On a recent pre-Christmas morning at Kinship Butcher & Sundry in Virginia Highlands, Chef Myles Moody and his team stood behind a glass refrigerator case resplendent with red meats, sausages and delicately wrapped cheeses. As they prepared parcels for customers who had ordered online, a cook stood over a stainless steel stove, sizzling hamburgers and egg sandwiches for patrons who sipped flat whites and cortados at the shop’s coffee counter.
Moody said the store is attracting Atlantans who are health conscious but also skeptical of “Big Agriculture” and its use of growth hormones and antibiotics in animals raised for meat.
“Since we’ve opened Kinship, I find that people want that direct connection to their food,” Moody said. “Not just that it came from a local farm, but from which farm.”
Though organic meat as a percentage of total U.S. sales remains low, growing numbers of Atlantans this holiday season are seeking out antibiotic and hormone-free meats, poultry and dairy raised in the Peach State. They also hope that by paying a bit more, the animals will lead a better life before slaughter, with less damage to the environment.
Organic beef and pork sales have grown by more than 20% each year since 2009, according to the Organic Trade Association. But it remains a small percentage of most Americans’ total grocery spending because organic meat generally costs more, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
U.S. sales of certified organic products approached $70 billion in 2023, a record for the sector, and up 3.4% compared to 2022, according to the trade association. Most organic foods sold in the U.S. are fruits and vegetables. Organic meat, poultry and seafood account for just 2.9% of sales.
Given that Americans consume so much meat — annual conventional meat sales in the U.S. top $100 billion, according to the Good Food Institute — even a small uptick in organic, local production can mean a good opportunity for local businesses. Those specializing in poultry stand to benefit the most, due to strong growth in demand, the USDA said.
Alex Sher of the H.E.R.O. Farmed Cooperative says distrust in the food industry is helping drive sales of Georgia-raised meats. Sher’s company sells grass-fed beef, pork and sausages sourced from farms in Davis and Jonesboro counties, and it delivers to homes in Atlanta.
Some customers in Georgia and around the nation are willing to pay more for food they feel that they can trust. “It’s a national movement,” Sher said. “There’s nothing unique about Georgia’s desire to consume natural, regenerative products,” or those that are raised with less harm to the environment.
Credit: Michael Scaturro
Credit: Michael Scaturro
Sher says the company’s products are safer for human health because animals aren’t raised in cramped factory farms, where illnesses can spread quickly, as bird flu outbreaks in commercial poultry operations and dairy farms have shown. H.E.R.O. slaughters a maximum of 500 head of cattle per year, he said.
“Our product travels less than 100 miles from where it is raised, then processed, to where it is consumed,” Sher said.
The company also avoids antibiotics and chemicals made with bromine.
Industrial producers bathe animal carcasses and meat-processing machinery in bromide washes to kill off salmonella and E. coli. Unlike other chemicals such as chlorine, bromine doesn’t discolor meat and is far less corrosive to equipment.
But several bromide derivatives have been identified as health hazards, and many more have been implicated as possible carcinogens, according to Food Safety News. One study found that Americans are exposed to higher amounts of bromine via the food supply than people in Europe and Japan.
Moreover, because Sher’s animals are only given organic feed, his entire supply chain is free of glyphosate — a herbicide that has been linked to cancer but is used on home lawns and gardens as well as commercial food crops.
Experts are concerned that glyphosate-containing herbicides, like Bayer’s Roundup, ultimately end up in humans who eat grains treated with glyphosate or animals that eat feed crops treated with glyphosate.
Bayer has paid billions to settle lawsuits linking Roundup to cancer. The European Union has sought to limit the use of glyphosate, while allowing it in farming as a means of preserving crop yields. The product is widely used in the U.S., but some farmers and environmentalists want to see it banned.
Shaun Terry, who raises chickens in Mansfield and sells nearly all of his broilers at the Carter Center’s Freedom Farmers Market and Peachtree Road Market, says his customers want more out of their food.
“One of the main reasons people seek out our products is to avoid antibiotics and pesticides,” he said.
When animals raised for food are given antibiotics, the meat can contain antibiotic residues. This, in turn, is bad for humans because it can have health effects and create antibiotic resistance in bacteria that can also impact human health. Some studies have also linked allergies to penicillin with use of antibiotics in livestock. The FDA has established rules around antibiotic use in food animals, but controversy over the practice continues.
Some studies have shown that there’s little nutritional difference between organic and nonorganic foods and that non-organics have a longer shelf life. Affordability also remains an issue, as organic food prices have risen more quickly than their conventional counterparts.
Terry said inflation in the U.S. has made his organic poultry comparable in price to broilers found in chain supermarkets. Moreover, he says, his product tastes better because the birds can jump around outside, getting exercise in the fresh air.
“It makes for a better tasting meat, a better texture,” he said. “There’s a world of difference between what we are doing and what you can find in the grocery store.”
The benefits of locally sourced meat from Georgia are what led Jacin Fitzgerald of Atlanta to place an order with Kinship. On the menu this year? Christmas prime rib roast and short ribs for New Year’s dinner.
“It’s a tradition with our family,” she said. “It’s definitely a topic at the table and something that plays a really important role in our holiday tradition but also our lives.”
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