Adventures in Organic Farming: LLANO SECO RANCH

Llano Seco Ranch has been in Charlie Thieriot's family for seven generations, and is about as big as San Francisco! It is one of the last existing Mexican land trusts. Llano Seco was originally a conventional farm, it's main crop being walnuts (by the way, I learned that 60% of the worlds walnuts are grown in the central valley of California).Charlie did not intend to be a farmer. He grew up in San Francisco and spent his summers hunting and fishing at the ranch. He pursued a career in advertising which led him to Argentina (where his mother is from) and New York City. It wasn't until he had a son that Charlie even cared about organic food. All of the sudden he was very concerned about the quality of food that he was feeding his child, and consequently, himself.  With a passion for pork and a passion for organic food, Charlie returned to Llano Seco and began the formidable task of bringing organic practices to a conventional farm.


Charlie had stopped by Avedano's around Christmas time to give us each a wild duck that he had hunted and some of the heirloom beans that he has been growing at the Ranch. He invited us out to visit the Ranch so we decided to make it our first stop in our quest to visit all of the farms we source our meat from.

We drove about three hours north, following Charlie's car out into the country, south of Chico. Before we were given the lay of the land we were treated to pastrami sandwiches and crisp white wine and then taken skeet shooting. I had never shot a gun in my life, whereas Christian, who grew up in the south, is a dead shot. I decided that I would buck up and give it a go, and I actually hit one of the skeet!

Here I am with Charlie looking far too confident with that shot gun. Watch out!

Back to the pork! Llano Seco is the only pork that we buy that is not pasture raised. What gives? Llano Seco pork is lighter in color but always incredibly flavorful, well marbled and has a perfectly proportioned fat cap. The pigs are a mixture of Duroc and Yorkshire breeds. The reason the pigs are not pasture raised is because they are organic. How does that make sense? For pork to be certified organic, the pigs must never consume antibiotics or hormones. When pigs are out to pasture, they are much more likely to pick up strange bacterias and illnesses that require antibiotics and other medicines to treat. Fear not, these pigs are not confined in tight quarters. As you can see in the picture below, these pigs have plenty of space to walk around and plenty of dirt to get their snouts into.

Why do we like Llano Seco? They are trying to cut out the middle man. They have opened up their own processing facility, they use a certified organic slaughter house that is only 20 minutes from the ranch, they feed their pigs organic grains and legumes,  80% of which is grown right there on the ranch. Most of all, we like Llano Seco because their pork is delicious. Charlie is one hell of a guy, he cares deeply about the pigs he raises and how they are cooked and butchered after they leave his ranch. He is always excited to hear what we have been cooking up at the shop and we feel proud to sell his pork to our customers. We'll be cutting up Llano Seco pork this week, you can taste it for yourself.