As the inaugural post in what I hope becomes a regular entry to our blog, I thought I would go back to the very beginning of our commercial video careers, in the summer of 2016, to the clients who asked if we did commercial video, and whose work and ideals convinced us to try.  It just so happens that they also inspired the idea for our StoryHive documentary project, This Little Piggy Did Not Go To Market.

Jessica and Chris Fasoli own The Bear and the Flower Farm, an amazing organic, GMO free, outdoor pig farm, up in Irricana.  They were such fun to work with, and their animals were too!  I remember we went up to the farm once to take some shots from the road outside of the property, and without prompting all of the pigs came and hung out right in front of us just inside the fence, just because.  While inside the gate shooting, they were always surrounding us, tasting our rubber boots and our tripod legs, which while amusing, did make it a bit of a challenge to get a steady shot!

It is so evident how passionate Jessica and Chris are about their jobs.  They are also hard-working, ambitious, and extremely busy!  You can start by watching the video we made for them, above, but I thought it would be even better to get their own answers to a few questions!  Thank you Jessica and Chris!

Who are you and what do you do?

We are Jessica and Christopher Fasoli, the farmers for Bear and the Flower Farm where we raise outdoor pork. 

Tell us more about your background in this business? Where did your passion came from? Why are you doing this?

Both of us had corporate jobs and ended up in 2015 wanting a change! Christopher grew up on a farm with cattle so it was an easy transition to carry on doing some sort of farming. Raising pigs is a lot quicker turn around so we found it was financially easier to get back into farming if we did it with pigs!

Explain when and why you started this business. How rewarding is it for you to be doing what you're doing?

I dont think there is a more rewarding job then farming. Food is life. We at any given time are taking care of 800 animals, that's a big responsibility and we enjoy the personality of pigs as well! Such social creatures :-D 

Who are your main customers?  Who are your best customers?

Our main customers are butcher shops where we sell whole and half animals too, then they break them down, and secondly we have a big following in the food service industry! Our distributors like Sysco and Prepak Meats for example help to move our products into the restaurants across Alberta!

What are you struggling with right now?

Biggest struggle is moving the whole animal. We tend to have a lot of trim because everyone wants the middle of that animal- bacon and pork chops! if we could grow 4 bellies on a pig we would! but we cant so its a process of educating our customers to take a variety!

How can people help you at this point in your work? 

Support local farmers, ask questions, visit their farms and look for outdoor pork, lots of people get confused between free range and outdoor.  Make sure to ask if the animals are outside!

How can people best reach you? 

By email at: jfasoli@bearandtheflower.com and cfasoli@bearandtheflower.com

403.472.4456  www.bearandtheflower.com   "A new generation of farming"