We had an interesting and entertaining gathering with Doug Stonebreaker, owner of Prather Ranch Meat Company! Our potluck had several delicious dishes featuring meats from Doug’s company, including a bacon and liver pate and a terrine.
Prather Ranch Meat Company is an offshoot of Prather Ranch, a 30,000-acre closed herd cattle-farming operation near Mt. Shasta. Prather Ranch is one of the first cattle ranches in the country to become certified organic and Certified Humane from Temple Grandin’s Humane Farm Animal Care Program.
After selling their product at farmers markets, Doug opened a retail store in 2002 in the Ferry Building in San Francisco with a bale of hay and a saddle out front. In 2012 they started offering prepared foods to the menu.
Prather Ranch has about 1400 mother cows and they run 3000 cows at any one time and produce 20 beef/week. The animals are raised together in groups so it’s very low stress. The beef are about 24 months old at slaughter and are grass-fed then finished on a mulch of hay and barley that they grow on the ranch. No corn or soy is used.
Doug is currently working on a Development Supported Agriculture farm project in Green Valley, Solano County. The goal is a planned community, about 400 homes, to replace golf courses with farms. It’s a new model, to live where your food is grown and to integrate young and old into the farm. The plan is to have a farm stand, a post office, a church. The homes will all be commercial so you can have your own business.