Spitzbart
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The Spitzbart family runs a diversified family-farm, where they raise a number of endangered breeds of farm animals. They are in Laakirchen, a town of 9,000 in Upper Austria.
You can see a video from their farm on the videos page - his pigs "stampede" across their yard.
They also have a Mostschenke on the farm - a small pub where they serve their own hard cider made from fruit, along with cold-cuts and similar foods made from the animals they raise on the farm.
They are not licensed as a restaurant, so all the food must be served cold. Hence they serve a variety of cold-cuts made of air-cured Mangalitsa, other pigs, geese, turkey, etc. A petting zoo is attached to the restaurant, so parents can let their kids go play with the goats and guinea pigs while they drink their Most.
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The Spitzbarts raise, slaughter, process and serve the animals on the farm - and it is all excellent.
Doing their own slaughter means they can easily optimize meat quality - they can always put off slaughter another day if an animal isn't ready for slaughter, or shows signs of stress. Because they prepare their own meat on the premises, they can do things to their own exacting specifications.
Because they are a family farm selling their own production, they have less red tape than restaurants, and their prices are very low considering how good their products are.
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Their operation is still quite small - the operation includes the father, mother, son and a few employees. They get very busy during the tourist season - which is quite understandable.
We arrived at their place in the evening. Dominik Spitzbart, pictured at right, and his father and girlfriend served us their cider and cold-cuts, also shown on the right. The cold cuts, particularly the Hungarian sausages made from Mangalitsa, were excellent. It took a drink or two to get used to the cider, but then it tasted very good. The father, Alois Spitzbart, gave us some wonderful walnut schnapps (Nussschnapps), which they also make on their farm.
They have a bigger herd of Mangalitsa than most Austrian Mangalitsa breeders. They use modern innovations like concentrated feed, automatic feeders and waterers to keep their labor down, while allowing them to produce consistently excellent products.
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Unfortunately, it isn't economically feasible to run such businesses in the USA, given our meat laws. Meat sold to consumers needs to be federally inspected, and federally-inspected slaughterhouses are so expensive to operate that they need to be dedicated to slaughtering, not integrated into a family farm or restaurant.
We never would have found out about the Spitzbart's wonderful operation but for Christoph Wiesner, because the Spitzbarts aren't as famous as they should be.
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