Philly CowShare: Share the Beef!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

There are a million reasons to avoid buying from the grocery store when it comes to meat—the way the animals are treated, commercial production practices in terms of the environment, concerns about hormone use, etc. And some of us at Farm to Philly prefer to buy meat from local growers for those reasons, too. We also like that the food miles associated with local meat are seriously diminished. Luckily, it’s easy to buy locally grown meat in Philadelphia—whether you buy from the Fair Food Farmstand, direct from the farmer, at farmer’s markets, etc., we have access to everything from chicken to veal. However, there’s also another option we don’t see too much: the animal share. In case you didn’t know, we’ve got one in Philly CowShare. Last year, their first year in business, they sold fifty-five cows.

Philly CowShare offers locally grown, grass-fed beef shares at a variety of price points, the lowest of which is an eighth of a cow, or 40 lbs of beef. Oh, and if you go in on a whole cow with seven of your friends, you get a discount (Jessica Moore, one of the people who runs Philly CowShare, tells me that the meat isn’t discounted; rather, you get a discount due to a reduction in shipping charges). In addition to a variety of cuts (which are shared equally) and ground beef, you can also request bones, fat, and offal. Moore mentioned that the act of purchasing a whole cow tends to create a sense of community, and people often get together for cook-outs and meals that include cuts they get from th share, which is a nice side effect of the program.

Philly CowShare is attempting to redesign the normal supply chain of how we get meat. Their pillars of sustainability include:

• Financial (so the farmer makes a fair profit, but the cost of meat is still affordable)
• Environmental (which supports sustainable farming and better treatment of animals)
• Consumptive (CowShare issues a call out to consumer, asking them to eat sustainble meat, eat less meat, and eat whole animal)

In allowing Philly CowShare to be the middle man, it also frees up a farmer’s time. Moore calculated that if a farmer needs to sell a hundred cows (typical of a mid-size operation), assuming the need is eight people per cow and the farmer takes an hour with each customer, it would take five months to talk to everyone. Oy.

Unlike a regular CSA program, you can order a share at any time. Note, though, that it takes four to five weeks after a cow is butchered to deliver the meat—all the beef is dry-aged, so it takes a while. Right now they’re purchasing cows from three farms: Erdenheim Farm, Tussock Sedge Farm, and Herrdale Acres. They’re planning to add two to three additional farms in 2012.

Oh, and more exciting news: they’ll be adding pig shares in late spring/early summer 2012, along with grilling boxes consisting of hamburgers and hot dogs. Keep an eye on the Philly CowShare website or their Twitter account for that announcement.

If you’re a stickler for certified organic, Philly CowShare may not be for you—the people who run the program monitor the farmers, to ensure they’re using sustainable, hormone-free, and environmentally friendly growing practices, but they do not require a USDA organic certification (which can be cost prohibitive to small farmers) to participate in the program.