We first started our farm, Simply Grazin’ in Hopewell, New Jersey in 1997. At first, we were raising chickens and gifting them to family and friends.
It was just something that was needed in our community. We did not intend to start a business.
However, over 20 years later, our family business has expanded to include grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork. Currently, we do not sell our meat directly from the farm to consumers, but interested shoppers can find us at Walden Local Meats and Skillman Farm Market and Butcher Shop.
If you are a New Jersey resident looking to buy our meats we highly recommend you shop at Skillman Farm Market and Butcher Shop, located at 1932 US Highway 206, Skillman, NJ 08558. They only sell our meat products and truly offer a farm to butcher to table experience.
To continue with our standards of animal welfare and field management we control what our livestock eat our animals graze only on our land and we make our own hay for the winter months. As our business expanded, we ran out of land in New Jersey. What was once open land when we began farming had been taken out of production and either ended up as large estates or was paved over for strip malls and two-lane highways.
In 2003, we were the first farm in our county to conserve our land through the New Jersey state farmland protection program. At that time, you could buy an acre of farmland for $4,000 per acre. Now the last farmable 100-acres is $22,000 per acre. Today, there is no land available to grow a farm business in Hopewell, NJ.
The industry continues to change and in 2023 our Virginia farms were closed and the NJ farm will be phased out, as we must downsize. Simply Grazin’ now operates in New York.
