Episode 182: Reclaiming Independence from Corporate Meat with Cole Mannix
6/12/20261 hr 3 min
Cole Mannix is a multi-generational rancher from central and western Montana who serves as the founder of Old Salt, a vertically integrated startup enterprise. Coming from a background rooted in mountain grazing and extensive holistic management, Cole spent decades working alongside his family and regional producers to optimize ecological function, riparian health, and predator coexistence on their expansive home landscapes.
Recognizing the vulnerabilities ranching families face as processing and retail channels become increasingly consolidated, Cole launched Old Salt to construct an alternative ecosystem of localized market power. Under his leadership, Old Salt has grown to incorporate a membership of ranches operating alongside processing hubs, a direct e-commerce engine, local restaurants, and an annual community festival hosted directly on his family's ranch. Cole is dedicated to creating experiential, relational marketplaces that adequately reward producers, support active workforce ownership, and increase the sheer volume of passionate hearts and hands managing the landscape.
In this episode, John and Cole discuss:
- How Cole engineered an LLC model with cooperative principles to access external capital without risking members' family lands.
- Constructing a vertically integrated market to disrupt highly consolidated, downstream corporate meat packing and processing monopolies.
- Establishing regional slaughter facilities and custom restaurants to stabilize profit margins and balance animal carcasses locally.
- Rerouting financial value directly back upstream to give independent ranchers viable financial alternatives to commodity supply chains.
- Why integrating livestock back into modern cropping systems is restricted by structural barriers like missing fences and scarce water infrastructure.
- Creating parallel government incentive programs focused on funding active farm labor rather than subsidizing crop insurance yields.
Additional Resources
To learn more about Cole's ranch, please visit: mannixbeef.com
To learn more about Old Salt Co Op, please visit: oldsaltco-op.com/
About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.
Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.
Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture. AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.
AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.
Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.
Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJohn Kempf· Host0:00
Hi friends, this is John. Welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, where we have all kinds of conversations related to improving soil health and improving plant health, improving livestock health, and ultimately, of course, improving people's health and improving and being good stewards of the landscape and the ecosystem that we're responsible for managing. I'm here today with Cole Mannix, who is someone I had the privilege of meeting a couple of years ago at, uh, I think perhaps your first or maybe your second, um, festival that you hosted.
Cole Mannix· Guest0:26
Mm-hmm.
John Kempf· Host0:26
And, um, I've really admired the, the work that you've been doing with, uh, the meat processing and the... I don't particularly care for the phrase the community organization, but the way that you've been bringing people together. So I wanna say thank you for being here. Thanks for all the work that you're doing. And, um, can you give us some, some perspective on the scope of the various enterprises and the various things that you're working on?
Cole Mannix· Guest0:49
Yeah. Thanks for having me, John. It's a pleasure to be here. So Old Salt started in, uh, the conversations in 2020, and then we formed the, an entity in 2021. And today, the, the, the purpose of the business is to create a marketplace that regenerates land and community. And [clears throat] the way we're, we're, we're a membership of ranches and workers, um, in a parent company that then owns these subsidiaries, a couple of restaurants now, uh, a s- a couple of small processing facilities. One is a slaughter and further processing