BLOG
Recipes, Announcements and More
Faces of Foothills: Meat Manager Meg Montgomery
Meet Meg Montgomery—the meat manager at Foothills Meats.
Meg Montgomery, the meat manager for Foothills Meats, used to be called “Farmer Meg” up until about 2 years ago when she started to work with Foothills Owner Casey McKissick and the rest of his team in Black Mountain.
Born in Virginia outside of Quantico, Meg spent her formative years in Connecticut once her dad retired from the FBI and moved his family to the area.
She got into agriculture in 2009 when she started farming for Heifer Project International—a large, international nonprofit that gives agricultural aid and relief to 37 different third-world countries. “I just wanted to feed people,” Meg explains. “My whole career focus was very much agriculture-based and feeding-people based.”
She then started bouncing around from farm to farm working as an apprentice and a farmhand, living in yurts and trailers, and gaining as much farming experience as she could. She even helped her friend start a grass-fed beef farm in Sheffield, MA which she then worked on and managed.
But Meg wanted to know all parts of the food cycle—not just the agricultural aspect. “I used to do on-site slaughtering on my farm in Massachusetts,” she explains, “and that’s what got me very interested in butchery.”
She saw an opportunity to work as a part-time butcher assistant for Casey when the Foothills location in Black Mountain was just opening. And while Meg thought she was only taking a brief hiatus from farming to learn the skill of butchery to take back to her agricultural field, she ended up falling in love with the Foothills philosophy and how they respect local farmers.
“I love that we take our money and put it back into our local economy and get to choose which farmers need our help financially,” Meg says, “and we’re making big differences.”
She says one of her favorite things about Foothills is the fact that they are providing quality products for the average consumer; something that is definitely hard to find.
“When I switched over to butchery, I found a lot of craft butcheries that were very elite,” she explains. “But the down-to-earth vibe that Foothills has, it was never about being elite—it was about good food for all.”
Her love of farming and the environment as a whole is another important reason she has decided to stay at Foothills for the long haul. “I’m an environmentalist, and agriculture and environmentalism go hand in hand,” Meg says.
She believes that as consumers, we vote with our forks, and buying meat for your local butcher and knowing the local farmers you’re buying that meat from is putting money into the pockets of people that are trying to make an environmental difference. Now more than ever, being an ethical consumer is of the utmost importance, especially with the looming environmental crisis on our hands.
“It’s definitely a privilege to be able to afford to know where your food comes from,” Meg says, “but if you take that time and money to vote with your fork, you’re paving the way for those prices to change and for things to be more accessible overall.”
Meg’s favorite thing to order at Foothills? She loves their blue plate special, which is a rotating selection of fresh meat and vegetables.
“Our chefs are able to have some creativity [with our blue plate specials],” she explains. “We have so much talent in that kitchen that it always produces some good and interesting stuff, so I’m a big fan of that.”
How Foothills Meats and Colfax Creek Farm Are Changing Our Food System
Bradley Farms provides Foothills Meats with fresh, pasture-raised pork every week. Learn more about this local farm and how they are working to change the food system for the better.
Nicole and Aaron Bradley are the proud owners of Colfax Creek Farm (formerly Bradley Farms), a beautiful farm located in Saluda, NC that raises the finest 100% grass-fed beef, pastured pork, and pasture-raised poultry.
“We try to focus on the well-being of our animals, how we’re managing our land and the environmental impact we have, and raising an animal and letting it do what it naturally wants to do,” Aaron Bradley says. “That means having pigs that can wallow and root.”
But the story of Colfax Creek Farm actually began a bit differently.
In 1901, Lewis Hipp, a man of many trades, bought the farm to settle down with his family. He made his living primarily from blacksmithing and farrier work, but also from raising crops on his new farm and selling them to the local Asheville and Spartanburg markets.
His son, Fritz Alexander Hipp, was the next to plant his roots on the farm and decided his focus would be on peaches. But the farm turned out to be the wrong environment for a peach orchard, which brought Fritz to then begin growing and selling apples. The farm quickly made its transition into a vigorous, but small scale, apple production operation, which is what it was known for for the next nearly 50 years thereafter.
And now, Colfax Creek provides Foothills Meats with fresh, pasture-raised pork every week.
“Colfax Creek Farm knows and respects the animals,” Foothills owner Casey McKissick says. “They understand how the nutrient-cycling happens on the farm, so what we put into our bodies is very intentional—a little science and a little art.”
Foothills Meats chose to work closely with Colfax Creek because of their philosophy when it comes to how they raise and care for their animals and how closely it aligns with the philosophy at Foothills.
Nicole and Aaron Bradley are regenerative farmers, which means they use farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity, resulting in both carbon drawdown and an improved water cycle.
“We’re bettering our community, we’re bettering our bodies, and we’re changing our food system so that more animals are raised in the same fashion,” Aaron Bradley says.
Colfax Creek Farm is committed to producing healthy foods, raising happy animals, and caring for our land—all of which are vital to what we’re trying to do at Foothills.
“It is possible to responsibly love animals and love meat at the same time,” McKissick says.