Home Recipes Articles Order About Farm Contact Us Links

About Hillview Farm

Grass Roots Beef is produced on the pastures of 100 rolling acres of family-owned Hillview Farm in southwestern Ontario near Mount Forest. Dennis Starkey, owner/operator is new to the ranching business, having purchased the farm in 1996 after a career in education. Stockman Grass Farmer publisher and "grass guru" Allan Nation claims that the unfair advantage of such new ranchers is that they don't have to unlearn all the commonly held wisdom of the last several generations of livestock farmers.

The registered Canadian Galloway cattle are fed only the grass grazed in the pastures and then the beef is dry-aged for 21 days to maximize the nutritional, flavour and tenderness benefits. No grain, corn, antibiotics or animal by-products are fed, no hormones are used. Farm-grown hay is fed at the new open-sided barn during the winter. Local life-long farmers have been known to comment about Hillview Farm, "You must be doing something right, it's green like a farm again." "I know nothing other than low-stress management of cattle," says Dennis, "they come running when I call, hoping to get a scratch behind the ear and be led to new grass."

They drink water from the same well as the family farm, which is pumped out to each of the pastures by the farm pressure system. The first Grass Roots Beef was produced in the fall of 2002 and was all pre-ordered by individual families through word-of-mouth advertising. Orders will be taken year round, but quarters of beef are available, cut, wrapped and frozen, only in the fall. Customers will be invited to pick up their order at the annual Fall Harvest Celebration at the farm, where they mingle with other nutrition-conscious families, while enjoying Grass Roots burgers and an opportunity to walk the pastures with the cattle.