Our Story
Background
Growing up on family farms and cattle ranches on the opposite ends of California, Jack Rice and I (Jay Shipman) had similar upbringings. Our families taught us the value of faith, work ethic and to love the land, the livestock and the ranching way of life. It stuck and we both attended Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to major in Agriculture Business Management and Crops Sciences. This is where Jack and I formed our friendship and began to form the ideas that would later be J & J.
The Seed
After finishing school and working for several years, Jack and I found an opportunity to put some of our ideas to use. Together we wrote a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grant proposal for an organic beef production and marketing project to be conducted in California?s growing organic beef segment. Our project was chosen and approved for funding in April of 2003. Our successful grant proposal gave us the confidence and hope that our ideas and skills could also be turned into a successful sustainable agriculture business venture.
Personnel Ownership
Three years later (2005) after several months of physical discomfort, my wife found out her body was attacking itself. The condition was considered permanent and doctors recommended medication and conventional treatments that most said would be for life. After prayer, months of research, education and advice from health conscious friends, relatives and professionals we decided to pursue primarily nutritional and holistic methods of treatment. Our family, although we tried to exercise and eat right our bodies were not healthy and it was showing. It was then the Shipman family had a revelation, ?All food is not the same and must be viewed as more than just fuel to keep the body going. It was intended to make our bodies flourish, feel good, be medicinal and help our systems run like the fine tuned machines God intended them to be.? The changes in our diets and eating habits included a switch to all natural, organic (when possible) and for beef a switch to all naturally produced and 100% grassfed.
The Need
Growing up on a cattle ranch beef had always been a big part of our diets and now with my own family this was still the case. We appreciated high quality conventionally raised beef and did not mind spending more for it but now we were looking for organic, all natural and grassfed. Not knowing what to expect, our first few months of buying and eating grassfed beef were filled with disappointment and frustration. The availability was very limited, quality was poor and inconsistent making the product unattractive at any price. We came very close to abandoning buying grassfed beef.
The Beginning
While corresponding with Jack via email on our situation and beef purchasing predicament, our old ideas began to re-ignite. In combination with our experience and love for the ranching life, sustainable ideas seeded in college, confirmed in our SARE grant and now our personnel need for a healthier more natural grassfed beef, J & J Grassfed Beef was born. Now, more than an opportunity in a growing market segment our desire was fueled by the personnel ownership over the need for healthier beef. Knowing others had to be experiencing the same frustration as we were. So in 2006, J & J Grassfed Beef produced and marketed our first all natural 100% grassfed beef.