Now in its 10th year of operations, Virginia-based Seven Hills Food Co. is on a mission to make beef local and bring profits directly to farmers.

The full-service beef processor facilitates over 100 value-added product combinations for local family farms who process their cattle with them. They also wholesale of their own products under several different brands in Virginia, and even process cattle for producers that sell into Whole Foods branded programs. They sell their own Virginia Beef Co. brand in every Kroger and Harris Teeter in Virginia.

Ryan Ford, founder of Seven Hills Food Co., started a butcher shop in Charlottesville, Va., over a decade ago and saw a demand for local beef. He quickly realized the core issue in a local beef economy is the lack of commercially viable beef processing – as even his boutique butcher shop could not be consistently supplied by the average local beef processor, making growth impossible.

Ford found an abandoned 100-year-old beef plant and renovated it over several years. Their team began the daunting task of buying & processing local cattle, then selling their own branded products to restaurants, schools and retailers throughout Virginia.

Seven Hill’s pushed past extreme hardships since 2015, navigating startup woes and Covid-19 that wiped out most of their active customer base at the time. The Seven Hills business model has adapted over the years, now focusing on providing sophisticated processing services to local farmers that sell beef direct.

“Local farmers & finished cattle in Virginia never had access to the consumer market to this extent before we began this journey. Nearly all of the finished cattle have been getting sent to the Midwest or out of state”, said Dalton Mosser, president of Seven Hills Food Co.

With Seven Hills processing services & unique “no lead times” and farm delivery, Virginia farmers can process their cattle and sell their products, fulfilling local demand for their own regionally raised beef.

“’Industry experts’ may laugh at our niche approach, but we do a lot more than simply turn local farmers cattle into steaks and ground beef” Mosser said. “My team is strategically positioning farmers selling direct to have unlimited access to the consumer market, but in a very unique way. I don’t think there is another beef processor like us that has created a fully functional model specifically designed for the small to mid-sized farmer to make more money.”

“Full carcass utilization is the goal of most processors, but we do it differently,” Mosser said. Farmers selling their beef direct typically miss out on hundreds or thousands of dollars in added value potential on each animal simply because they do not have access to retail grade, high-value products that use what the average processor may discard or grind. That’s where Seven Hills is stepping in.

Often, farmers pay the cost to throw away unused parts of the carcass. Seven Hills Food partners with skincare, jerky, snack stick, deli, dog food and leather processors to help local farmers use all parts of their own cattle, creating a newfound margin opportunity. This value-added product family has greatly benefited the bottom line for Seven Hills’ partners.

As the health and wellness movement gains more traction, beef tallow is on the rise. For example, rather than wasting it, farmers can reach new markets through their own branded skincare products to increase their bottom line. “Farmers can sign up for that service with us and profit and extra $1,000 or more per head, IF they can find the right market to sell it in,” Mosser said. “Anyone can stuff these products in a box and call it a day, but we also function as a marketing service for farmers. We literally have full time staff dedicated to pristine custom packaging, labeling, branding & barcoding of these products FOR the farmers, which allows them to walk into a supermarket and have the look and feel needed to compete at the highest level – for over one hundred different products.”

Seven Hills sets itself apart in the beef processing community with this suite of value-added services to its farmers. “I think people across the country may look at Seven Hills’ model and say, ‘wow, for a regional beef processor, they’ve figured out how to work with in harmony with the farming community instead of being at odds or having friction,’ and that’s what we’re excited to get out there,” Mosser said. “We’ve can give an entire farming region access to more of the consumer dollar than ever before.”

“We intentionally built this model for local farmers. We want them to make more money, so that in turn they bring us more cattle to process, and that’s how we make money,” Mosser said. “It’s a full-circle pass through, where the retail dollars are captured at the farmers level, before it comes to us.”

In July 2024, the US Department of Agriculture announced it has awarded $26.9 million to 33 projects in 23 states through the Local Meat Capacity grant program in an effort to expand processing within the meat and poultry industry. Seven Hills Food received one of USDA’s MCap grants.

MCap’s $1.6 million grant enabled the Virginia-based retailer and processing facility to make plant enhancements, grow production capacity, add rendering capacity, new value-added products as well as a farmer liason to coordinate expanded beef processing services.

“Now that we’re here and have this grant, we’re investing that money into new equipment that increases our production capacity drastically,” Mosser said. “And that’s going to reshape the beef industry for Virginia and surrounding region.”