ANYTHING WORTH DOING IS WORTH DOING RIGHT.

Casey and Annie Miller have always been driven to do the right thing.

Casey first started working in the meat industry at The Meating Place in Hillsboro when he was 16 years old, learning the tricks of the trade under Steve Crossley, the original owner who became Casey’s mentor and lifelong friend. After a decade spent honing his skills as a meatcutter and manager at local grocery stores and meat outlets, he and his wife couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy The Meating Place and make it their own.

The Millers built The Meating Place into a 20,000 square-foot meat mega store in 2019, offering the highest quality meats available, including smoking and curing all of their own sausage and smoked products. The Meating Place custom slaughter and processing operation also expanded in 2019, and is now one of the busiest custom shops in Oregon. In 2020, the Millers expanded The Meating Place Café, serving up delicious sandwiches and breakfast burritos. Within the three sectors of The Meating Place business, there are now more than 60 employees, a far cry from when Casey first re-opened The Meating Place in 2011 with only 2 employees.

Casey aspired to make his meat business more environmentally conscious and future-ready, compared to the mega carbon-producing, feedlot-filling, oil-sucking corporate farm practices that dominate the US beef supply. What bothered Casey most about the meat industry was the excessive, wasteful use of plastic and the carbon emissions spent transporting meat from farms to store shelves. Casey looked for ways to improve how he delivered meat to their customers – solutions that became crucial when COVID-19 threw the meat supply chain into disarray and exposed dangerous gaps in the US beef supply chain.

Casey and Annie Miller talk with Meating Right partners Andrew Turner and Katie Uetz at the Top Valley ranch in Forest Grove, Oregon.

“I FIRST STARTED THINKING ABOUT OPENING OUR OWN RANCH AFTER COVID HIT THE SHORT MEAT SUPPLY WITH THE LIMITED NUMBER OF MAJOR SLAUGHTERHOUSES IN THE COUNTRY,” CASEY EXPLAINS. “I WANTED TO PROVIDE A MORE LOCAL, SUSTAINABLE, RELIABLE FOOD SOURCE FOR OUR COMMUNITY – SOMETHING THAT COULD WITHSTAND EXTERNAL FACTORS AND FEED OUR COMMUNITY AT A MINIMAL CARBON FOOTPRINT.”

Casey teamed up with Andrew Turner, a longtime employee and master mind of The Meating Place’s custom slaughter division. With Andrew’s vast knowledge of livestock and slaughter experience, Casey and Andrew started mapping out their plan to bring “Meating Right” to life here in Hillsboro. Andrew leased farmland in Forest Grove and started raising his own herd under his “Top Valley” brand, designing a stringent feeding process to help grow the best beef possible. Casey went to work on getting the inspected slaughter operation up and running. Together they aim to bring the highest quality and most environmentally friendly beef possible, exclusively to The Meating Place.

The new Top Valley farm in Forest Grove is just a short 14 miles away from The Meating Place. Meating Right beef are raised and slaughtered all on this spacious local farm: never packed in tight like at major feed lots, never stressed out by a strenuous trip to a big slaughterhouse. It’s not only more humane to the cows, but friendlier to the planet too.

“WE’RE ABLE TO REDUCE THE CARBON OUT OF OUR BEEF BY NOT HAVING TO SHIP IT TO A FEED LOT, THEN TO A SLAUGHTERHOUSE, NEXT TO A PACKING HOUSE, WRAP IT IN PLASTIC, SEND IT TO A GROCERY STORE ONLY TO BE TAKEN OUT OF THE PLASTIC, PUT IN PLASTIC FOAM, ALL BEFORE YOU EVER SEE IT ON A STORE SHELF,” CASEY SAYS. “OUR MEATING RIGHT BEEF GOES STRAIGHT FROM OUR FARM TO THE MEATING PLACE WHERE ITS CUT AND WRAPPED FOR OUR CUSTOMERS WITHOUT EVER HITTING A PIECE OF PLASTIC.”

Meating Right cows enjoy a mid-day snack in their roomy pasture.

Better still, Meating Right beef by-products are all composted and returned to the planet for future growth – a far cry from the harmful carbon footprint most meat by-products spend during transportation and incineration.

Their hard work in environmental stewardship and community agriculture hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Millers were recently awarded a state grant from the Oregon Department of Agriculture to increase the availability of meat processing to small local farmers like them. With this grant, they can expand Meating Right supply, continue cutting their carbon footprint, service more local farmers, and offer their customers the highest-quality beef possible.

“WHEN YOU EAT ENVIRONMENTALLY-CONSCIOUS BEEF THAT’S SOURCED LOCALLY, RAISED PROPERLY, AND TREATED HUMANELY, YOU CAN FEEL GREAT ABOUT YOUR IMPACT ON THE PLANET,” CASEY SAYS.

Come taste Meating Right for yourself at The Meating Place, at 6585 NW Cornelius Pass Road in Hillsboro. The Meating Place is open Tuesday-Saturday 9am-6pm and Sunday 9am-5pm.