Buying Locally Produced Food is a Big Thing in Portland
Organic
Food sold as organic
must be certified as such by a recognized accrediting organization, which
checks on farmers to make sure they're not using pesticides or other forbidden
techniques. The certification process is expensive and time-consuming, so
some small farmers don't bother with it even if their crops would qualify.
See Oregon Tilth for
a list of certified growers.
There are far too
many nonprofit organizations and alliances dedicated to promoting local
food to list. For a primer on various issues and initiatives, see the following:
Chefs Collaborate is a national
pro-local chefs group with strong Portland roots.
Food Alliance is a Portland-based
organization that certifies "sustainable" foods.
Farmers Markets
A heirloom tomato
that many of the Farmers Market sell. It may not look as pretty as a red
greenhouse tomato, but it tastes better. It cost about $3.50 a pound.
Click
here for a list of farmers
markets in the Portland metro area.
Click
here for
a list of farmers markets in the entire state of Oregon.
Devour: A Hungry
Shopper's Guide to Portland
Willamette Week's Guide to Shopping for Food in Portland.
You’ll find more than 80 places to shop for
all sorts of food, from farm-fresh mustard greens to frozen bull pizzle.
They left out markets everyone already knew about in favor of little-known
gems, organized into five categories: greengrocers and general grocery stores,
butchers and fishmongers; specialty shops (bakers, chocolatiers and other
stores with a specific focus); ethnic markets and vendors of wine, beer
and tea. There’s even a suggested grocery list after each shop. And you
can search for markets in your neighborhood at
wweek.com/devour2009.
Portland Monthly Magazine Food Lovers' Guide
The Portland Monthly Magazine
Food Lovers’ Guideoffers an inspiration and a road map. They
combed the region for the finest ingredients and discovered a wide range
of people and communities devoted to food—a local importer of olive oils
from Italy; a purveyor of single-origin French chocolate bars crafted
from Venezuelan cacao; and Beaverton’s excellent Indian and halal
grocers.
Get Dirty Portland
The
Friends of Portland
Community
Gardens, a volunteer nonprofit organization working primarily with
Portland Parks and Recreation, is dedicated to the improvement, advocacy
and expansion of
local community gardening. This is accomplished through the following:
Fundraising
Securing land for gardens
Organizing educational
activities and events
It's a perfect place for growing (and catching) food!
An ocean within a couple hours of the metro area for seafood. Grazing
land in the eastern part of the state for growing cattle and sheep.
In between the fertile Willamette Valley for growing vegetables, berries,
and wine. You want fruit? Head for the Hood River Valley, just
an hour outside of Portland, famous for apples, pears, and now wine.
In 1994, two restaurants −
Higgins and
Wildwood
− turns the Oregon bounty savored 30 years before
by Oregon native James Beard into a culinary movement and spurring a local
restaurant renaissance. The menus at Higgins and Wildwood featured
almost exclusively Oregon grown (and caught) food.
Greg Higgins, the owner of Higgins Restaurant and Bar,
explains sustainability in his business in the below video.
Local restaurants are engaged in something of a local-produce
arms race to see who can trumpet the most eccentric, specific Oregon-grown
specimens. You have
pizza places making a point of buying all their produce locally. And
a local fast food chain called
Burgerville switched
over to Oregon Country Natural for their burgers after the beef problems
a few years ago. But much to Burgerville credit, it doesn't stop with beef.
They are committed to buying local food for their stores. On their Web site,
local growers can apply to supply Burgerville with their products.
The Oregon food movement has a monthly television series
called Living
Culture that showcases cuisine and culture in Oregon's Mid-Willamette
Valley. Their mission is to spark interest in local foods through inspiring
and positive media.
Farmers in Oregon Increasing
If there's one thing a bright young American of the 21st
century is not supposed to want to be, it's a farmer. Proof of this is that
a farmer's national average age hovers around 60.
Buried in U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics lies
a dramatic tale: At a time when small farmers are dying out across America,
the number of farmers in Oregon is on the rise. The latest USDA "agriculture
census" showed the number of full-time farmers in Oregon increasing more
than 55 percent from 13,884 in 1974 to 21,580 in 2002, the last year the
USDA surveyed. Part-time farming, where many growers who specialize in farmers
markets and other buy-local niches begin, is up, too.
Growers and industry analysts ascribe the increase in Oregon
farmers to a growing number of small- and medium-sized operations designed
to meet increasing demand for local grub.
Eat Locally Grown Food
Forget
"organic," long the label coveted by that cross-section of hippies, yuppies,
bourgeois bohemians and gourmets. Increasingly, "local" is the new buzzword
chowhounds are chasing.
Right now, seeking out and shelling out for micro-grown
Oregon produce is very much a boutique affair. But for consumers who
are passionate about eating local, the price gap that separates local produce
from big agribusiness' products is a leap worth making. Despite the cheaper
transportation costs, small farms that provide food to niche venues can't
take advantage of the economies of scale available to corporate farms. Their
prices don't fluctuate according to the whim of centralized commodity markets.
Nor are they usually connected to the federal government's massive ag-subsidy
gravy train; in 2003 alone, the USDA gave $11.4 billion to farmers of commodities
like beef, pork, soybeans, corn and wheat. If every single one of the nation's
roughly 2.1 million farms shared equally in that handout (just one of many
federal farm subsidies), each would get about $5,400.
Will this local-food thing ever change the lives of any
of the many Oregonians who actually need more and better food? Or, failing
that, can it ever become a full-fledged economic force, rather than a marginal
phenomenon enjoyed by a committed few?
The mini-farms, niche products and lifestyle marketing
that characterize Portland's affair with homegrown eats could lead down
the same path. Even if not, the emerging ethic that insists you should know
where your food comes from seems to be gathering speed.
But the growing appeal of "local" is a little more complicated.
Some local-food proponents speak of a "foodshed" of about 150 miles in any
direction. New
Seasons Market, a local owned food market chain that pushes "homegrown"
foods, counts anything produced in the Northwest and Northern California.
To be sure, the "local" food industry represents just a
spit in the ocean of Oregon's $3.8 billion agricultural economy. Most food
grown in Oregon gets shipped elsewhere and the majority of food consumed
in the state gets trucked in, just as in the rest of the country. According
to a 2001 Iowa State University study, the average dinner travels 1,500
miles from farm to plate. But some Portlanders' finicky insistence on eating
local is changing things: luring a new generation of savvy sodbusters-many
of them women-onto the land, keeping old farm families in business, even
forging new bonds between ultra-liberal urbanites and the Republican hinterland
beyond.
When it comes to cost, the Oregon farmer faces trouble
on more than one front, and it's getting worse. Why? Because of China and
to a lesser extent, Mexico. Thanks to cheap labor, land, packing and shipping,
it often costs Chinese producers less to sell a frozen or preserved strawberry
thousands of miles away in Portland than it costs to get an Oregon berry
to market.
This "local" economy is hard to quantify, but the annual
revenue of farmers markets in Oregon is estimated to total $22 million.
And the growing interest in local farms and products has saved some old-line
Oregon farmers. They used to rely entirely on the mass market. The
problem is that wholesale is commodity-driven with only a limited number
of buyers and they beat down farmers on price.
To diversify or exit the wholesale market, farmers have
retooled. Some have opened farm store, planted new crops, taken their
goods to farmers market, and started hosting gourmet dinners on the farm.
Another outlet is to provides food on a subscription basis to
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) accounts where families and individuals
pay a fixed amount per growing season for weekly "shares" of whatever produce
is ripe. All to build local business.
Organic Farms
The
map of organic farms in the United States is clustered into a few geographic
centers, a strikingly different pattern than a map showing all the farms
in the USA, which spreads densely over many regions, breaking only for the
Rockies and Western deserts.
Areas in the Northeast and Northwest have many small organic
farms that sell produce directly to consumers. Large organic farms, which
some critics call organic agribusiness, have flourished in California.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, organic
vegetables now account for five (5) percent of all vegetable sales; organic
dairies, which are the fastest-growing sector, now produce one (1) percent
of the nation's milk. And what of the wide swaths of the country with a
handful of organic farms? They'll be waiting a few more years for local
organic produce. Even if demand, which has lagged in the South and other
Sun Belt states, picks up, the Agriculture Department requires a three-year
waiting period for farms to win organic certification.
In the U.S. federal organic legislation defines three levels
of organics:
Products made entirely with certified organic ingredients
and methods can be labeled "100% organic".
Products with at least 95% organic ingredients can
use the word "organic".
A third category, containing a minimum of 70% organic
ingredients, can be labeled "made with organic ingredients".
In addition, products may also display the logo of the
certification body that approved them. Products made with less than 70%
organic ingredients can not advertise this information to consumers and
can only mention this fact in the product's ingredient statement.
In the US, the National Organic Program (NOP), was enacted
as federal legislation in Oct. 2002. It restricts the use of the term "organic"
to certified organic producers (excepting growers selling under $5,000 a
year, who must still comply and submit to a records audit if requested,
but do not have to formally apply). Certification is handled by state, non-profit
and private agencies that have been approved by the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA).
Founded in 1974,
Oregon Tilth is a nonprofit
membership organization dedicated to supporting and advocating organic food
and farming, based in Salem, Oregon. Oregon Tilth provides independent certification
of organic food producers and suppliers. The Oregon Tilth Certified Organic
label (OTCO) was established in 1982 and is renowned as one of the most
rigorous and stringent in the United States. Oregon Tilth is an Accredited
Certifying Agent (ACA) for the USDA's National Organic Program.
Organic Food in Portland
Who would pay $3.99 for a pint of blueberries at a locally
owned market when the same Safeway sells it for a buck less? The answer
has nothing to do with the way the American consumer is supposed to behave
in the globalized, big-box, Chinese-made 21st century. Instead, it has everything
to do with where those blueberries came from: Oregon. And they are
certified "organic" by local organizations such as
Oregon Tilth which has
creditability instead of the U.S. Department of Agriculture where corporate
farms are engaged in an endless campaign to lower the standards for organic.
At the height of summer's bounty, signs of the trend are
not hard to find. New Seasons employs full-time people to scout for local
food and they even invite local farmers to set up their stands at some of
their stores during the summer growing season. They have over 1,000
employees and most are covered by the company with health care insurance
and a retirement plan. That is reason enough to shop New Seasons instead
of the big-box chains where many employees qualify for food stamps.
Once, the "organic" label appealed only to the crunchiest
of the crunchy: the co-op member, the carob-chip eater, the composting zealot.
Thanks to increasingly mainstream worries about pesticides, the environment
and genetic engineering, Fred Meyer and Safeway now feature all-organic
sections in their produce department.
Farmer's Markets
Portland's
farmers markets, confined to a single obscure location in 1992 when Craig
Mosbaek, Ted Snider and Rick Hagan gather 13 vendors at Albers Mill, are
everywhere-at least two dozen in the metro area. The largest, the
Portland
Farmers Market, is held Saturdays on Portland State's campus, boasts
140 vendors and a two-year waiting list for stalls. Come early if you want
the best selection and to avoid the crowds.
"Farmers markets are growing by 10 percent a year," says
Larry Lev, a marketing economist with Oregon State University's agriculture
extension service. "The rest of agriculture isn't growing like that. The
niche is serving a lot of good ends, and one of them is bringing bright,
energetic people into agriculture who never would have dreamed of it otherwise."
Check out one of Portland's bustling farmers markets, jammed
with baby strollers, and it's clear that social cachet and class have something
to do with the trend. But there's also green consciousness, a desire to
cut fossil-fuel consumption by shortening supply lines. And social activism.
And an interest in freshness, quality and uniqueness that ranges from the
casual to fanatic. Farmers markets, in particular, attract growers whose
crops are too small, too strange or too fragile for mass shipping. For example,
a Oregon-grown irregularly shaped heirloom tomato, probably couldn't survive
a long trip.
"We've seen people gross hundreds of thousands a year at
farmers markets," says Rich Hines, a marketing specialist at Washington
State University's small-farms program. "You need to have a sense of branding
and marketing, because with the rise of specialty local foods, farming is
becoming a storytellers' business."
And Hines, who keeps an eye on local-foods marketing throughout
the Northwest, thinks Portland is the ideal market to crack. "Seattle is
a bigger market in terms of numbers," he says. "But Portland seems to have
more consciousness about local food, more opportunities."
Oregon Country Natural Beef
Two
decades ago, many Eastern Oregon ranchers were in deep trouble. Ranchers
sold their calves, took whatever the price was that day, and drove away
complaining about it. Their solution: get out of the mainstream cattle game,
and start their own. So a bunch of ranchers got together in 1986 and persuaded
a handful of other ranchers to start a co-op that would emphasize meat's
Oregon origins and purist, hormone-free upbringing.
Country Natural
Beef started out selling a few head of cattle a week; now the group
sells close to a 1,000. At grocers like New Seasons and Whole Foods, Country
Natural products like the $14-a-pound steak cited at the beginning of this
story command prices far higher than conventional beef.
That system has created an amazing success story. More
than 70 ranch families now belong to Country Natural, taking part in the
co-op's all-consensus decision-making and sharing in its $40 million in
annual wholesale gross revenues. Those sales fund more than just barbed
wire-the group's administrative headquarters provides much-needed jobs in
tiny Antelope, a town once known only as the epicenter of the '80s Rajneesh
cult.
Eastern Oregon cowpunchers have created a surprising cultural
byproduct: a bridge across the political chasm between deep-blue Portland
and the red state that surrounds it. Most of your ranchers are rural,
conservative, heterosexual Christians and most of their customers are urban
Democrat liberals.
Is Country Nature Beef grass fed? Their Web site
states that, ". . . for approximately the last three months, the diet is
a ration of cooked potatoes, hay, corn and a vitamin mineral supplement.
To ensure a consistent year around supply of quality cattle, all of our
cattle go through the Beef Northwest feedlot, (owned by a member ranch)
on their way to AB Foods."
Oregon Grasslands Beef
Cattle raised on a primarily forage (grass, legumes, or
silage) diet are termed grass-fed or pasture-raised.
The term "pasture-raised" can lead to confusion with the term "free
range", which does not describe exactly what the animals eat. The
important distinction is that a grass fed cow is not fed grain during
the last few months of their life before they are slaughtered.
A grass-fed cow does emit way more methane, a potent greenhouse
gas, than a feedlot cow, and that's troubling. But healthy grasslands, which
Wallowa rancher Cory
Carman maintains on her ranch, sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide.
And Carman said there's nascent research coming out of Australia that grasslands
might also sequester large amounts of methane. Cory, who also does research
for The Organic Center in Colorado on a sustainable agriculture project
funded by the Packard Foundation. She's researching the greenhouse-gas emission
levels of various methods of raising dairy cows −
from pastureland to confinement.
Rogue River Blue, made by
Rogue Creamery
in Central Point north of Medford, swept past 1,326 cheeses from Wisconsin
to Vermont to Oregon to take the prestigious Best of Show award at the American
Cheese Society's annual conference in 2009.
Oregon emerged as a big contender on the national stage
of artisan cheesemaking, with Oregonians winning a total of 22 awards at
the conference, held in Austin, Texas in August, 2009. In 2003, it became
the first U.S. cheese to win a top prize at the World Cheese Awards in London.
Oregon Wine, Beer, and Distilleries
In
1966, David Lett is the first person to plant pinot noir grapes in the Willamette
Valley. Thirteen years later, the wine garners top honors at the Gault-Miltau
French Wine Olymplades, an international competition, putting Oregon on
the world's viticulture map. Portland has six micro-distilleries making
any kind of spirits you can name and more breweries than any other city
on earth.
The Willamette Valley appellation is Oregon's largest wine
region, stretching from Portland in northern Oregon to Eugene, more than
100 miles. Most of the region's wineries are located west of Interstate
5 and in the northern part. The Willamette Valley includes six sub-appellations;
Chehalem Mountains, Dundee Hills, Eola-Amity Hills, McMinnville, Ribbon
Ridge, and Yamhill Carlton. Wine is also produced in the Hood River area
along the Columbia River and also in the southern part of the state.
Oregon's northern latitude brings long hours of summer
sunshine to its vineyards, usually adequate to fully ripen grapes for Oregon
wines. Occasional marine breezes breach the Coastal range, and help moderate
the climate, causing the ripening process for wine grapes to be gradual.
The combination of these conditions encourages complex fruit flavors, aromatics
and nuances in these northern-Oregon-grown wines, complexities that allow
Oregon wineries to compete well with other world-class wineries.
International
Pinot Noir Celebration In late 1985, an informal group of
Oregon wine-lovers, winemakers, restaurateurs, and retailers envisioned
a premier wine event, to be held in the heart of Oregon wine country. Each
year since the first annual event was held in 1987, the event has evolved
and matured. Over 60 of the world's premier Pinot noir producers, 40 guest
chefs from around the Northwest, esteemed wine journalists, and fellow wine
buffs enjoy a weekend of tasting, learning, and unwinding together in Oregon's
vine-covered Willamette Valley. At the end of the day, everyone celebrates
together at tables topped with a collection of Pinot noir from around the
world and the finest in the Northwest cuisine.
An artist and wine maker's walking tour
through the vineyards of Dundee Oregon, with visits to tasting rooms and
wineries.
Twenty years ago, the Oregon microbrew industry didn't
exist. The idea that anyone would voluntarily pay $8 for a six-pack instead
of grabbing the Budweiser half-rack next to it seemed faintly ridiculous
to some, repulsively pretentious to others. And yet today, the state's microbreweries
churn out 600,000 barrels of beer a year, to the tune of $375 million in
wholesale revenues.
Walk into a typical pub anywhere in the country and they
brag about having a dozen or so brews on tap. In Portland, that won't
cut it. For example,
Horse Brass Pub in
Southeast Portland has over 50 micro-brews on tap.
Portland has a couple of nicknames, "Beervana" and "Brewtopia,"
to mark its thriving microbrewery industry.
Today, Oregonians are once again leading the newest trend
in booze as products from 20 or so small-batch distilleries gain national
attention and recognition. According to Bill Owens, founder and president
of the American Distilling Institute, about 100 microdistillers are operating
in the U.S. Twenty of those are in Oregon. Oregon Distillers Guild
− the first such in the country
− is strong evidence that the state is becoming
a leader in artisan spirits, too. The guild, comprising 16 Oregon craft
distillers, operates as a nonprofit corporation to promote the common interests
of the state's licensed distilling businesses.
Why the sudden interest in microdistillers? In April,
2009, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) had a story about distillers in Oregon
and Washington and they reported that in spite of the recession, the microdistillers
in the two states were during a booming business. They interviewed
one of the distillers and he gave as the reason that small-batch distilleries
were doing well was that people wanted to buy (one again, the magical word)
"local."
While most of Oregon's microdistilleries have only been
in operation for a few years, Steve McCarthy of
Clear Creek
Distillery has been in the game for more than two decades. Other Oregon
distillers refer to him as the grandfather or the Yoda of small-batch distilling
in the state. He founded Clear Creek back in 1985 as a way to make money
from the pear orchards he owns in Hood River. But he also had other objectives,
including putting Oregon on the map for its high quality local products
and finding a better, more profitable use for the land; to lead the way
in alternative land use and prove to farmers it's possible to make money
without selling out to developers. Plus he wanted some pear brandy, which,
at the time, was extremely rare.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
Call it shopping off the grid, where urbanites do business
directly with producers, set a time and a place to receive the goods, then
fill their fridge and freezer with all kinds of edibles. The buy-direct
habit often starts with a CSA, where a household gets a weekly share of
a farm's vegetable harvest. What's different now is that you can get a lot
more from the source than just fresh produce.
Here are a handful of farms offering add-ons to traditional
CSA shares and bulk buying of meat, chicken, dairy and more.
Abundant Life Farm, Dallas
Pasture-raised eggs, poultry, pork, beef and lamb, sold through buying
clubs in Salem, Beaverton, North and Southeast Portland. 503-623-6378,
abundantlifefarmoregon.com
Afton Field Farm, Corvallis
Grass-fed beef and lamb, layer and broiler chickens, hogs, turkeys,
honey. Buying clubs with delivery to Portland. 541-231-6144,
aftonfieldfarm.com
Azure Standard Based in Dufur, bulk supplier of organic, earth-friendly foods and products
delivers to Portland. Join a buying group to order beans, grains, household
goods and more. 541-467-2230, azurestandard.com
Dancing Roots Farm, Troutdale
Assorted vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers, plus farm-fresh eggs,
free-range meat and poultry, Alaskan salmon. 503-695-3445;
dancingrootsfarm.com
Deck Family Farm, Junction City Pastured meats. Farm sells individual cuts, meat by the side and CSA
shares (assorted cuts of beef, pork, lamb and a whole chicken). 541-998-4697;
deckfamilyfarm.com
Dee Creek Farm, Woodland, Washington
Mixed vegetable CSA and/or shares of goat feta and hard cheeses, eggs,
poultry, pork, honey; seasonal add-ons include mushrooms, berries, artisan
bread, kombucha, canned and dried items and more. Weekly delivery to
Vancouver. 360-225-9711,
deecreekfarm.com
Bell Buoy of Seaside Access to buying group with Portland/Vancouver deliveries on completion
of "Introduction to Sustainable Living on a Budget" course.
sustainablebudget.com
Iliamna Fish Co., Portland/Alaska Wild Alaskan sockeye salmon from the Lake Iliamna watershed, filleted
and flash frozen. With buying group of 10 or more, may be pre-ordered
in late spring for delivery by third week of August. Eike and Reid Ten
Kley, 503-929-9635; redsalmon.com
Kookoolan Farms, Yamhill Chickens, eggs, beef and lamb shares, turkey for sale at farm store,
group discounts for buying clubs. Coming in 2010: specialty fruits,
mead, kombucha. 503-730-7535, kookoolanfarms.com
Noris Dairy, Crabtree Milk and other dairy products, cheese, eggs, beef; $18 minimum charge
per delivery (group orders welcome). 503-394-3273,
norisdairy.com
Salt, Fire & Time, Portland Community Supported Kitchen sells prepared foods made from local, seasonal
products, offers classes and holds "community feasts." 609 S.E. Ankeny;
503-208-2758, saltfireandtime.com
This above list of CSAs are from The Oregonian,
October 6, 2009. For a complete list of Portland area CSAs, visit
the
Portland Area CSA Coalition Web site.
Oregon Food Inspections
In 1906 Upton Sinclair published ed The Jungle,
an expose about the Chicago meatpacking industry. The novel depicted
workers falling into vats and sausages stuffed with poisoned rats - it sparked
widespread outrage. As a result of Sinclair's book, congress passed the
Meat Inspection and the Pure Food and Drug acts, which made it a federal
crime to sell adulterated, filthy food and established federal inspections.
The authority for enforcing the new laws was given to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA). In 1927, a new agency was created that came to be
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees most of what we eat
except meat, poultry and egg products. Those fall under the USDA.
The FDA, hampered by a fractured food safety system, lack
of resources and weak enforcement authority, has come under fire by critics
who say it has done too little, too late and too slowly. Lacking resources,
the FDA has focused on high-risk foods and relied on state inspections,
with uneven results.
According to an article in The Oregonian on May
17,1009, ". . . the Oregon Department of Agriculture is on track to carry
out 750 inspections for the FDA this year compared with about 200 in 2003.
The state has a solid record for food safety, thanks in part to its small
size and good cooperation among state, local and municipal authorities."
Ellen Laymon, a food safety manager in the state Department
of Agriculture was quoted as saying, "Everyone is on a first-name
basis so that there's a very strong food safety network here, and that's
not the case in other states."
In May of 2009, the Oregon Legislature bolstered the system
even more, approving a bill that includes fines of up to $10,000 for food
safety violations. During inspections, Oregon officials also try to educate
food processors and staff.
Source: New York Times,
"In Portland, A Golden Age of Drinking and Dining," September 26, 2007
Susan Marthens
Principal Real Estate Broker, CRS, GRI
(503) 497-2984
Fax (503) 220-1131
Forget
"organic," long the label coveted by that cross-section of hippies, yuppies,
bourgeois bohemians and gourmets. Increasingly, "local" is the new buzzword
chowhounds are chasing. 
The
map of organic farms in the United States is clustered into a few geographic
centers, a strikingly different pattern than a map showing all the farms
in the USA, which spreads densely over many regions, breaking only for the
Rockies and Western deserts. 
Portland's
farmers markets, confined to a single obscure location in 1992 when Craig
Mosbaek, Ted Snider and Rick Hagan gather 13 vendors at Albers Mill, are
everywhere-at least two dozen in the metro area. The largest, the
Two
decades ago, many Eastern Oregon ranchers were in deep trouble. Ranchers
sold their calves, took whatever the price was that day, and drove away
complaining about it. Their solution: get out of the mainstream cattle game,
and start their own. So a bunch of ranchers got together in 1986 and persuaded
a handful of other ranchers to start a co-op that would emphasize meat's
Oregon origins and purist, hormone-free upbringing. 
