As published in Edible Ojai, Winter 2014
HAVE YOU HERD?
Watkins Cattle Co.’s butcher shop to spotlight pasture-to-plate
Watkins Cattle Co.’s butcher shop to spotlight pasture-to-plate
After five years of
making the rounds of Ventura County’s farmers’markets with their coolers full
of pasture-raised grass-fed beef, Watkins Cattle Co. is planning a March
opening of their very own butcher shop in Meiners Oaks, in the heart of the
Ojai Valley.
“We’ve always
wanted to open one,” says Shane Watkins, 43, who co-owns the company with his
father, John. “We should have done this in ’08, but we just didn’t have the
capital.”
What started with
just a few head of cattle has grown to an annual herd of 250—most coming from
their 3,500-acre Cañada Larga Ranch in Ojai—and a seemingly insatiable demand
for a product many meat purveyors can’t boast offering.
“Everything we are
harvesting is grown by us or grown to our standards,” says the younger Watkins.
After numerous
books and documentary films have focused public attention on the horrors of
modern factory-farming of meat, and more than a few health crises attributed to
the overcrowding and pharmaceutical practices it entails, many customers are
abandoning mass-produced, grain-fed meat in favor of a healthier and more
humanely raised product.
“It’s always been the way we did it … no hormones, never any antibiotics
and open pasture. We feed grass
hay and supplement with vitamins.” The
animals are never confined in a feedlot, Watkins added quickly.
Despite a
population that leans heavily toward vegetarianism, Watkins says getting
started in Ojai wasn’t difficult at all.
“We’ve actually
changed a lot of vegetarians!” he says with a laugh.
His tone quickly
becomes more serious, though, to drive home a point: “We’re not in the business
of killing animals; we’re in the business of bringing good healthy meat to the
table.”
Healthy animals
move around and aren’t confined. Cattle are meant to eat grasses, not the
grains used by factory farms as a fast, cheap way to fatten livestock.
Grass-fed beef is lower in saturated fat and higher
in omega-3s (healthy fats). And it
should come as no surprise that healthier, happier animals taste better.
The Watkinses have
discovered that aging the meat 20–23 days also gives it a distinct flavor and
tenderizes it, which is especially important in a drought year, when the cattle
are moving more to get to a water source—using muscles that would never get a
workout in a feedlot.
As
a third-generation butcher and rancher, Watkins knows meat and is passionate
about old traditions. His grandfather was in the ranching business in Temecula,
and in the early ’60s established a slaughtering and cutting facility at the
Lompoc Penitentiary. Shane’s father, John, worked the retail side for nearly 40
years, finally retiring from Scolari’s in 1998.
He
remembers the days when you’d go to the market and head back to the butcher
counter, where you would see hanging carcasses—something you just don’t see
nowadays.
“Butchering
is a dying breed. It’s an art to break down and cut meat,” he says.
With
the butcher shop, Watkins looks forward to providing a more customized
experience than they have been able to provide at the farmers’ markets. And you
can bet you’ll see a few carcasses hanging in the cooler.
“The butcher shop
is going to be fun. We’re going to experiment with jerkies and snack sticks. We’ll
have bacon-wrapped burgers, pork and beef burgers.”
The Watkinses have
been raising hogs and chickens, too, which have steadily increased the variety
they are able to off er. (Forty percent of their business is with more than a
dozen local restaurants.)
Watkins also looks
forward to doing customized orders at the shop and cutting steaks on the spot
to any thickness. As for the locavores wanting to know more about where their
meat comes from, no problem: “We love to talk about our product. We can even
show you a
picture if you want.”
The new shop will
be able to handle game processing for local hunters, too, which Watkins says
has been a growing business.
As for what’s next,
Watkins and his father have lofty goals: “I’m on horseback six or seven days a
week and Dad’s in the plant. It’d be nice to have a point where it’s our
full-time business.”
Hearing Watkins
talk, it’s clear Ojai is just a first step.
“My future is to
give Harris Ranch a run for their money! Maybe have a shop in Thousand Oaks,
Malibu, Santa Barbara.”
“But,” he says,
slowing down and turning serious again, “I don’t want to lose the personal
touch.”
In March, look for
the new Watkins Butcher Shop at 105 E. El Roblar Dr., Meiners Oaks. More info
at WatkinsCattleCo.com.
