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Von Miller is aware of what it takes to dominate a subject.
For greater than a decade, he is been one of many NFL’s most feared move rushers, a Tremendous Bowl MVP and the sort of participant who adjustments video games and defines eras. However even after all of the sacks and all of the glory, Miller discovered himself pulled towards a really completely different sort of problem: elevating chickens.
Sure, chickens.
Miller is the co-founder of Greener Pastures Hen, a poultry firm primarily based in Texas that produces premium, ethically raised hen. It is not a aspect hustle. It is a full-scale, purpose-driven enterprise rooted in sustainability, animal welfare and meals transparency. It additionally occurs to be the results of one faculty class he thought could be a straightforward A.
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At Texas A&M, Miller enrolled in Meat Manufacturing 101 to spice up his GPA. The coursework was manageable, however he could not keep awake in school — till his professor started calling him out. “He’d wake me up and make me recite what I might discovered,” Miller tells Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef. “It caught with me.”
Years later, lengthy after reaching the NFL, Miller revisited the concept of beginning a farm. However as an alternative of going the normal industrial route, he envisioned one thing higher, one thing he could possibly be proud to place his title behind. That concept turned Greener Pastures Hen.
At first, folks did not take him significantly. Why would a soccer star care about hen farming? However Miller wasn’t fascinated by licensing his title. He wished to construct one thing actual. And as soon as it was off the bottom, others took discover.
Patrick Mahomes. Drew Brees. These weren’t simply huge names. They believed in what Miller was constructing: a farm that prioritized sustainability, animal welfare and transparency. When Miller pitched Mahomes the concept, it wasn’t a dream or a plan. “I have been doing this for 5 years,” he instructed him.
Mahomes, a fellow Texan, already knew the cities, retailers and values behind the operation. That native familiarity, mixed with a transparent imaginative and prescient, made it a straightforward sure. “I do not speak about what I need to do,” Miller says. “I speak about what I’ve finished.”
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A “nation membership for chickens”
Greener Pastures will not be your common hen farm.
Miller calls it a “nation membership for chickens,” and whereas that may sound like a punchline, he means it. The birds roam freely on pure grass. They’ve entry to bugs, recent air and sunshine. The operation is licensed natural, non-GMO and humanely raised — the designation Miller is most pleased with.
“We wish folks to see all the pieces,” Miller says. “There’s nothing to cover.” In an business the place transparency is uncommon, he is doing the other by posting photographs, inviting guests and celebrating a system that offers animals a life price dwelling, even when it ends in the identical place.
The farm is not only a enterprise. It is a part of his identification. Miller’s dad and mom and youngsters are concerned. The yard flock at house now contains almost 60 birds, a few of them virtually retirees. “We solely eat the eggs,” he jokes. “They’re a part of the household.”
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At scale, Greener Pastures Hen is proof that objective and revenue can coexist. Miller has taken classes from championship locker rooms: team-building, grit and aggressive hearth, and utilized them to agriculture. “You possibly can’t ever have one other Peyton Manning,” he says. “However you possibly can take little issues from nice groups and construct your individual.”
Now he is imagining what the following 5 years will deliver. Growth, sure, however by no means at the price of core values. Sustainability and humane practices aren’t advertising and marketing instruments. They’re the inspiration. “Folks care about how their meals is produced,” Miller stated. “And we begin with that in thoughts.”
Greener Pastures won’t have the model recognition of Tyson or Sanderson Farms, however Miller is not chasing anybody else’s mannequin. He is constructing one thing that displays who he’s: disciplined, pushed and unafraid to do issues in another way.
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