Food Raised with Integrity is Intentional

Our oldest son Reed has been training jiu-jitsu for a little over a year now and absolutely loves it. Many weekday afternoons, he and my Dad head out to attend practice and spend quality time together. Last week, I had the chance to take him and I'm so glad I did.

The word of the week at jiu-jitsu was integrity.

As I sat on the sidelines, I listened to the kids share their thoughts about what integrity means. Their answers ranged from being kind to one another to doing the right thing—even when no one is watching.

Listening to a diverse group of six-year-olds in our small town explain integrity so clearly, I couldn’t help but think about the recent headlines surrounding our national industrial food system.

We have seen reports of a parasite outbreak connected to contaminated lettuce moving through the national supply chain. At the same time, claims have surfaced that Sprouts Farmers Market is selling industrially raised and processed chicken from Tyson and Perdue under its wholesome-sounding “Farmers Market” label.

The parallel was hard to ignore.

A group of six-year-olds could clearly explain that integrity means being honest and doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. Yet inside the corporate boardrooms controlling much of the multinational food system—the same system supplying our grocery stores and restaurants—that lesson seems much harder to understand.

Or worse, it is understood and intentionally ignored.

Corners are cut. Supply chains are hidden. Carefully chosen words and pastoral images are used to make industrial food appear local, wholesome and trustworthy. All too often, profit and scale are prioritized over transparency and the health of the families buying the food.

These stories may be different, but they point to the same problem:
It has become increasingly difficult to know where our food really comes from.

A pastoral label, a picture of a red barn or words like “farmers market,” “natural” and “fresh” can make a product feel local and trustworthy. But branding does not necessarily tell you how an animal was raised, what it was fed, where it lived or who was responsible for caring for it.
It does not tell you how many farms, processing plants, distribution centers and warehouses that food passed through before reaching your table.

And it certainly does not give you a farmer you can call when you have a question. That kind of transparency is no accident.

Neither is clean food.

Producing truly clean, nutrient-dense food requires daily attention. It requires choosing not to cut corners, even when cutting corners would be easier, faster or less expensive.

At Grand View Farm, our chickens are raised seasonally on pasture, where they have 24/7 access to fresh air, sunshine, grass and insects. They are moved daily to new ground and fed a clean non-GMO, soy-free feed to supplement their pasture diet.

Our cattle are raised on pasture, moved daily and are 100% grass-fed and grass-finished. Our pigs live outdoors, moving through pastures and wooded areas where they can root, forage, rest in the shade and express their natural behaviors.

We do not use routine antibiotics, added hormones or synthetic sprays on our pastures.

These practices require more land, more labor, more planning and more patience. They limit how quickly we can grow and how much food we can produce. Sometimes they mean a product sells out before the next group of animals is ready.

But they also allow us to provide food we feel confident bringing into our home and feeding to our own families.

That matters to us.

You can visit the farm, walk through the pastures and ask us questions directly. You do not have to rely on fancy, carefully designed package to create the feeling of a farm.

There is a real farm behind your food.

There is a team checking waterers, moving shelters, filling feeders, protecting animals from predators, monitoring their health and caring for them through heat, rain, drought and cold. There are real people packing your order, stocking the Farm Store and delivering food throughout our community.

And there is a family standing behind every product we sell.

No food system can honestly promise that a problem will never occur. Farming, harvesting and handling food all involve responsibility and risk. What we can promise is that we will never intentionally hide where your food comes from, pretend to be something we are not or choose growth over the trust you have placed in us.

We believe you deserve to know the truth about your food. You deserve more than clever branding. You deserve clean, nourishing food from people you know and trust.

Thank you for choosing to support a local farm that is willing to do things the slower, harder and more transparent way. Every order helps us continue raising animals with care, improving our land and providing our community with a trusted alternative to an increasingly confusing industrial food system.

We do not take that responsibility—or your trust—for granted.

You can support food raised with integrity by shopping with us, filling your cart with products you'll love and allowing us to deliver it to you as early as this week. We'd love the opportunity to serve you.