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8012 Hankins Industrial Park Toano, VA 23168 800-831-1828 • wholesale@ThePeanutShop.com Ask about our Free Freight Program! Scan here to view our 2016 Wholesale Catalog Handcooked for the Holidays VIRGINIA PEANUTS Lightly Salted or Salt Free – 5 sizes Winter Fancy Food Show Booth 988 His grandparents, Milton and Juanita, both died in 2009 and left their farm to Faison and his two siblings, one a neurosci- entist and another an English teacher, both of whom wanted to stick with their careers. Their father, also a farmer, had died young. For a time, Faison traveled back and forth between Florida and Virginia, trying to figure out what to do with the land. He met with local farmers and saw how they were struggling to survive. According to a 2015 Agricultural Resource Management Survey, he says, small-scale cattle ranchers lose about $1,800 per year and sustainably raised pork farmers have a yearly deficit of $5,000. "Independent farmers have to be the grower, the distributor, the marketer, and the accountant," he says. "That's a lot to ask of one person. They were being neglected and left to their own devices to try to make a living. I thought, if I put together a business to help those types of farms, I could take some of those burdens off their shoulders." Faison began to work with a farmer- curator and paid visits to regional farms to assess their practices, and see for him- self that they were raising their animals without antibiotics, hormones, and steroids. He learned about their problems and their needs. A level of trust developed. A mission- focused idea took shape. "I really wanted to come back and give it a go," he says of his decision to ultimately leave the international business world for the great outdoors. His girlfriend (now wife), Elizabeth, was also an attorney and was supportive even though she doesn't eat meat. "She's a pescatarian," he says, "but she's been a real trooper." Faison believed there was a strong demand in the region for all-natural meats and had to find a way to demonstrate it. "I approached it from a consumer standpoint, thinking about how I liked to eat," he says. "Small farmers are not necessarily up on the trends in affluent cities so they didn't know about the growing market for the meat they had." Scaling the Business Saison, a progressive, New American restau- rant in Richmond, Va., was the company's first client. Today about 40 restaurants, including several in Washington, D.C. and Maryland, have Milton's Local-sourced meat on their menus. Wholesale items that Faison and his team distribute include strip loin, grass-fed ground beef, pork belly, and pork chops. They are sold at Mid-Atlantic retail outlets like Mom's Organic Market, Union Market and Wegmans, through CSAs, co-ops, and online. The company will deliver anywhere in the continental U.S. Individual farms are listed on the (continued on p. 68) FALL 2016 29