Our Mission, Our Vision, Our Promise

Our mission, our vision, our promise

Carson Valley Meats’ mission is to preserve the agricultural character of the Carson Valley, promote the education of future generations of ranchers, and support local ranchers and producers in any way possible, including establishing a processing facility for local ranchers and livestock producers to process locally so that our neighbors and surrounding communities may purchase regionally sourced meats.

Our Carson Valley Meats Ranch Boxes are a way to connect our local community with our regional food producers. Our proposed facility in the area zoned specifically for general industrial purposes will support the “Farm to Table” movement by providing a viable local alternative for both the producer AND the consumer. This operation will reduce the cost of production of meat for local ranchers and provides a high-quality, fresh source of meat for area residents.

We are here to give the ranchers and producers the support they need so they can keep our valley full of open space, preserve the agricultural way of life and provide our region with the highest quality locally produced products.

By Karin Sinclair, Carson Valley Meats Founder

My goal with purchasing the historic Storke Dairy in Gardnerville was to turn it into a working ranch again. And we have. We cut our own hay from our fields to feed our livestock. We have cattle in the pastures and animals in the barns. We’ve improved the slough and the land, cleaned up decades of trash and detritus and we can proudly say this is a working ranch, providing locally sourced meats for our neighbors.

I keep saying they’re not making any more dirt, so it’s a really big thing to preserve the ground that’s there. The history of the Storke Dairy, is a really big thing because it meant so much to the family and it was a real hard decision for them to close it up and move. So, I wanted to revamp that and bring it back.

The same with Carson Valley Meats. The history of Carson Valley Meats is still a big deal in the Carson Valley, and the people we spoke with, some were teary-eyed about the idea of bringing it back through providing locally produced food products to our community.

As a rancher, I raise my animals on this historic ground. There’s a lot of good things that people used to do, and if we can learn from them, we can preserve them. As a food producer, I subscribe to the Temple Grandin humane treatment of animals philosophy.  My animals are lovingly raised and humanely processed.

Bringing back the history of the place is big to me. If you listen to the prior owners of that dairy and how sad they were to leave it, if you can bring that back and make it better…. that was always something I was taught. If you borrow something, you return it in as good, if not better, shape than when you borrowed it. And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to bring that back. And I did.

By Mike Holcomb, Carson Valley Meats Operations Manager

This is a valley full of cattle. Many local ranchers are struggling to get their animals harvested because the facilities around the region are full. It’s a tremendous waste of energy for people to have to truck their animal’s miles away when we have the ability to do this right here in our backyard.

The existing processing facilities in the region are booked solid, and it often creates a problem for ranchers who may not be ready in their pre-arranged appointment time, but have animals in their pipelines who will be ready outside that time frame.

Our Carson City plant will be open to anybody and everybody.

We’re thinking maybe 20 beef per week, the other 40 would be spread between goats, sheep, lambs and pigs. It could be 30 beef one week; we just don’t know. There’s got to be a give and take with the ranchers and that’s our goal. To add another avenue for those ranchers who all of a sudden have an animal they have to get it processed.

The county paperwork shows 60 animals a week total. That’s not 60 beef, 60 sheep and 60 goats. It’s 60 animals a week. It could be one beef and 59 sheep. That’s the county code. It’s important for people to understand it’s 60 animals a week per county code. That’s it.