Naf and Anna met on an organic vegetable farm and fell in love.
That is, with each other -- and with feeding people good food.
Their courtship story went something like this: We are going to get married. We are going to have a farm. We are going to feed people.
Growing and Learning
They went to conferences on how to farm as a couple and grow the best tomatoes. Anna grew vegetables for a CSA.
Anticipating that they'd live "in the middle of nowhere," Naf hit the road to learn how to make kosher meat. 'If we're farming', he thought, 'we'll raise chickens, and I'll schecht them for my family, so we can keep kosher and eat well'.
But dreams evolve.
How many farmers can also walk to shul and raise a family in a Jewish community? They realized that instead of farming, they needed to start producing kosher pasture-raised meat.
Naf and Anna at the Adamah Farm, right before loading all these bales of hay into the chicken coop
Bringing More to the Table
In Grow & Behold's first year, only chicken was sold. It was raised by the farmer who had raised the birds for the Hanaus' wedding and processed at the David Elliot Poultry farm, where Naf trained.
Naf traveled the country, meeting farmers raising cattle, lamb, veal and poultry, to find growers who were raising animals how we wanted: outdoors, on pasture, with no hormones, no growth-promoting antibiotics, room to move around, and close proximity to processing facilities to minimize travel.
The catalog expanded year by year: 2011: Beef. 2012: Lamb. 2013: Duck. 2014: Rose Veal. 2016: Beef Jerky. 2017: Dry-Aged Steaks. 2018: Butcher's Cut Lamb Racks and Salami Sticks. 2019: Montreal Smoked Meat and Marinated Beef and Chicken.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Grow & Behold was the last online butcher to have meat for sale before Passover in 2020. The Grow & Behold crew worked tirelessly and rose to the challenge of adapting systems and processes to meet the increased demand and increased uncertainties.
In 2022, the company joined with Jcommerce Group, an e-commerce leader in the kosher space, to strengthen the customer experience and Grow & Behold's place as the premier provider of kosher, pastured meats.
Naf's popular cooking videos can be found on Facebook and Instagram.
Great Meals Start With Great Meat
Grow & Behold is the culmination of our decades of passion for healthy, sustainable food, good cooking, and the community that gets built around the table. It is sustained by deep relationships with our partners, including multi-generational slaughterhouses and family farms.
Grow & Behold takes care every step of the way to make sure the meat is raised well, processed humanely, expertly butchered, carefully packaged, delivered seamlessly and prepared with confidence in your kitchen, thanks to our recipes, tips and terrific customer support. It is our great pleasure to bring these delicious meats to your table.
We look forward to feeding you soon!
- the Grow & Behold team
Naf and Anna Hanau, teaching at the De Gustibus Cooking School by Miele