Normalizing Access to Local, Quality Meat: Hoagland Meat
Photos by Marilyn Isaac Photography
By Samantha Stetzer
Hoagland Meat’s culture has become its motto: local meat for local people.
The more-than-70-year-old ranch, which recently added a meat processing plant to its impressive offering, is committed to creating opportunities and partnerships that make it easier to get their meat on local tables.
“With a local product, you know it’s fresh,” said Tiffany Wheeler, who, with her husband, Spencer Wheeler, operates Hoagland Meat’s marketing and sales team. “[Customers] are receiving something that is extremely fresh, but also raised and grown in the valley. By supporting local ranchers, they are supporting local families.”
The Hoaglands have been in Idaho's cattle industry since the early 1900s, and the ranch has been around for more than 70 years, Tiffany explained. Today, Hoagland’s cattle are fully grass-fed, and the ranch does not rely on hormones, pesticides, or antibiotics.
In the spring of 2022, Hoagland Meat purchased Owyhee Meat Co., a butcher shop. The Homedale storefront is available for locals who live nearby, and it is also a USDA-approved meat-processing facility, which includes having a USDA representative on site for kill days to ensure health and safety protocols, Tiffany said.
However, Hoagland Meat recognized that Homedale is not easily accessible by everybody in the Treasure Valley.
To combat this, the company now offers a delivery service, wherein anyone within the Treasure Valley can access to Hoagland Meat’s locally-raised and -processed meat.
“We offer specific boxes that people can have delivered straight to their door,” Tiffany explained, adding that customers can choose when they receive the meat and what is included in each delivery.
Furthermore, Tiffany said the team at Hoagland Meat also realized distance is not the only obstacle for consumers when looking for fresh, local meat; sometimes it’s the inability to afford food at all.
Not only does the company accept payment from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) recipients, they are also partnering with local food banks to create the Giving Beef Program.
The mission of this program is to provide fresh locally-raised, USDA-approved meat for those who utilize the services of food banks. Smaller programs have existed in the state in the past; however often these programs are, as Spencer explained, “a drop in the bucket.”
Hoagland Meat Is working with the state to create a council of ranchers who are willing to donate to this program.
While this program is still in the process of being created, Hoagland Meat is dedicated to this venture and others that speak to the very mission they are built upon.
“We want to make it available for everyone,” Tiffany said. “We want to normalize local, good quality meat.”
