BIG SANDY — If you’ve ever wondered exactly where your food comes from, you’re not alone. Trying to source your food can be a daunting task.
However, the small town of Big Sandy, Montana is a community working to change that.
Big Sandy is perhaps the only school in Montana now serving up beef that is born and raised less than 10 miles away from the school’s front door.
Shane Chauvet founded Pioneer Producers, a group of seven ranchers helping drive that change through a new nonprofit called Pioneer Producers.
“From conception to consumption the cows have been right in this area. Our motto is that the West wasn’t won on salad. It was won on beef,” said Chauvet.
Pioneer Producers was born in the wake of tragedy.
In July 2021, Chauvet almost lost his arm when a culvert flew through the air and hit him and his ATV during an intense storm. A team of paramedics rushed him to Great Falls 80 miles away.
“They saved my life. They gave me a chance to be a dad again, and the local ambulance got me to the emergency room and they saved my arm. I feel like I owe the community an awful lot,” said Chauvet.
This labor of love has become Chauvet’s way of paying back his community one steak and burger at a time.
Lianna Heimbigner is the head cook at Big Sandy schools, one of the many helping fulfill Chauvet his farm-to-fork vision.
“It gives me goosebumps. It’s nice to know there are people who are still willing to do that and not just make a buck,” said Heimbigner.
Big Sandy schools served $250,000 worth of meat these past two years, but getting that beef from farm to freezer is more complicated than most realize.
By law, all meat served in schools must be processed at a USDA-licensed plant. Not only are there not very many in Montana, but processing can be expensive.
The Producer Partnership is part of the solution. The Livingston USDA-certified meat processing facility is the first of its kind in the country.
Matt Pierson founded the nonprofit in 2020, an idea born during the pandemic to help out the food bank in Livingston.
“A lot of the animals we get are really animals that aren’t sellable at a market. They don’t get around as well or they have a blemish or something,” said Pierson.
The concept took off with close to 20,000 pounds of meat donated to schools this year.
“The one common thread is that a lot of people work here because they want to be here because they believe in what we’re doing and the ability to make those changes,” said Pierson.
Fifteen schools have now received meat through the Producer Partnership. All of it is processed at the facility free of charge and even stored in the nonprofit’s freezers since schools like Big Sandy don’t currently have the space to hold the beef.
“We try and work with anyone who wants to donate an animal, and we try and connect those dots,” said Pierson.
Those dots are helping dreams like the one in Big Sandy come to life.
“They have that pride of ownership. Now it’s not just Montana beef going into our schools. It’s 'our' beef going into schools,” said Chauvet. “You walk into the school and walk out knowing our local ranchers helped feed the school today and you saw those kids so happy.”
And that’s what Chauvet says the partnership is all about, connecting Montana ranchers to communities one smile and bite of beef at a time.
“There’s nothing better than living in a small community because we take care of our own, and that’s what we’re doing with this beef program, taking care of our own,” said Chauvet.
