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For the Sonka, Sandberg, and Panner households, Southwestern Oregon is a sort of Garden of Eden. The area’s mild climate means that these three ranching families whose partnership makes up Umpqua Valley Lamb can fill orders for their tender, delicious lamb year-round.
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"In order to be environmentally sustainable and environmentally sensitive you have to be economically stable.
"When New Seasons customers make a choice to buy Oregon products what they're essentially saying is 'We want to keep this landscape' that you see behind us."
-Kathy Panner
Umpqua Valley Lamb
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Umpqua Valley Lamb has been raising and marketing antibiotic-free, grass-fed lamb since 1994, when two unrelated circumstances opened the door for these families to make the switch from conventional lamb production. At the time, the conventional commodity market for lambs was making it harder and harder for these families to survive financially or retain any control over their product. Kathy Panner says they all became serious about making some sort of change or quitting altogether.
Simultaneously, our Meat and Seafood merchandiser, who was working for Nature’s Fresh Northwest at the time, was having trouble finding naturally-produced lamb. So he called Doc and Connie Hatfield of the Country Natural Beef cooperative, who referred him to Kathy, since they knew she was having trouble keeping her lamb production financially afloat.
"In order to be environmentally sustainable and environmentally sensitive you have to be economically stable," Kathy says. "When New Seasons customers make a choice to buy Oregon products what they're essentially saying is 'We want to keep this landscape' that you see behind us."
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"Our lamb is grown strictly on pasture. It doesn't go to a feed lot. We have a very good area and very good soils."
-Leonard Gondek
Umpqua Valley Lamb
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For Umpqua Valley Lamb, the opportunity for a new business venture was right in front of them. They ran with it, and have been producing natural lamb ever since.
 "Our lamb is grown strictly on pasture," says Leonard Gondek of Umpqua Valley Lamb. "It doesn't go to a feed lot. We have a very good area and very good soils."
Our relationship with these ranchers and their lambs just keeps growing. From the minute New Seasons Market opened the doors at our first store, Umpqua Valley Lamb has been the lamb behind our meat counters. They’ve added 10 more family ranches to their operation in order to supply all the lamb our customers want.
“Before, the goal was to get the lambs onto the truck and get as much money as you could, in order to survive,” Kathy says. “But now, the goal is to produce a premium product every week of the year.” She says the business’ relationship with New Seasons Market is “better than really good – it’s excellent. We’re really a team ... I could produce the best lamb in the world, but that doesn’t matter if you don’t have a good cutter and people who know what they’re doing. Most farmer-buyer relationships are adversarial, but we consider our relationship with New Seasons Market to be more than a relationship – it’s a partnership.”
Ranchers from Umpqua Valley Lamb spend two weekends a year in our stores, sampling their products and educating customers and staff about their practices and the production of natural lamb. They also host New Seas ons Market’s meat counter staff at their ranches once a year so they can see where the meat comes from and understand exactly what makes Umpqua Valley Lamb so special.
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