What makes Food and Meat Co-op a WONDERFUL way to buy food?

A FRESH take on how to help the local food community full-circle (from farmers-suppliers-families) and the PASSION and REASON for the birth of this amazing food opportunity! 

Vanessa and Cassie are the Founders of the Food and Meat Co-op. It all started with a simple goal that had a snowball effect to have a major impact on food all over our Utah community! 

They had one goal: Feed Utahns healthier, FRESH meats for LESS and support the local Utah economy at the same time! 

Starting that first month back in May 2020 with blessing 150 families with a direct-fresh-food source to helping thousands of families across Utah today, Cassie and Vanessa are well on their way to fulfilling the goals and making more and more strides each month! 

Taking innovative and unique ideas about how food should get from farmer to families, many benefits were found almost immediately with benefits growing each month. 

Since that beginning goal, Vanessa and Cassie simply wanted to help local farmers, suppliers, and businesses survive the pandemic. After most lost mass amounts of business from restaurant and school closures, they were scraping by - and throwing millions of pounds of food out because they had too much from their production of food for normal business and life operations. 

And then on the consumer side, grocery stores were limiting the amount of food families could buy, causing panic. Even though there was more than enough food than ever, the "large" food system was too dependent on it's corporate structure, that when that disappeared, the food source to retail chain BROKE! 

The end result was tons of wasted food, but limited and expensive buying in the retail side. 

It was a MESS! 

Cassie and Vanessa have been in the wholesale food world for over 13 years collectively. They KNEW there was more than enough food, but the volatile retail food chain had one "little" kink and failed to provide for the consumer, but also failed to protect and provide for one of our most valuable commodities = food producers and farmers! 

They reached out to their friends and local community to gauge the interest of getting food and meat direct, in bulk and even many meats FRESH or packed FRESH and flash frozen for the community. 

It was a HUGE success from day #1 - in 3 days' time, 150 families expressed the desire to participate and so the co-op was officially formed in late May 2020! 

Each month, the co-op grew by hundreds of participants each month. We believe this crazy growth is because of these main benefits: 

• The VALUE

  With  food being 30-50% less than retail for the same equivalent quality, families all over Utah are THRILLED to be saving lots of grocery month. 

• The QUALITY - this is a "priceless" benefit. When it comes to what you put in your body, especially meats, you want highest quality meats. Almost all of our meats are also natural, with no steroids, no added hormones, ethically raised (including cage-free chicken), and farms with strict farming practices. Many also use organic farming practices. Each food item will share the details as we source food from many places - but we look for the best of the best for our fresh monthly meat sales! 

• The EXPERIENCE - from our fun live, monthly clearance food show, to the exclusive buying opportunity, to the parking lot pickup events, its just an amazing, fun, memorable and creative way to buy food! It is a FUN EVENT for ONCE! 
• The FRESHNESS - our signature staple foods (bulk chicken, ground beef and bacon) and are all made and packed FRESH! This in and of itself is quite a cool experience. Our orders are processed and packed just days before pickup special for our group! Have you ever had super fresh bacon, never frozen? It's amazing. And when you freeze it yourself, this is the first freeze and so the quality is superior to retail meats that are "sold" fresh after sitting in freezer warehouses for months, defrosted, repacked and on store shelves then sold as "fresh." This is the real deal! 
• The SAFETY - safe meat handling has and should be a priority for any consumer at any time. But even more so in the "pandemic world" where contactless is an ever popular staple of safety. Our products are the ultimate contactless product. How? From the butcher/processor packing your meats in bulk in it's wholesale foodservice packaging, the very next person to touch it is YOU! And with our contactless pickups - you do not even get out of your car. We load your vehicle with your food when you arrive. Unlike the retail experience where who knows how truly old your meat is and where in the retail chain it was sitting in a freezer for months and then the unknown of how many people touched, poked and inspected that pack of meat on the shelf in the store before it landed in your public cart - nope, not here! Direct-safe-contactless for safer foods! 
• The DIRECT-FROM-SOURCE - this means greater savings for YOU and more money in the pocket of the farmers and producers. When you can reduce the supply chain massively (like we have done) those in the chain that matter most (the producer and the consumer) then it's a win-win for all! 
• The COMMUNITY -