Elkhorn Farm & Forge

Matt represents everything positive about a direct farm to table connection and we are thrilled we found him.
Purchased ½ a pig in July, 2015 and was so happy with the whole process. Matt is great to work with, super professional and every detail of ordering and payment went really well. I love that the pigs are raised humanely and are healthy. It’s very empowering to feed my family meat that isn’t factory farmed or filled with chemicals. This meat is clean and tasty and I’m really enjoying cooking with it. I’ve worked with all the innards (made Hungarian Hurka sausage with the liver, head bits and part of the shoulder), braised the cheeks in a sauce with sherry and have rendered the lard. Now that I’ve made a pie crust with this lard I can never go back to margarine! My family won’t allow it!
Working with The Meating Place was super easy and the guys there even had tips for me as I experimented for the first time with the head. Now our freezer is full and I can’t wait to make our way through the hams, bacon and chops. When we’re ready for more pork, we’ll definitely be back for more.

I purchased a whole hog from Elkhorn Farm & Forge in July of 2015 (delivery early Aug), and I can’t say enough good things about the transaction and the product. Matt was great to work with from beginning to end; very good communication, terrific and easy process throughout, and great attention to detail, and even accommodated my (fairly minor) custom request. Matt requires a very modest deposit at the time of reservation, and delivery (at least for me) was about a month later — with full payment due at the time the hog was delivered to the butcher. Pricing is a tad higher than you would pay in the grocery store, but still quite fair — particularly in view of 1) not supporting the abomination that is factory farming, and 2) supporting local, sustainable farming.
Now, a word about the quality of the product — WOW! Seriously, this is as far removed from the bland, generic, bulk produced stuff as you can get. This pork has a great texture, and outstanding flavor. The chops cook up more like a nicely marbled steak as opposed to the droll mass-​marketed stuff that ends up coming out dry and tasteless. I am seriously impressed!
I also love the fact that Matt uses a great local butcher (The Meating Place, in Hillsboro). I love this butcher and everything they do, and I love the ability to have my order custom-​cut to my specs (for example, I love double-​cut chops), and the bacon is outstanding!
If you want great pork at a fair price, look no further!

Elkhorn Farm & Forge actually raises their pigs in a pasture, outdoors! Very humane! They specialize in the Gloucestershire Old Spot heritage breed and the taste & quality is much better than the factory farmed pork from the supermarket. The owner is a fantastic farmer and business person. The only concern is that they sell out fast, so put in your orders early or wait until the next lot is ready.