Our Vendors

Trust is earned, not printed on a package. So we name names.

Every vendor in this store cleared the same gates. Below is who they are, what they supply, and how far they are from our front door. Where we turned someone down, we say that too — on the standard page and in the journal.

Dairy

RAW FARM — Fresno, California

Raw milk, raw cheese, and kefir from a CDFA-permitted California dairy, sealed and bottled at a state-licensed milk products plant. We do not open it, repack it, or let it above 45°F between the truck and your hands.

Why them: raw dairy is the single most regulated thing we sell and the one where shortcuts do real harm. They hold the permit, they run the tests, and they let us see the paperwork.

Note: federal law prohibits shipping raw milk across state lines. Raw dairy is in-store only, and always will be.

Meat

Engler Grass Fed — Sonora, California

Grass-fed and grass-finished beef from a fourth-generation family ranch in the Sierra foothills, about an hour from the store. Michael and Mary Engler run it with their daughter Madeline.

Why them: “grass-fed” only describes how an animal started. “Grass-finished” describes how it ended, and it’s the word that actually matters. Engler put it plainly before we even asked — never any grains, never any feedlots, no excuses — and their cattle are raised without added hormones or antibiotics on holistically managed pasture. We asked for documentation on the finishing, not just the feeding, before a single package went in the case.

In the case now: ground beef (80/20 and 90/10), the Power Blend organ grind, stew meat, carne asada and New York steak. They also render suet tallow into a shave soap, which we carry — the whole animal gets used, which is rather the point.

Note: fresh meat is in-store only. Cold chain doesn’t travel in a cardboard box.

Pantry

Sciabica’s California Olive Oil — Modesto, California

Cold-pressed California olive oil from a family mill four miles from our front door. Nicola Sciabica started pressing here in 1936 with techniques he learned in Marsala, Sicily; the family is now in its fifth generation and is the oldest continuously operating olive oil producer in America.

Why them: ninety years of doing one thing, four miles away. There was never a question, and there was never a negotiation about shelf space. Their flavored oils are pressed with the fruit and herbs rather than infused afterward, which is why the lemon tastes like lemons and not like a candle.

Bill’s Bees — Los Angeles County, California

Raw, unfiltered, unheated varietal honey — buckwheat, orange blossom, sage blossom, wildflower and avocado blossom, each one tasting distinctly of what was blooming when the bees worked it.

Why them: one ingredient. Nothing added, nothing removed, never heated — which is the whole difference between honey and the pasteurised syrup most jars contain. Bill has kept bees since 1991 and has served as president of the California State Beekeepers Association. We vetted the operation ourselves.

If you have never tasted two honeys side by side, the tasting flight settles the argument in about a minute.

Wise Goat Organics — California

Raw, organic, live-culture ferments: sauerkrauts, vegan kimchi, relishes and fermented hot sauces, several of them Good Food Award winners. Wild-fermented in small batches with unrefined sea salt and no sugar.

Why them: we spent months looking for a ferments vendor who wouldn’t pasteurize the life out of the jar. Live ferments are the whole reason to eat the stuff.

Note: raw and alive, so they stay in our cooler. In-store only.

Lala’s Jams — Petaluma, California

Small-batch jams and jellies from Leslie “Lala” Goodrich, who learned to make them from her Scottish grandmother and now runs the only jam shop in Sonoma County.

Why them: eight or nine jars per batch, in-season and organic fruit where she can get it, and organic cane sugar at under two percent of the jar — which is the part that matters to us. Most jam is sugar wearing fruit as a costume. Hers is the other way around. Several of her recipes are three ingredients long, and the Jalapeño Pepper Jelly took a gold medal at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair in the professional division.

Local makers

Mazzeltov Farms — Waterford, California

Goat milk soap, body wash and laundry soap from a woman-owned farm fifteen miles east of us. Every batch starts with fresh milk from their own herd, cold-processed with a blend of six oils and butters.

Why them: palm-oil free, sulfate free, no phthalates or parabens, and scented with essential oils rather than fragrance. The laundry soap in particular does something we didn’t expect — it softens fabric on its own, no dryer sheet needed.

Fig & Grove — Copperopolis, California

Cold-process bar soap, hand-cut and cured a minimum of four weeks by Claudia Akers up in the Sierra foothills. Goat milk, raw California honey, shea and cocoa butter.

Why them: essential oils only, never synthetic fragrance, and the colors come from clay, turmeric, alfalfa and charcoal rather than dye. Their bars use certified sustainable palm oil — we’d rather tell you that than have you find it on the wrapper.

Veritas True to Nature — Waterford, California

Solid shampoo bars handmade by Esmeralda Lopez, twenty minutes up the road. Nearly every botanical in them is certified organic.

Why them: no sulfates — they clean with gentler surfactants instead of SLS — and one bar replaces a plastic bottle. Cruelty-free.

Still open

We are still looking for organic pasture-raised eggs from corn and soy free birds. If that’s you, and you can clear the gates on the standard page, come talk to us at the store.