Address: Cynthiana,Ohio
Email: bob@grassrootsfoods.biz
Website: Grassroots Farm & Foods
Vendor Since: 2018
Pre-Order: To place a order for, click https://grassrootsfoods.biz/store Deadline for orders is Thursday at MIDNIGHT. Orders can be shipped for $14.00 plus UPS charges.
A Note From Grassroots Farm & Foods
Dear Customers of the Montgomery Farmers’ Market:
This will be our last year at the Montgomery Farmers’ Market.
Grassroots Farm & Foods is located in Pike County, Ohio on 300 acres near the edge of Appalachia. Fifteen years ago we began the complicated and rewarding journey of producing nutrient-dense, grass-based, healthy food for humans. We started out with sheep, then added beef, then hogs, then eggs, then meat chickens, all raised on certified organic pastures. Along the way we developed a commercial kitchen to process the low-end of the animal, and now offer 15 different products prepared for quick cooking and delicious eating. Our foods have been marketed through the Hyde Park Farmers Market, Madtree, Blue Ash, Milford, and Montgomery Markets over the years. We have also developed three iterations of our website during this time and written over 300 bi-weekly newsletters (www.grassrootsfoods.biz). We have compiled a book of seventy of those newsletters, entitled A Farmer’s Almanac, with two more volumes to come. We have hosted 50 farm tours during this time.
We started this journey as second careers, later in life. The above efforts require a great deal of physical and mental work. Along the way, we have been privileged to work with talented and special employees and partners. But they inevitably move on to greener pastures, leaving the work on our shoulders. Given our age, the realization is dawning that we will have to scale down the most demanding work. Thus, by the end of 2022, we are concluding the chapter of raising our own animals. But we will keep our commercial kitchen going, continuing to generate prepared foods for your convenience. We will source grass-fed meats from other local farmers for the kitchen
We will probably be moving away from attending farmers’ markets and to the model of delivering preorders to a particular destination. We have been delivering to Madtree on alternate Sunday mornings, so we will probably come to your current location in Montgomery on the same day.
We still have quite a bit of chicken, beef, pork, and lamb for your table. Once we work through that inventory, we will have a number of referrals for you for those products. Through this winter, we will be at Madtree every other Sunday, from 10 – 11, with pre-orders. Please place orders and visit us there this winter.
It has been a great pleasure for us to participate in the Montgomery Farmers’ Market, as it is very well run. Management and the Board are high quality people, who are effective in creating a positive experience for customers and vendors. The ambiance is conducive to great shopping, and customers are most supportive and positive. Bob and I thank you for your support of Grassroots over the past three years at the market. We now look forward to continuing to generate for you Health, Taste, & Connection through a different venue. Please stay in touch with us.
Warm regards,
Drausin & Susan Wulsin Bob Gehres
About Us:
Grassroots Graziers LLC, dba Grassroots Farm & Foods, operates on Red Stone Farm in Cynthiana, Ohio in Pike County. The farm is 85 miles east of Cincinnati and 90 miles south of Columbus. Red Stone Farm has been owned by the John Wulsin family since 1968. Over the first 20 years, Red Stone undertook ventures in barnlot hogs, cow-calf enterprise, stocker cattle, and row crops.
In the early 1990s, it made a commitment to support grass-based enterprises to work toward sustainable business practices. Shortly thereafter, a New Zealand-style, seasonal, grass-based dairy was developed on 300 acres. Jersey cows have grazed this “dairy platform” for the past 20 years.
Products We Sell:
We sell grass-fed meats and eggs raised on our farm in Pike County, Ohio. Our pastures are certified organic by OEFFA, our beef and lamb is certified as 100% grass-fed by the American grass-fed Association, our broilers and hens are fed non-gmo grains while on pasture and our hogs are fed non-gmo grains while in woodlots.
We also produce frozen, prepared foods ready to eat in 30 minutes or less. The prepared foods we offer are produced in certified kitchens and include: Bolognese sauce, pork ragout, Rio-Grande beef barbacoa, chili, French Aioli, Roma meatballs, tar-heel pulled pork, short-rib burgers, Moroccan sliders, Vietnamese sliders, American sliders, bone broth, and chicken stock.
Our Practices:
Grassroots Graziers LLC is our legal name. We chose it because it describes several important forces underlying the production of grass-fed, nutrient-dense food.
First, the food we provide is reliant on abundant and healthy roots of grass plants. Roots of grasses grow when the aboveground portion is not grazed. When a plant is grazed by ruminant animals (cows, sheep, buffalo), roots slough-off, creating organic matter in soil. It is in these soils that the food of our civilization grows. Since we depend on roots of grass for soil that grows our food, “grassroots” stands in our name.
The second concept is the word, “grazier”. A grazier manages grazing animals, while a grazer is the animal itself. Graziers orchestrate the interaction between ruminant animals and grass plants, to create rich soils that produce grass-fed meats and milk. One must become a skilled grazier to produce high quality, grass-fed food, and thus we include that word in our name as well.
Our logo depicts a grass plant both above and below the surface of the soil. We aim for more roots to exist below the surface than blades of grass above it. When we supplement this plant with free solar energy to catalyze it, ruminant animals to harvest it, and customers who value the food it generates, we have the making of a sustainable business model. The grass plant thus lies at the heart of our sustainability. We are proud to be graziers managing southern Ohio’s grassroots to produce healthy food from our farm for discerning customers. Hence, we employ the marketing name of Grassroots Farm & Foods to promote and deliver the product to you.
Questions? Contact Bob Gehres at (513) 967-8099 or bob@grassrootsfoods.biz
