Prairie Hog Country – Bear And The Flower A New Generation of Farming

They’re putting a brand-new look on some old ideas. The founders of the business that they believe to be the largest free-range pig farm in Canada shamelessly admits that they’re in it for the money – and it appears to be working for them.

“We want to be able to provide you with that family-farm-raised pig feeling on a commercial scale, so the ethics, the values, the ways these pigs are raised – whether we have 10 pigs on the farm or a thousand – shouldn’t change,” says Chris Fasoli. He also believes his pork tastes better, in part because the pigs are out in the sun and get plenty of exercise.

“We totally believe we’re going to change the industry, one pig at a time,” says Jessica Fasoli, his wife and business partner.

“We can really influence the market – we already have in Alberta,” she said.

It wasn’t planned that way. Just over three years ago, the Fasoli’s decided to abandon their jobs in the concrete jungle and try to make a living off their land, located a couple of minutes northeast of Irricana. They had been watching other people’s cattle graze their fields while they drove to their day jobs. An accountant, Jessica had been working for the county while her husband was making big bucks in Calgary, running the family business with his two older brothers. He likes to tell people that, after 17 years together, it got old. He and his brothers decided to get a divorce.

But you can only mow the lawn so many times each week. Chris and Jessica started looking at ways he could bring in some money, including investing with a few others in a machine shop and in a craft brewery. The pigs were supposed to be a sideline.

The son of a beef producer, Chris had considered getting some cattle. But his other brother – the one who had stayed on the farm – had sold his beef herd and the infrastructure that went with it. With some solid research, the Fasoli’s were determined that free-range, antibiotic-free pigs would offer a quicker return on their investment and produce more meat per acre than beef.

In three months they put up some fences, feeders, a watering system and shelters and set up a free-range pig pasture, and then populated it in August of 2015 with a handful of pigs purchased from another free-range pig farm. They felt their best chances would be to find chefs and butchers whose predominately millennial customer base was demanding that type of meat production.

Of course, it would need a name.

“When Chris and I were thinking about naming our farm, we wanted to really create a brand. We wanted something whimsical and we wanted something millennial, because we are millennial and so are our customers,” said Jessica.

When they first met, she had nicknamed Chris “Flower” because he reminded her of the skunk in Walt Disney’s movie, Bambi. For some reason, he’s started calling her “Bear.”

Their hobby quickly overtook their other endeavours, with demand for their pork growing steadily. Working with a conventional swine breeder, they started tailoring their stock to produce hardy pigs that had the right genetics to produce nicely-coloured, flavourful cuts. While they started with a mix of Landrace, Berkshire and Duroc lines, they later dropped the Berkshire in favour of Large Whites because of the larger carcass. Bear and the Flower Farm has a major customer who specializes in larger cuts, so likes to see the pigs dress out at 225 pounds with the head removed.

Fasolis’ work with a certified swine nutritionist to ensure their pigs are getting the best feed rations.

Chris and Jessica are especially grateful for the help and advice they have been getting from everyone involved in their operation, including their veterinarian, the CQA specialist at Alberta Pork, the conventional breeders who have taken an interest in their style of farming, their nutritionist and the Australian based veterinarian/consultant who is helping them plan and design their own breeding herd.

They have purchased another quarter, not far away, where they plan to start construction in spring on free-range sow shelters. They expect to get their first gilts that fall, said Chris. While that project is getting started, they also plan to significantly increase the size of the existing operation, which currently employs five staff.

Three years after its humble beginnings, the farm that was supposed to be a hobby is shipping 60 to 80 hogs per week and its client base continues to grow.

Leaning against a fence, watching a raven peering down at his pigs, Chris says he feels much happier in coveralls and rubber boots than he did wearing his three-piece suit and jetting around the world on business.

“If my brothers came back to me and smoked a peace pipe and said, ‘Here’s $5 million to run the factory,’ I would say you need to add 10 zeroes at the end of that for me to even consider it. I’m living proof of it: Chase the happiness and the money will follow.”

He and Jessica readily admit that they had some scary times at the beginning, with lots of 3a.m. meetings to figure out how they were going meet their payroll. These days though, they’re making decent profits from each pig they sell, even though it gets hard to compete with conventional pork when prices are really soft.

Chris says the returns they see have been attracting plenty of attention, especially since they are now CQA approved. He and Jessica believe that, while there will always be a place for confined livestock barns, the idea that farmers need to grow more food is a myth.