We’ve never met before but chances are, we have a few things in common.
- Regardless of where we are at in our journey, we both strive to live a #LifeFromScratch.
- Regardless if we love to DIY or we love to buy handcrafted organic skincare, we care about the ingredients in the products we use.
- Whether we prefer chicken, beef, or seafood, we want to support small local farms and support local farmers that raise their animals ethically, sustainably, and with love.
It’s all fine and dandy when you have great local farms near you but what if there are no local farms in your area that meet those requirements? Do you throw what you want out the window and settle for something less?
I honestly can speak from both sides of the spectrum because I’ve had it all — in terms of food choice — and now I am limited to my choices.
When I lived in California, the abundance of fresh, local, sustainable, and organic food was a foodie’s dream come true. The farmer’s markets held a plethora of choices for fresh produce, raw and low-vat pasteurized dairy, grass-fed and pastured meats, and sustainably harvested seafood. We even had a farm about 15 minutes from us and I would take my son to spend half a day walking the hills in search of the pastured chickens and cows.
Fast forward to present day and now we live in Florida. Although there are some options, they are still very limited in variety. The farmer’s markets contain about 10% actual food products and the other 90% are arts and crafts vendors. Of that 10%, most of the food has stickers on them and there may be ONE vendor for meat.
I basically have to work hard to find pastured meat products and even when I find them, the taste does not compare to the meat we were used to in California. It has been quite the adjustment, to say the least.
In California, I was all about supporting the local community first and foremost — and it was easy to do. Now in Florida, supporting the local community has proven to be much more difficult because there simply are not a lot of farmers to support.
Does your situation sound a bit like mine?
Are you stuck between wanting to support local but finding yourself turning to more “conventional” methods of buying meat? It’s frustrating, right?
What if you had the option to support a small local farm 200 miles from you? Sure it’s not local to your area, but you’re still putting your money into the pocket of a farmer who doesn’t sell their meat in a large scale production and truly cares about their animals well-being.
Would you choose that option?
The good news? If you said yes, then I have the perfect resource for you.
Three words: Home Grown Cow.
Home Grown Cow is America’s first and only online farmer’s market. This is how to support a local farmer when you don’t have a local farm near you! With family-scale farms in almost every state, you can search for meat products (bison, cow, elk, lamb, etc), dairy products (hard and soft cheeses, butter, yogurt), and even seafood! You can refine your search by choosing the farm practice (grass-fed, pastured, organic) and in some cases, local door-to-door delivery is available. Read more about how Home Grown Cow works here.
Home Grown Cow gives you the opportunity to support a small farm in the middle of nowhere that upholds the same values you do so you don’t necessarily have to resort to big-scale, industrial farms.
For us, it’s less about the question of industrial meat being safe or not, pink slime or not. For us, it’s about access to great tasting, high quality meat, from a source you can identify, raised in a way that you can understand and envision, that’s not trying to manipulate you by claiming a CAFO is the same as a family farm because it’s owned by a family.
It’s about the satisfaction of knowing what breed of cow your hamburger is made of and learning that different breeds have different flavors, and finding the one you like best, or mixing it up so you don’t get bored. For us, this service is important because it allows consumers to be purposeful in their choices and in more control over the food they eat. — Karen, Owner of Home Grown Cow
The best part is that Home Grown Cow allows the farmers to set their own prices and everything you order comes directly from them. You also have the opportunity to chat directly with the farmer if you have any questions. Home Grown Cow is just the platform that allows you to feel good about buying from small family farms.
So why not take a peak and try Home Grown Cow out for yourself? I promise you’ll be pleased!
Pin this image so other people are aware that you CAN support a local farmer, even when you don’t have a local farm near you!
This post is sponsored by Home Grown Cow, however, the opinions and photos are our own. Authenticity is of the highest importance to Scratch Mommy, so we would never promote any brand or product that we wholeheartedly don’t believe in or wouldn’t use ourselves.
Comments 15
I have to agree with you, it is very important to find local farmers to support.
Home Grown Cow is news to me and I’m so glad to know about it! It’ll make supporting a local farmer so much easier in areas without farmer’s markets.
Ah! This is SO cool! I will be pinning this for reference. We are so blessed to have a farmer for raw milk, both beef and chicken along with pig, and eggs raw cheese etc all about 30 minutes from our house but it is all in one spot. I know so many do not have that option – this is great!
Today’s organic farmers are doing us such a service. I agree – let’s do all we can to support them!
I couldn’t love this more. We love our famers and are so blessed to love by a lot of them for produce.
Loved this post! I had no idea about Home Grown Cow. I think it’s so important to support local farms. I do my best to do that. I live in CA, there’s so many great farmers markets. I shop at a local natural foods co-op too that supports local farms.
I love the sharing of resources. I haven’t heard of Home Grown Cow. I live in the high desert in CA where farmers’ markets are few and far between =/ but I do support my local CSA and I’m looking for more real food options along my journey. Thanks for sharing! =)
Great topic! I have taken for granted for many years that I have so many wonderful farmers so close by. Some years ago before we had any raw milk farmers in our area and we wanted to try it, we ordered a box of raw dairy from Organic Pastures in Fresno, CA. It was so amazing, we kept ordering it. But it was expensive. Eventually the laws changed and OP was no longer able to ship raw dairy merchandise over state lines. Thankfully, by then there were finally some local raw milk farmers using mindful practices.
Thank you for posting this! Pinning!
Wow, what a challenge. The farmer’s market in Florida has a long way to go and it would be hard to be patient. So happy you’ve found such a good online solution!! I only heard of HGC recently. YAY that they’re around!
It’s so important to buy local. Truly happy that you found a solution. Just wish we could find something like that here in Spain.. 🙁
I’ve never heard of Home Grown Cow, how great!! We are lucky enough to have access to local farmers through our co-op, but I love finding stuff like this that I can recommend to friends and family (like the ones I have in Florida!) who don’t have access like we do! Thanks for sharing 🙂
What a great company! I am very lucky to be able to get high quality and extremely affordable animal products in my area, but I am so glad that there is a resource like this available to those who cannot.
What a fantastic resource!!! Brilliant! Going to be making a big move soon, away from the California options. Saving this post!!!
I have never heard of Home Grown Cow! Thanks for the info, I live in California now but may not be so lucky all the time…
Wow, this is so cool! I’m really blessed to have moved to an area that has a ton of local farms, but before that I would have loved to know about this! Will definitely keep this as a future reference for friends!