About Us
The Holding Family
Hunter and Anne Holding are the founders of Holding Ranch. Hunter’s family owned a dairy farm in upstate New York, but he always wanted to raise beef cattle. In the early 1990s, the Holdings put together a small registered Black Angus herd made up of some of the world’s best genetics (Tehama Bando 155, Wehrmann’s OM26) and sold bulls to commercial operations. The progeny from our first females went on to become the foundation for our grass-fed beef herd.
Our Vision
In 1995, we moved to a small ranch in Lafayette. We formed a non-profit education organization to help introduce children, from all walks of life and with differing abilities, to farm life and chores to help them improve their interactions with other living creatures and the earth.
Anne sold free-range, organically-fed eggs at the ranch for years to help support the work of the non-profit. Hunter also started selling grass-fed and finished beef at the ranch, then became the first grass-fed beef vendor at the Walnut Creek Farmer’s Market in 2005. Demand for the beef took off, and in the next two years we began selling at farmers markets in San Francisco, San Mateo, Menlo Park and Pleasanton, in addition to local food stores.
By 2008 we couldn’t produce enough cattle to meet beef demand on our owned and rented land base in Contra Costa County, and we moved the operation to bigger ranches in the North State (first to Siskiyou County, then to the current Modoc County location). Through all the challenges with pasture, irrigation and increased competition, we have maintained our vision for providing the cleanest grass-fed product possible from humanely-treated cattle on holistically managed pastures direct to consumers.
From Our Family Ranch to Your Family
We are passionate about providing other families with nutritious, “clean” food which has been raised humanely and without pesticides or chemicals. In the summer of 2008, after both of our girls were in college, we moved our operation to Montague, just north of Mt. Shasta.
However, we had always loved Modoc County and, in 2016, we found our perfect “forever” ranch at the base of the Warner Mountains. This ranch is located on an old homestead from the late 1800s, complete with a blacksmith shop and old-growth orchard. Most importantly, we receive water for our irrigation directly from the Warner Mountains close to the head of Soldier Creek.
We're a Team
Hunter is in charge of the cattle, pastures, and irrigation. Anne still works full-time as a therapist (mental health) but helps out at night and on the weekends, as ranch wives do.
Our daughter, Amanda, moved back up from Oakland several years ago to help us on the ranch. She works as a first-grade teacher at Modoc Elementary School and is also active in the local sustainable food movement.
Our daughter, Kate, will help with distribution in the Sacramento and Bay Areas.
