Daniel Wallace Tollefson developed an extremely unique and beneficial diet for his hogs 30 years ago with the help of his neighbor and best friend after their college education in animal nutrition. The goal of the diet they created was to truly put to use the mono-gastric digestive system (ever heard of "you are what you eat?") of a hog to create not only tasty pork, but to also make it as healthy as possible. They decided to use this special diet on a specific breed, Duroc, to help ensure the best taste possible. After close to 30 years of selling pork directly at the MPLS Farmer's Market there is a safe conclusion to draw, they succeeded fantastically in their goal.
The very basic mission of Tollefson Family Pork is to provide the highest quality pork for as cheap as possible. We pride ourselves on being the opposite of: "You get what you pay for." With Tollefson Family Pork you pay for the meat, but you get the peace of mind that everything you are taking home is as fresh as possible and far healthier than what you'll find in grocery stores. Since you are buying directly from the family that produces the pork you not only get our guarantees, but you also get to know the very people doing the hard work of providing that product to you!
What makes our pork so healthy? The unique diet that our hogs are raised on changes the fat from your usual saturated fat to the healthier poly-unsaturated fat high in Omega-3 fatty acids. To sum up quickly how this is possible we never feed animal bi-products, growth hormones, or antibiotics. Instead the diet is just nutrient rich and natural, as true to what the pigs like to eat as possible. We like to boast that our hogs are vegetarians so that you don't have to be!
The best way to truly see the difference between Tollefson Family Pork and what we refer to as Other People Pork (OPP) is to fry up our bacon alongside your favorite bacon before being introduced to us. What you'll notice from this, which we refer to as the bacon test, is that our bacon won't shrink down much nor will the grease left behind solidify. The reason for this is that poly-unsaturated fat requires a lower temperature to solidify, whereas saturated solidifies at a relatively high temperature. Compare the difference in the grease in order to truly see the health aspect, then taste the two to see why so many have become addicted to our pork.
Don't bother looking in stores for our products, we've always sold our pork directly ourselves and that's unlikely to change. The reason why we believe so heavily in this mentality is that the uniqueness of our product requires a well informed customer at the time of purchase. The most important piece of information we can give is that a unique pork has to be treated appropriately, do not over cook our meat!
We always look forward to new faces at all of our various farmer's markets in the metro area & look forward to getting to know you all!