Our Benchmark Protein Standard

The “much as we can” or goal standard we’re pursuing as we look for new sources, learn more about the sourcing ecosystem and evaluate existing suppliers. Namely, animals raised on pasture-centered farms, with forage at the center of their diets, ideally on farms we’ve visited run by farmers we’ve met. Several of these are in our mix already and we’ll include their products in meals as often as we can, always calling out the source/meal when we do. In food label terms (see glossary for detail):

• Pasture-based
• Grassfed/grass-finished
• Family farm driven – often single family, sometimes small family farm networks or cooperatives
• Local
• Organic*
• Certified humane*

Current Sources we’re working to build into our Benchmark mix include: Grayson Natural Beef (buying from currently) and Polyface Farms (visited and working on a buying relationship).

For more on our sister Baseline Standard, go here.

Over time, as choices evolve and access improves, we hope to become more and more Pasture focused. Along the way, we’ll commit to playing an open hand on our choices and sharing what we learn as we go.

In the meantime, if you have questions about any part of our sourcing approach, email us and we’ll get you an answer. We love this stuff but it isn’t an exact science so consistently engaging on it will keep moving the ball forward.

* A word on Organic and certified humane standards. No doubt there’s a lot to like about the standards the USDA has set for Organic. And the handful of emerging certifications for humanely raised animals are encouraging in some respects (we’ve gone into a little more detail on them here). But there are also real questions about how these are used, how widely they’re adopted, etc. And some of the coolest family farms we’ve visited would be ruled out with a strict requirement on either of these. So for us they’re “could be in either standard” items that we’ll judge on a case-by-case basis.