Clark Summit Meat Club Details

The Meat Club is currently capped at 150 members and is full. We re-open it to new members only about twice a year. You can add yourself to the waiting list here, but we advise you to read the following disclaimers first.

All our beef is 100% grassfed (yes those really are our cows in the photo above) and has been hung to dry-age for 3 weeks for best flavor. All our pork is from pastured pigs fed organic whey from Cowgirl Creamery, organic grains, and our own scraps. The chickens are raised in movable pens and their "salad bar" is augmented by organic grains. The laying hens have the run of the farm.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Please read thoroughly before joining.

FOR PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS | FOR CURRENT MEMBERS

Is the Clark Summit Meat Club a CSA? What is a "CSA," anyway?
Yes. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a way for the food-buying public to enter into a relationship with a farm and to receive a share of the harvest. By making a financial commitment to a farm (usually the whole season, but in this case on a three-month basis), people become "members" (or "shareholders," or "subscribers") of the CSA.

So how is this different from my veggie box CSA?
That's a GREAT question. We are glad you asked. :-) It is quite different. Dealing with meat is much more challenging. There are only a handful of meat CSAs in the whole country, and most of the other ones are just beef or maybe beef and lamb, or give you 30 pounds or so once a quarter.

The reason it is difficult is because we are breaking down whole animals. Your vegetable farmer can give everyone five zucchini; we cannot give everyone two pork chops — there aren't enough to go around. So we have to make decisions on the fly about who gets what, and not everyone will always be happy. (You know how in your veggie box sometimes you get too much kale? Well sometimes you get too much chuck roast.) We also can't just leave the boxes on someone's porch; the meat has to be frozen, for food-safety reasons, and someone needs to be home to make sure the right bag goes to the right person (hey, it happens 90% of the time). This also means if you forget to pick up your bag, it is a hassle for the host: she/he has to find freezer space.

When are pickups?
Around the third week of the month, usually a Wednesday at 6-8 pm. We give you at least two weeks' notice or more on the dates. Right now Liz & Dan are delivering to a couple of central locations: Emeryville at Meat Club wrangler Bonnie's house on San Pablo Ave. San Francisco residents can pick up from a house in Castro/Noe site, and Marin County residents can pick up in Tiburon or the farm. More info on pickup locations and details gets sent out in advance of the delivery.

Can I specify which cuts I get?
You can try. We operate on a first ordered, first served basis, in which the inventory form is opened at a certain time. Stuf disappears quick. If you are really attached to only getting certain cuts, then farmers markets and butcher shops areprobably a better option for you.

Can I skip the pork/chicken/eggs and get double beef instead, etc?
Maybe, see above.

Am I going to get stuck with a beef tongue? Or horrors, liver???
Yes, if you are not nice to Bonnie, the Meat Club's volunteer organizer! Just kidding. Only if you order them. We offer offal and organ meats such as tongue (beef and pork), feet, oxtail, etc., even whole pig's heads for making head cheese to those who want them.

This sounds kind of disorganized. What happens if I don't like it?
As we mentioned before, this is a challenging venture — otherwise there would be more of them around the country. We are constantly trying to improve the system, but really we can only offer only this guarantee: Mistakes will happen! If they are big ones, we will try our best to rectify them. If they are small, we ask that you bear with us. Hopefully, we will get things right for you at least two out of your three months. If you are a person who likes to know exactly what you are getting, and who gets irritated by mild chaos and disorder…then you are welcome to come out to the farm and help pack the orders once a month. :-) Or maybe this is not the right meat CSA for you.

Why is So-and-So’s meat CSA cheaper than Clark Summit's?
We base our prices on our costs, not on what other farms are doing. Many other farms have decided not to use organic feed like we do because it is prohibitively expensive. We are also a very small operation, with fewer than 100 cattle and 100 pigs, and thus do not have economies of scale when it comes to slaughtering, bulk feed ordering, etc. We would like to be able to lower our prices but the truth is we will likely have to keep raising them, as we do not intend to lower our standards. At the moment Dan (Liz’s husband) has to have a full-time off-farm job in order for them to break even.

OK, you haven't succeeded in scaring me off. How can I sign up?
Unfortunately, the Meat Club is currently full and has a waiting list. You can add yourself to the waiting list here.

FAQs FOR CURRENT MEMBERS

The initial subscription period was pretty bumpy. We didn’t get chicken the first month, you forgot to deliver the eggs the second month, and you were short on pork the third. What gives?
Unfortunately, the first rule of Meat Club is that something will always go wrong with Meat Club. Sometimes it’s traffic, preventing us from getting the meat from Tomales to San Francisco and the East Bay when we said we would, and so you have to wait when you come to pick up. Sometimes it’s just an oversight — a pound of ground beef didn’t get into every single bag, or there was some ground pork mistakenly stored in the hamburger freezer. (Liz and Dan do not have the world's most organized setup.) Or maybe your order ended up in the wrong cooler and went to the East Bay instead of San Francisco. This kind of thing happens every single time.

On top of that, running a small, sustainable farm is an unpredictable business. Sometimes predators or heat stroke get the chickens at the most inopportune times. Or the hens stop laying before they’re supposed to. Or the butcher is an older, forgetful person who doesn’t always keep very good track of things and Liz & Dan didn’t notice that all their stuff isn’t in the crates they picked up and put in the freezer. The other complication is that Bonnie, the person handling the logistical & communications side of the Meat Club (writing these FAQs and answering your emails) is a busy freelance writer in Oakland who does this on a volunteer basis. Sometimes she and Liz cross wires.

We offer only this guarantee: Mistakes will happen! If they are big ones, we will try our best to rectify them. If they are small, we ask that you bear with us. If you are a person who likes to know exactly what you are getting and who gets irritated by mild chaos and disorder…then you are welcome to come out to the farm and help pack the orders once a month. :-) Or maybe this is not the right meat CSA for you.

I signed up and paid, but now I am going on vacation for a month. Do you offer refunds?
No, but we will credit you for a future month.

I ordered a bunch of stuff, and then I saw it was sold out. How come?
Liz & Dan have a very rudimentary inventory system and our ordering system is just a Google spreadsheet attached to a Web form. If there are only two oxtails, then whoever orders first gets them. Unfortunately we don’t have a way to indicate quantities and stop taking orders when we run out except manually.

How long do your eggs last?
These eggs are very fresh, laid within a few days of delivery, especially compared to what you get in the grocery store. They should easily last three weeks or even a month! Bonnie for example does not refrigerate hers but leaves the carton on the counter (like the Europeans do, the better for cooking). Extra cartons she keeps in the fridge then takes out; she has found them good up to a month.

I got a bad egg. What should I do?
You should throw it away. We’re sorry. One of the perils of free-range chickens is that sometimes they lay eggs outside their boxes, and we collect these eggs thinking they are fresh when they are … not. This rarely happens, by the way, but rarely is not “never.” You will know as soon as you crack it that it is bad. Believe me.

Can I visit the farm?
Yes, but please don’t just stop by. Liz & Dan are on the go from dawn til well after dusk and cannot accommodate drop-ins. They do offer a public farm tour one Saturday a month; email them to find out when the next one is. We also fully intend to have a Clark Summit Meat Club open house/workday, but just have not yet found the time.

Will you ever send out recipes? How about a newsletter?
Someday! If you would like to volunteer your time and help to make this happen, or to finish Liz & Dan’s half-done website, or any other things along those lines, please let us know.

What about....?
If your question is not answered here, email Meat Club manager Bonnie Powell at meatclub@clarksummitfarm.com