Our family began our foray into beef cattle when I was quite young. I remember clearly the day my father came home from a cattle auction with three very large (and I thought beautiful) brown cows. My sister and I did the honors and named them Sparkle, Anna, and Rosie. My parents had always wanted us to grow up on a farm, and with chickens, horses, bees, dogs, and cats, the seemingly next natural step was to have a cow or two (or three!) Over the years, the herd grew, at first little by little. At one time, we had a few dairy cows, much to my mother’s chagrin, but it was decided that we ought to stick to beef cattle. Much less work. In 2013, after 31 years in civil construction, my father decided to try to make a go of cattle ranching full time. In the summers, I helped and learned about the labors of raising and feeding cattle, and it was not yet to my immediate liking. I graduated high school, and went off to college, still helping out at times, driving tractors, baling hay, and tagging calves. After a summer away for an internship in the big city of Philadelphia and with one year of college left, I began to worry that the corporate world and big city living just was not for me. I loved being outside, loved working in an active, dynamic environment, loved animals- it took me a while to connect the dots, but the cattle ranch was calling me home. Luckily, when I graduated college, there was a place for me, with the understanding that I would work hard to earn my keep, and that I would do my best to add value to the business. 

Since 2013, the ranch has grown. Land was purchased and developed as our primary location. The pastures and facilities at the original location are still used to house our younger heifers, stockers, and bulls. The main herd of mature cows and their calves, as well as our hay fields and processing facility, are at the main location, Neverdun Farms at Cane Savannah, which brings me to the purpose of this brief telling of our story. 

In the years previous to 2020, we sold a few animals a year as beef shares directly to local customers. We always wished there was a way to do that on a larger scale, because when selling to feedlot buyers, small producers like us end up making barely enough to maintain the herd. However, it was a challenge to get more than a few slots a year at a processing facility. Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit, and the world ground to a halt. Weaknesses in the supply chain were exposed, and people became concerned when they saw empty shelves in the grocery stores. Demand for food security and sustainability increased exponentially. Additionally, the provenance of the food we eat was at the front of mind of many consumers, especially those with concerns about health and wellness. So, in response to all this, my father had an idea. An idea, I often joke, that involved his favorite thing in the world- Conex shipping containers. The idea of vertically integrating the business had always been out of reach, with the capital costs of building a brick and mortar processing facility well beyond our means- frankly, beyond the means of most. This has allowed for the consolidation of the meatpacking industry down to the ‘Big Four’. The ‘Big Four’ often take advantage of beef producers because of this, since there are so few places that the animals can be processed and then distributed to the public. My father’s stroke of genius was this- to build a processing facility out of shipping containers that would be state-certified, in which our animals could be processed and sold as shares and where other South Carolina beef producers could bring animals to be processed. This would allow us to sell our own beef directly to our local market, as well as giving other beef producers the opportunity to sell their beef directly, disrupting the local cattle markets. We firmly believe that what enriches others enriches us all, and cattle ranching should be a cooperative, not competitive business. We have to feed everyone, and the world population keeps growing. Why not work together to feed our communities? So, without further ado, please have a look around our website and our social media, and if you are interested in buying a beef share from us or having us process one of your animals, contact us by phone or email.