((TITLE)) FARM STORE
((TRT: 04:44))
((Producer/Camera/Editor: Zdenko Novacki))
((Additional Camera: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Flint Hill, Virginia))
((Main characters: 0 female; 2 male))
((Sub characters: 0 female; 0 male))
((Blurb: Bean Hollow Grassfed is a self-service farm store offering a wide variety of animal welfare-approved and certified grass-fed meats, where customers can choose their cuts, weigh, and purchase them on an honor system.))
((NATS))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
This is our farm store. This is where we market all of our meat out of. It's a self-service honor system. People come in. They take a pick sheet. It has all of our cuts here. The cuts are in the freezer.
((NATS/MUSIC))
So, the customer would come over here. They grab a cut of meat, look at the weight, decide that that's what they want, look around, decide, “This is it.” They'd pick a cut that they want. For instance, here, some beef chuck roast. They would come across, decide, “Maybe today, I don't want lamb.” They may look at a recipe on the sheets that we have here. They'd come over here, back to the table. They'd take the weights off of the cuts. They'd enter that on the sheet. They'd sum it all up, write me a check, and then put the check and the pick sheet in the cookie jar, take their product and they'd walk out the door.
((NATS/MUSIC))
We advertise our animal welfare approved and certified grassfed, not on each individual package, but here in the store with a display in the store itself.
((NATS/MUSIC))
In here, we have probably at any given time, about 2,000 pounds of meat, divided between pork, pork sausage, beef sausage, beef, beef lamb. In the summer, we have pasture-raised chickens, and we move a great deal of this. Over the course of the year, we sell about 150 lambs. We sell about 15 full grown beef and about 50 hogs a year through this store, all as cuts. So, the individual cut, that comes in from the slaughterhouse, is not sitting in the store or in the freezer for very long. It's moving constantly through that. We're constantly restocking. We restock the freezers literally every ten days. I have animals coming back from the slaughterhouse.
((NATS))
((Steve Wolf
Customer))
I was driving by and I, just out of the corner of my eye, saw that sign that said, “Farm Store”, but it was out on the road, and I just, on a fancy, decided that when I was coming back down from the trail, I'd pull in here and see what they had to sell here.
So, let's see what it says here, “Please fill in your name, email, and telephone number. Record the pounds on the label. Then multiply the pounds by the cost per pound for the value of that item.” And I'm going to round that up to $40, a little extra to support the cause.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Steve Wolf
Customer))
Going into a farm store and finding no one there and just an honor system, I think that's a great idea. I don't know if I could do that in Warrenton, Virginia. I think, you know, more likely that cash would disappear out of the jar faster than it would go in. And I got myself and my wife and daughter, a pound and a half approximately of beef filet mignon. And so, they're going to be pleasantly surprised when I get home. Grassfed filet mignon from a local farm.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Steve Wolf
Customer))
Maybe you can give me a recommendation. I have not normally cooked filet mignon on our grill.
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
A little salt, pepper. Let it sit, come to room temperature after you, you know, after you defrost it, and then it's back in the refrigerator.
((Steve Wolf
Customer))
Yeah.
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
Just keep it. Let it come out to room temperature. That's it. You want to let it sit before you carve into it.
((Steve Wolf
Customer))
Okay, sure.
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
And that allows the juices to absorb back in. So, when you cut it, juice doesn't run all over. It's actually in there.
((Steve Wolf
Customer))
Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah.
So, several minutes on the side. When you get a nice cut of meat like this, you don't want to waste it.
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
That's right.
((NATS))