.

We are not here to tell anyone there is only one right way to buy meat.

We can tell you how we raise our animals, how buying from our farm works and what you can expect when you order from us.

If buying meat directly from a farmer is something you have been wanting to try, you do not need to know everything before you start.

Ask questions.

Start with something familiar.

We are happy to help you from there.