Montana. All of it. Our meat comes exclusively from five member ranches, all in Montana: Sieben Live Stock Company (Adel), J Bar L Ranches (Centennial Valley and Melville), Mannix Family Ranch (Helmville), LF Ranch (Augusta), and Cordova Farms (Power). Every animal is harvested and cut at our facility in Butte. Our snack sticks are stuffed and smoked at a facility in Sturgis, SD by the team from Sacred Storm Buffalo.

Yes, individual cuts have the ranch of origin printed on the label on the back of your package. The exception to this is ground beef. Because ground beef requires blending fat trim from the butchering process with lean trim to achieve the appropriate lean point (e.g. you may see options at the grocery store that include different lean percentages (e.g. 80%, 85%, 90% are typical). All pork comes from Cordova Farms.

Old Salt practices husbandry that relies on handling skills and techniques to work with an animal's mind rather than by force. All of our animals, whether beef, hogs or sheep, spend the majority of their life outside on pasture. We do not use growth hormone implants to increase muscle mass like most of the industry.

Meat is nutrient-dense food. It's packed with complete protein (all nine essential amino acids), healthy fats, zinc, heme iron, phosphorus, and essential B-vitamins—all in forms that are highly bioavailable to the human body. For decades, we were told to avoid saturated fat. That advice is increasingly being questioned. If you're curious, Nina Teicholz's Big Fat Surprise is a good place to start.

“Finishing” refers to that period after an animal has matured to the point that its frame is no longer growing and it is not ready to be fattened to finish market weight. Old Salt offers two lines of beef, one in which grain concentrate is included in the finishing ration and one in which it is not included. 

With the exception of milk prior to weaning and the seed heads produced by grasses in the pasture (seeds are technically grains), grass-finished animals do not receive any grain concentrate as part of their finishing diet. 

For our grain finished animals, at about 18 months of age they are placed on a ration that includes grass hay, alfalfa and feed-grade barley (barley that is too high in protein to be accepted by malting companies).

No, and we want to be straight with you about why. Organic certification is a USDA designation with specific requirements—primarily around feed and the prohibition of synthetic inputs. Our ranches meet or exceed many of those standards. But certification is expensive, administratively burdensome, and—in our view—doesn't fully capture what regenerative ranching actually does.

"Organic" tells you what wasn't used. It doesn't tell you whether the land is improving. Our ranches monitor and measure soil health, water infiltration, and wildlife habitat over time. That's the bar we're holding ourselves to—not a label, but measurable ecological outcomes.

It means our ranches are actively improving the land, not just sustaining it. Each Old Salt ranch works with third-party monitoring companies to measure soil health, water infiltration, and wildlife habitat over time. The goal is to leave the land better than we found it—more fertile soil, healthier streams, more diverse plant and animal communities. In practice, this means minimizing or eliminating synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that can damage the living systems we depend on.

We see wildlife as neighbors, not nuisances—even the challenging ones like coyotes, grizzlies, and wolves. Diverse wildlife is actually a strong indicator of healthy land. Our ranches develop management plans to minimize conflicts while supporting habitat, and we collaborate with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Audubon Conservation Ranching, World Wildlife Fund, and others.

It means the people raising the animals own the company selling them. Old Salt Co-op is structured as a co-op, with our five member Ranchers as the owners. They're not vendors we purchase from—they're partners with a stake in every decision, from pricing to processing. When Old Salt does well, the ranchers do well. That alignment changes everything about how we operate.

Because ownership matters. Most food companies extract value from producers and funnel it elsewhere. A co-op flips that. Our Ranchers own the infrastructure—the butcher shop, the processing facility, the marketplace—so profits stay with the people stewarding the land. It's a structure built for long-term thinking, not short-term margins.

In two concrete ways: ownership and infrastructure. Rancher-owners receive fair compensation for their animals and share in the co-op's financial success. But equally important, they have access to our processing facility, distribution network, and direct customer relationships—infrastructure that individual ranches rarely have on their own. That access increases their capacity to ranch well and ranch sustainably.

Yes. Bundles are one of the best ways to stock your freezer with a variety of cuts at a better price per pound. Subscriptions let you set a cadence that works for your household—monthly, every six weeks, whatever fits. You can pause or adjust anytime. If you're new to buying direct, a bundle is a great place to start.

Your order arrives frozen and vacuum-sealed. Move it straight to the freezer if you're not cooking within a few days—it'll keep well for up to 12 months. Ready to cook? Thaw in the refrigerator overnight. For best results, pull it from the fridge 30–45 minutes before cooking to let it come to room temperature. Once thawed, use within 3–5 days.

We ship directly to your door across the contiguous United States. Orders are packed with dry ice and insulated liners to arrive frozen and ready for your freezer. Montana customers also have the option to pick up at our butcher shop located in The Union in downtown Helena, or through local delivery routes—often the most affordable way to buy. Find the complete details here.

Local orders can be ready within 48 hours for pickup. Online orders ship every Tuesday and arrive within 2 days of shipment, depending on your location. You'll receive a tracking number as soon as your order leaves our facility.

That shouldn't happen—but if it does, we want to make it right. Take a photo and reach out to us at service@oldsaltco-op.com within 48 hours of delivery. We'll sort it out. No runaround, no fine print.