Sierra Meat & Seafood is much more than a distributor of sustainable meat and seafood. The company is a fourth generation family owned and operated business started by a couple of Italian immigrants in the 1930s. Today, the business has grown exponentially to employ more than 100 people (11 of which are family members), and has a long list of accomplishments. Their most recent accomplishment is being named the first ever business to receive a 100 percent rating from the Marine Stewardship Council for their Pacific cod, Dungeness crab, flounder, hake, halibut, salmon, and tuna.
What started as a conversation with the CEO and President Chris Flocchini about the sustainability rating turned into a history lesson harping on good old-fashioned hard work and the importance of knowing where your food comes from.
A Family Affair
It all began with Armando Flocchini Sr., an immigrant butcher from Italy, who purchased San Francisco-based Durham Meat Company in 1934.
As fate would have it, Armando Sr.’s sons married two sisters and together they continued to grow the business that eventually migrated from San Francisco to San Jose in the 1950s. Durham Meat Company continued to grow thanks to military contracts that allowed them to ship supplies overseas for both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Chris, Armando’s grandson and the youngest of seven, explained that all the Flocchini kids worked at the meat company while growing up for $1 an hour. A wage he would later learn to be much less than what they were paying their actual employees. “We received no preferential treatment,” Chris said. “We worked hard and didn’t do anything to embarrass the family.”
It wasn’t until 2000, after a brief stint in the real estate business, that Chris came back into the business and relocated the headquarters to Reno. Citing high traffic, the dot-com boom, lack of employees, and the high cost of living in the Bay Area, Reno became the obvious choice.
Today, the family operates Sierra Meat & Seafood out of Reno; Durham Bison Ranch out of Wright, Wyo.; and Flocchini Sausage out of Carson City.
An American Dream in Cowboy Boots
In the 1960s, the Flocchini’s bought the 55,000 acre Durham Bison Ranch just outside of Wright, Wyo. And while Sierra Meat & Seafood pays the bills, it is the family bison ranch that drives their passion.
Chris’ grandfather, Armando Flocchini Sr., is an immigrant living his American dream in cowboy boots. Chris explained that his grandfather, who came from extremely humble beginnings and never got past the equivalent of the sixth grade, wears his cowboy boots all the time, even when he travels back to Italy.
In explaining his Grandfather’s love for the bison, Chris says “he even got 18 inch by 2 foot stickers of a buffalo to put on the doors of his Cadillac.”
Chris then went on to explain that the original breed stock on the ranch traces all the way back to bison living at Yellowstone National Park in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These bison were placed under protection by President Roosevelt and relocated to farms across the country, one of which was the Durham Bison Ranch.
Today, the ranch is managed by Chris’ brother John, who, after receiving an agriculture degree, moved to Wyoming. Early on, John became aware that everything we do affects something else. Thus, he began enforcing Holistic Resource Management or Holistic Ranch Management as John calls it. This management strategy follows four principles of financial planning, graze planning, land planning, and biological monitoring.
According to the Holistic Management International’s website, “this practices allow land managers to guide the relationship between plants, soil, livestock, people, and water in ways that mimic nature, while addressing the financial aspects of these elements.”
Durham Ranch bison, along with many other sustainably harvested meats, such as Berkshire pork and wagyu beef, are available for purchase under Durham Ranch packaging.
Complete Traceability
In 2007, Sierra Meat began distributing seafood. They started with only one size of shrimp, but have since expanded to offer 12 different varieties of fresh fish and seafood.
The seafood distribution business is a tricky one. A Johns Hopkins University study revealed nearly half of all the United State’s seafood supply goes to waste.
According to that same study, “roughly 2.3 billion pounds of seafood is squandered each year in distribution and retail, commercial fishing bycatch, and at consumer level.”
So how does this local business combat this frightening statistic?
Sierra Meat & Seafood is the first business to ever receive a 100 percent compliance rating for sustainability from the third party audit company, SCS Global Services, hired by the Marine Stewardship Council, to inspect the brand’s traceability.
“Our program is only as good as our brand assurance,” Chris said. And so, when asked by the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe to apply for the certification, the Flocchini family had no hesitation.
So what exactly does this sustainability rating mean?
The MSC requires total traceability, every step of the way. This requires accountability from the fishermen on the boat, to the production facility, to the distributors, all ensuring that seafood labels read true to what is packaged.
To the Flocchini family, the cost to run such a program is minimal when compared to the guarantee it provides for its customer. “To us, the cost is worth it,” Chris said. “I would rather be less profitable by an amount and provide our customers with a product they know they can trust.”
For more information, visit sierrameat.com
