By Grant Guggisberg
OLSBURG – Drive 30 minutes north of Manhattan, and you’ll find a country road just off K-16. Another mile or so on that gravel road leads to a well-kept ranch-style home where Craig and Amy Good have lived for more than 25 years.
The two own around 900 acres, but most of that is just pasture. For the business they own and operate, they don’t need nearly that much space. Like much of the farms along the Kansas countryside, the Goods spend their days raising livestock. However, at Good Farms, the focus is on swine, specifically, purebred Duroc hogs.
Operating as a producer for Heritage Foods USA, the Goods raise two breeds of purebred swine, as well as around 100 head of certified Angus beef and various crops. Their proven specialty is their Duroc swine, which Craig Good claims has more flavor and consumer appeal than other pork.
“The purebred Duroc is a really good breed for production, in terms of growing quickly and efficiently,” Craig Good said. “The Durocs have a reputation as having good meat quality as well.”
A farmer from the start
Craig Good has been working with animals for nearly 50 years. His father bought the Good farm in 1964 and he spent most of his summers working on the farm. Craig Good graduated in 1975 with a degree in Animal Science from Kansas State, and after six years of working in Junction City, moved to his childhood family farm to try and earn a living raising hogs.
“In 1981, we decided that we wanted to try coming up here on our own,” Amy Good said. “So the man that we’d been working for in Junction City helped us get a start in hogs.”
They purchased a pair of red sows that the Goods took to the lab for testing and veterinary care before bringing home a litter of baby pigs that formed the base of their farm. Initially, they sold breeding stock in pigs before making the transformation to producer and working exclusively with purebred Duroc swine.
“In the 1990s, the swine industry really started to change,” Amy Good said. “It started becoming corporatized and in to really large, large operations. We just never had the goal to be big. But at the same time, we were losing our customers, because they needed to buy from someone bigger than we were.”
Staying on top
In the early 2000s, the Goods signed on with Heritage Foods USA, a company that partners with farmers to form niche markets for specialty foods. The Duroc pig is not a rare breed, but to have meat from a purebred Duroc hog is rare. Most purebred Durocs are crossbred with other types of pig to create the hybrid breeds that make up the majority of all pork products in America. Instead, the Goods are selective with their breeding, using the hogs with the best qualities to breed and create the next generation of swine.
“I was always taught that pork quality is either acceptable or unacceptable,” Craig Good said. “But we’ve found that there are differences. Within acceptable, there is okay, and really good.”
It’s the Good’s mission to continually strive for top-level meat quality any way they can. While Craig Good admitted his farm is less advanced technologically than the larger farms, he uses technology, such as ultrasound, to enhance his product. He also gets feedback from Heritage Foods, which allows him to make choices that continue to improve the quality of the meat. They even went so far as to host their customers for a tour of the farm.
“Heritage Foods brought a group of chefs out,” Amy Good said. “Some from the San Francisco area and from New York City, they came and spent a couple days with us out on the farm. They got to know the farmer that raises some of their meat, so we’ve really enjoyed that aspect.”
While Good Farms produces a higher quality of meat than his big-name counterparts, Craig Good recognized the need for large farms.
“We’re happy to do what we do and serve our niche market,” Craig Good said. “But what we do won’t feed the world.”
Partnering with Heritage Foods USA
The Good’s partnership with Heritage Foods allows them to focus completely on creating a high-quality product. Heritage Foods does all of the marketing and distribution for them, meaning they just deliver the hogs to the processing plant in Trimble, Mo., and go home. From there, Heritage Foods markets the meat to restaurants and chefs that will pay the added premium that goes with purebred Duroc meat.
“We tried having our own private label and just marketing some meat locally,” Amy Good said. “It’s really difficult to do what we do, and then also market our own product. Plus, what you get into on a small scale, it’s so expensive to take one hog at a time and have it processed.”
Experimenting successfully
Going into business with Heritage Foods has allowed the Goods to form a niche market on a national scale for Duroc hogs, something they never could have done on their own. It also allows them to experiment a bit, something Craig Good isn’t afraid to do. He bought a large amount of dried cranberries and plums to feed his hogs to try and change the way the meat tastes. Sure enough, the meat had a distinct alternate flavor that proved popular among the chefs that normally buy from the Goods.
“They had really good positive feedback,” Craig Good said of the cranberry pork. “They could tell the difference, but it was hard to put a finger on what exactly it was. But most of them said they thought the difference was in the fat.”
The Goods enjoyed the experiment, and the pigs did too. The swine enjoyed the fruit much more than the usual oats. Craig Good said he’d consider trying something like that again, once the economy picks back up.
The Goods are also experimenting with a new breed of swine. They acquired a few Gloucestershire Old Spot hogs, an extremely rare breed of hog that is disappearing in North America. This experiment is still early in its stages, but the spotted baby pigs running around the farm create a contrast with the mostly red Duroc swine.
Staying occupied
In addition to experiments, partnering with Heritage Foods has also allowed the farm to stay small, which was always their plan. Between the nursery and the pens for the adult hogs, they typically have around 600 swine at any one time. The Goods employ just one full-time helper, and he mainly works with the cattle.
“We have two children, but they’re both away from the farm,” Amy Good said. “From time to time, we have some part-time help that comes out as well.”
In the meantime, the Goods work hard throughout the year, on more than a full-time basis. Their only breaks come in the fall, where they splurge by purchasing tickets to K-State home football games.
“There’s a lot of things I don’t do,” Craig Good said. “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t have a boat and I don’t have a summer home in the mountains.
“So, I get football tickets.”
