Enduring Values
posted on
March 6, 2018
How do we cultivate values, which endure over the ages, like this magnificent house in Lancaster County, Pa.?
The founder of a successful group of restaurants in Ohio recently described the company's values as: high-quality food, high-quality service, high-quality environment, and good value. High-quality food is to be: delicious, consistent, familiar, attractive, and healthy, in that order of priority. This is a growing company that has been around more than ten years, so it is standing the test of time in perilous waters of the restaurant business. This company has found success, with food being: delicious, consistent, familiar, and attractive before specifically being healthy... It is hard to argue with this formula for profitability, as results speak for themselves. It seem this founder is indeed building a house of stone rather than straw.
Our values, at Grassroots Farm & Foods, have their genesis with the sun. We want to endure into the ages, so seek to employ solar power rather than fossil fuel, as much as possible. This means growing perennial feeds, such as grasses, legumes, and forbs, deep within nutrient-dense soils, and converting those plants into animal proteins, through grazing of ruminants, for healthy consumption by humans. This process benefits both the environment and humans, which is not a coincidence, as the two evolved together over millions of years.
So, our first priority is health of air, soil, animals, and people.
Our second is taste and consistency of product.
Third is building trust and connection between ourselves and our customers, between rural and urban, and between ourselves and the local community.
We are building a different house of values, than the successful restauranteur, where health is proclaimed at our front door. It has admittedly not stood the full test of time, but we have faith it will, and it is in this faith that we proceed. Fortunately, communities needs structures of different purpose and design, including this timeless mill-works below.
On this trip to New York City to visit children and granddaughter, I stopped in Lancaster County, Pa. to meet with a builder of large egg-mobiles. Each egg-mobile houses 650 birds. Here his numerous mobiles are parked under roof for the winter. We are contemplating having him make one for us. We don't yet have demand for eggs from 650 hens, but if we build our stone-house just right, that may come.
As oceans are tragically despoiled, the relative value of grassfed meats rises. Grassfed lamb approximates wild-caught fish more than any land-based product. Rack-of-lamb is like lobster tail - exquisite, rich, and delicious. Only, sad to say, the former may now be safer to consume. Below we are celebrating the goodness of life, with rack-of-lamb, on a cold day in February.
May we each uncover values in our lives that endure like stone walls.