Perseverance Brings Meat to Market
Story by Katy Budge
Photography by Hugo Martinez
Those who buy tri tips, steaks or roasts from a local rancher at a farmers’ market have Debbie Paver and her dogged determination to thank. Despite being told for over a decade that she couldn’t sell her beef in such a manner, she finally prevailed. “In 1998, I became the first one in California to sell individual cuts of meat at a farmers’ market,” Debbie recalls. Since that fateful day at the Saturday farmers’ market in Templeton over two decades ago, she’s only missed four markets.
Owner and Purveyor of Charter Oak Style Meats, Debbie says her customers return because of the high quality of her meat. “They know where it’s grown and how it’s raised. These cattle are well fed — they get grass when it rains and locally grown barley hay year-round.” The cattle are humanely raised, with no hormones or antibiotics. The beef cuts are dry aged for at least two weeks to further enhance the flavor before Paver brings them to market. Because she’s sourcing solely from her own herd, “when a certain cut runs out, it runs out,” she says.
Breeding Success
Born and raised in Templeton, Debbie grew up immersed in agricultural traditions and became involved in 4-H with the intention of raising lambs. But that ended up not being her fancy or her forte. Still, she found her place in ranching thanks to a longtime family friend. “Ellis Roth told my parents, ‘She needs a heifer, ’” Debbie recalls. That conversation marked the start of her Four Oaks registered Angus breeding business at the ripe old age of nine. She turned out to have a keen eye for genetic characteristics, and went on to find much success breeding and showing award-winning cattle.
Breeding cattle might have remained Debbie’s only business focus if not for an “aha” moment while attending University of California, Davis for an animal science degree. She’d grown up eating beef raised by local ranchers, “but there was such a huge difference versus that and the meat we were getting at the grocery store,” she reflects. “I wanted people to have the same quality we’d always had.”
After returning home from Davis, Debbie continued her Four Oaks breeding business but also parlayed her passion and knowledge into raising cattle for meat under the name Charter Oak Beef. After having the animals processed at a federally approved facility, she sold quarters and halves of animals to friends and family. That was and still is a legally acceptable practice because it isn’t considered direct sale to the public. But the evolution of her business faced some challenges.
As her beef business grew, people began to ask about individual cuts, rather than the larger quantities. Debbie thought she could just start offering those at farmers’ markets, especially since it was allowed in other states. But California lawmakers had other ideas; state rules adhered to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations. That meant any individual cuts of beef sold directly to consumers “had to be processed, cut and wrapped within the same federally inspected facility — with a USDA stamp,” she explains.
Well, that was a steer of a different color; there was no such full-service facility in the area.
Perseverance Pays Off
So began Debbie’s pursuit of calling state officials and being told she could absolutely not sell her individual cuts of meat at farmers’ markets. Despite the pushback, she kept calling, continued researching state and federal laws and, well, called some more. Over 10 years later, a solution appeared ironically from the very first official who had told her “no way.”
“He called and said, ‘It’s not going to be easy, but here’s how you can do it,’” Debbie remembers. “Finally, things had changed.” It turns out California’s regulatory Gordian Knot had centered on liability. With the new rules, all that was necessary was a simple label with the cut-and-wrap facility’s USDA stamp and the wording: “Packaged for Debbie Paver by (facility name).” The individual package of beef just needed to be able to be traced back to her.
Paying It Forward
The year 2022 marks Debbie’s 26th year of selling beef at the Templeton farmers’ market and she also sells her products at the Cambria market every other Friday. Over the years, she’s added pork and lamb to her Charter Oak Style Meats lineup, all raised with the same care as her beef. And she’s done all this while working full-time as a large animal veterinary assistant in Templeton and as a 4-H leader. During her 44 years in the organization, she has passed along her passion for responsible cattle breeding to several generations of children.
The 4-H tradition teaches them untold life lessons, including hard work, ethics and economics. But Debbie also notes that “even if the kids never raise another animal, they at least come away understanding where their food comes from. That’s so important.”
