Nicky USA’s Geoff Latham

Twenty-two years ago, Nicky USA owner Geoff Latham got his start in the sustainably-raised meat business by selling rabbits to Portland chefs and retailers out of the trunk of his Ford Escort. Now he has a thriving Oregon operation, his name is on the finicky lips of chefs throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond, and Nicky USA is expanding up into Seattle in a matter of weeks.

Latham took a few minutes out of his busy, meaty day to talk to Poached about the 17 years of hard knocks that preceded Nicky’s upswing, his plans for his own poultry plantation, the epic Portland-Seattle chef face-offs and “biggest chefs’ party ever thrown” planned for Nicky’s Wild About Game feastival in September, how home cooks can get their civilian hands on some highly-coveted Spanish ibérico pork, and what he’ll be grilling up this summer.

What do you attribute Nicky’s success to?

It’s been a long road, but the last five years have been really good. The first 17 were a big learning experience from the school of hard knocks. We were throwing money at things to make them grow, and it was hard to get ahead. Ten years ago, we built our own packing plant, and that was a ball and chain for five years as we paid it off. But the last five years, the plant was paid off, we got into a rhythm, and we’ve been building the Nicky Farms brand and identity, which we didn’t really have before. Now, you talk to most good chefs, and they know who Nicky is and most of them are buying something from us. I was able to surround myself with a very good staff, people who are committed to our company. We’re not just a meat company that sells a box of meat—most of our products have a story that goes with them. We do events to try and promote our brand, we do Wild About Game every year and last year over 100 chefs came, and they learned what’s special at Nicky and why you should consider us—because of our quality and service. We aren’t always the cheapest, but we try and give the best quality and service, and that’s why we’re continuing to grow in a tough economy.

Any interesting future projects?

We’re going to be adding to our line of Nicky Farms products, and we’ll have more specialty poultry raised right here in the region, on our own farm. Hopefully we’ll find the land this summer and begin to raise some of our own quail, partridge, pheasant, and other specialty birds that chefs are asking for more of. We’re looking at land just south of Portland, so there will be a place for chefs to come out and see the animals and how we’re raising them.

What are your plans for the Seattle market?

Seattle’s probably five times the market that Portland is, and we’ve been growing quickly by referrals, every week a new Seattle chef calls and orders. My girls that handle the sales do a great job of customer service and our driver that runs the Seattle route is very caring and a very customer service-oriented guy, so we have a great foundation, but we really aren’t tapped into the food scene up there like we are in Portland. The most important thing is that we have somebody who’s going to go see our customers up there on a regular basis. We have a great person moving up there in two weeks, a great extension of me and somebody I feel very confident about. He’ll be our first employee up there, and a team will follow him in 6-12 months, so in the beginning we’ll operate out of Portland, but eventually we’ll have availability of product up in Seattle for people when they call.

Any Seattle chefs or restaurants you’re particularly excited about working with?

Even though we have a lot of great accounts up there, I’d have to do a shoutout to four locations that are going to be part of Wild About Game this year—Cormac Mahoney from Madison Park Conservatory, Nathan Lockwood from Altura, Carrie Mashaney from Spinasse, and Johnathan Sundstrom from Lark. This year’s Wild About Game is September 9th, and we’re moving it to Timberline Lodge this year in honor of their 75th Anniversary. We’re going to take over Government Camp that night with the biggest chefs’ party anybody’s ever thrown. Jenn Louis from Lincoln will compete against Cormac, and Chris Israel from Grüner against Johnathan Sundstrom, Gregory Gourdet from Departure against Nathan, and Chris Carricker from the Gilt Club will go up against Carrie. This year, for the first time ever, guests are going to be able to taste all the dishes the chefs will do and we’ll have a People’s Choice Award, and the winner will get a big old engraved cleaver from Shun Cutlery. As we grow into Seattle, I want to try and facilitate more interaction between Portland and Seattle chefs.

The New York Times recently named Nicky USA as one of only three US distributors of Spain’s hallowed Ibérico pork, how did that come to be?

I represent Fermin Ibérico, a smaller sustainable family operation in Spain, and it’s only been importable for a year. I saw it at the National Restaurant show last year and said, ‘my company has got to have that.’ Matt Christianson from Urban Farmer was there that night, and Jason (Stoller Smith) from Timberline, and they both said Geoff, you need to bring this in for me. We’ve worked for about a year getting it off the ground, and it’s really an exciting new addition.

Any spots in Portland and Seattle using your Ibérico pork, that we should be visiting?

Harvest Vine and Canlis in Seattle. Andina uses a lot of it here in Portland, they just don’t always have it on the menu. And Jenn Louis uses it at Lincoln, she mentions it in her Food & Wine write-up this month.

{Excerpt from Food & Wine’s interview with Louis: “I just brought back some cicerchie, wild chickpeas, from Rome. They’re beautiful; they have great texture. We served them with some pluma ibérica, that’s a cut from the pig’s shoulder blade. We’re just starting to get in uncured, fresh cuts of pork in Portland.”}

How can the average home cook get their hands on a few Ibérico de Bellota pork loins and shoulder steaks?

People can call us directly, we ask for a $125 minimum order, or in Portland, if somebody just wants a small pack, they can special request it at several of the good smaller retailers like Sheridan Fruit Company, Pastaworks, Chop and Laurelhurst Market. In Seattle, The Swinery special orders it, and we’re working on a joint promotion between the Spanish producer and the Metropolitan Markets.

So what are you going to be grilling this summer at home?

I’m definitely going to grill some Ibérico, and I love quail—it’s my favorite on the grill. We don’t have as many buffalo ribs as we used to, they used to be coming out our ears and I ate a lot of those in the past. But we have a cool new Five-Spice Water Buffalo sausage that’s getting really good reviews. And I never hesitate to throw a little Kobe beef on the grill.

 

Jen Stevenson
Author of Portland’s 100 Best Places To Stuff Your Faces
Writer + Editor of underthetablewithjen.com & doitallportland.com
Also found at wordcake.com
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Tags: Interviews