Restock Dates: Please see our Farm Blog where we post our weekly newsletter for the latest updates

Farm Improvements

written by

Ben Simmons

posted on

May 19, 2018

Farm Update –

Today (Saturday) has been devoted to Beth's honey do list. Many home & yard task have been accomplished with several more to come. I'm very thankful for her efforts to update our landscape and home. 

We are always on the lookout for opportunities to learn and improve our operations. Today I want to share a few improvements toward ensuring we only provide a safe product.

After the defeat of SB2060 On-Farm Poultry Bill I called and talked with several farms in states that operate under the 20,000 bird Federal limit. One of the things Indiana required was ServSafe Certification. The ServSafe® program is developed by the National Restaurant Association with the help of foodservice industry experts. Their materials help define food safety best practices and involve specialists from regulatory agencies, academia, and the foodservice industry to create them. ServSafe materials reflect the latest science, research and FDA Food Code. Last Monday Beth completed the 8-hour Manager Course and received her Certification.

This week North Carolina (through NCChoices) offed 25-Free HACCP online training courses. This is a 20-hour course with a $500 value. I responed and received one of the free slots. Thank you NCChoices! 

We are also in the process of making some major improvements to our processing area. We will seperate the kill/scald/pluck steps from the evisceration/wash/inspect/cool down steps. We hope to also replace ice (we use about 5-600 pounds per batch) with a cool room. Additionally, we want to improve the "comfort" for folks who help with this major task!

Customer Feedback- 

Hi Ben.  Still out in Oregon and will be in Colorado for a year starting August.  We really, really miss your grass fed beef!!!! It’s much more available out here but the taste, quality is not like yours.  We are coming home for a few weeks and I contemplated buying another 1/2 cow but we can’t figure out a way to ship/ transport it out to Colorado.  L Parker

Quote Worth Re-Quoting –  “I do not want to be sustainable, why would I want to sustain a degraded resource? I want to be regenerative! That is the only way to leave the farm better then I found it.” Gabe Brown – voted top 25 most influential farmers in 2016.

As always, thank you for supporting our regenerative, local farm.

Ben & Beth

More from the blog

Farm Improvements

Farm Improvements

Farm Improvements – Fresh water is a necessity for raising healthy animals on pasture. Until recently, we used an ICB tote on a small tralier that we would refill from our well. During the summer the frequency greatly increases in order to keep the chickens hydrated. So, I called my buddy at Southern Pipe and ordered pipe, fittings, etc. and then rented a trencher for May 16th to install 2,700 feet of 1.25 inch PVC pipe. Along the line we added 15 Plasson Quick Coupler Valves that we will hook to as we move the animals through our pastures.

Read more
My Advise How To Jump Start Small Farms In Mississippi

My Advise How To Jump Start Small Farms In Mississippi

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” — Henry Kissinger The fight to change food from addictive to nutritive will most likely be harder than the fight regarding tobacco (smoking) in public places that started back in the 1980’s. Note that my comments are NOT a condemnation of anybody who may use tobacco in any way as this can be a sensitive topic. However, it is personal to me as my Dad smoked at least 45 of his 75 years and died of lung cancer.

Read more
Small Farm Republic

Small Farm Republic

Pasture Talk With Our Cows– Tuesday morning I was out checking on our cows and took the opportunity to record a short 2-minute story about the time I saved the life of one of the “pet” cows Number 608. Click to watch here. Small Farm Republic- is a book written by John Klar. A former attorney who contracted Lyme disease, John now farms in Vermont. I spent much of last weekend reading his book. He is very pro-small farms and presented a lot of evidence to support his position. On page 77 he makes a comparison to the number of farms and farmers during the Great Depression versus today. During the Great Depression the American population was 100 million. According to USDA charts

Read more
Return To Top
stripe-image-sm.png
non-gmo.png
veteran-owned-3.png

Veteran Owned & Operated

Nature's Gourmet Farm

367 McKenzie Road
Petal, MS 39465
(601) 434-9081

Privacy Policy