Here’s an idea that we’d like some feedback on. Those of you who have visited our booth at market may have met our next-door neighbor Ben Cunningham, who sells Northwest Heritage Pork sausages and bacon. We’ve had the pleasure to trade with Ben (vegetables for pork—what a deal!) through the summer and come to highly respect the product and the process he sells. The pork is all raised here locally in Oregon and is the only USDA certified free-range pork in the country. It’s not organic, primarily because of feed costs, but Ben and the farmers he works with strive towards quality and sustainability at every step. (For more info, check out their website: www.nwpork.com.)
Since we enjoy his product (and have seen current CSA members at his booth too), we’ve been talking with him about potentially working together next summer to distribute his pork through our CSA. We’re not jumping into the distribution business, by any means—our main product is our own vegetables. But his plant is in Dayton, very near to our new land on Grand Island, so it seemed natural to team up. What we’re considering is a ‘pork share’ option. You would indicate how many packages of various pork items you’d want each week; we’d preorder them through Ben; and then we’d pick them up on our way to the CSA pick-up site where you could gather them with your vegetables!
It could potentially be a very convenient partnership between two local small business, but we wanted to see if there’d be real interest before going too far in our discussions and planning. Again, our main focus is and will always be to grow our vegetables for you, but maybe this would be a fun and easy way to add diversity to the CSA … ?
Let us know what you think at the next pick-up or through email.
