Our Values

Our History

Jasmin and I (Felix) met in boarding school in Switzerland and became high school sweethearts. During the summer holidays of 1977 we hitchhiked through Canada, starting in Montreal, to get to know what ultimately was our choice of country to live and grow in. Vehicles readily stopped and gave us rides and we got to know many wonderful people that way. What a generous people these Canadians were and still are! Back in Montreal I stayed behind with a bleeding heart and hitched rides back to Alberta where I studied Agriculture and Farrier Science at Olds Agricultural Collage, while Jasmin finished her teachers training in Schiers, Switzerland. This was before cell phones and PCs and staying in touch for young love was a challenge to say the least.

In 1979 we got married and emigrated to Canada via the ship Stephan Batory to Montreal where we bought an old pickup truck, picked up our first Boarder Collie pup and on to Olds where my first, very own saddle horse was waiting for us. Then on to Redstone, BC, where we started to ranch with our then partner and long-time friend, David. After six years, he married Debbie and together they started their own place further out West. We raised and home-schooled our four daughters, Melanie, Barbara, Dominique and Fiona, who all have their own families.

Over the years we attended seminars, conferences, symposiums and schools all over North America to learn about low stress animal handling, cell grazing, precise mineral supplementation, mineral-water-energy cycles, winter-grazing vs. winter-feeding of cattle, drought planning, diversification and direct marketing, economics and finance.

In 2000, Andrew Lorand taught a short course on Biodynamics here at the ranch and we started applying biodynamic preparations to our land and parts of our crown range. For a number of years we sold organic beef at different farmer’s markets in Vancouver. This was a great experience; we both enjoyed the interaction with city folks who were so much more educated in regards to nutrition and organic food than what we were used to. This also was the time when we fell in love with the Commercial Drive area of Vancouver and ideas and plans started to grow about opening a shop there some day.

Over time, we acquired more land and increased our organic cattle herd. Then we added sheep, then pigs and poultry, to work into an organic diversification that ensures a steady and diverse organic meat supply for our growing customer base.

Our Values

We are about People, Animals and Healthy Soils.

Our team is responsible and we are fully accountable for the integrity and quality of PASTURE TO PLATE Products.

As food producers, we feel obligated to be transparent so that you, the consumer, can see and experience yourself what we stand for. Visitors are welcome at our ranch.

Good food, produced with integrity, knowledge and hard work cannot be cheap, as cheap always comes with a very high, and usually well-hidden cost that somebody, or something else is paying for.

Every business has to be profitable to be sustainable. Very much like a range cow who puts the fat on her back during the lush summer months to make it through the winter in good enough condition to give birth, nurse and conceive again.

That is why we chose sustainability and not “as much as possible” to be the bottom line for PASTURE TO PLATE. And we all are working hard to get there.

Ultimately, it is you, the consumer, and only you, who has the power to change the ways we treat Our People, Our Animals, Our Soils.

Every time you buy from PASTURE TO PLATE, you vote YES for our common values.