From Their Pasture to Your Table: The Family Behind Pullen Family Farms

When Heather Pullen first began selling beef at the Greenville Farmers Market, she spent two or three years wondering whether people were ever going to notice she was there.

Then she moved her booth to a different part of the market, and people who had walked through every Saturday began stopping to ask if she was new.

Heather recognized them. She had been there for years. They simply hadn’t made it far enough down the row to find her.

Over time, that changed. Customers began pulling into the market, walking directly to her booth, buying what they needed and heading home. Some returned so consistently that they stopped buying beef anywhere else.

That loyalty means more to Heather than simply making another sale. It gives Pullen Family Farms something every local producer needs: customers who come back. That’s important because raising cattle isn’t something a rancher can start and stop whenever buying local happens to be the conversation of the week.

Generations of Ranching at Pullen Family Farms

Heather didn’t grow up around livestock. She grew up in Florida, while Clay Pullen comes from generations of ranchers.

He grew up between his grandparents’ dairy farm and cattle ranch, with ranching continuing through his father and uncle as well. By the time he and Heather began building a herd of their own, raising cattle was already deeply rooted in his family.

Not long after Heather and Clay married in 2004, they began building that herd. They had saved money, cattle prices were low, and they purchased approximately 100 cows on leased land.

Their beginning wasn’t easy. The person they hired to care for the cattle wasn’t taking proper care of them, and several animals died before Heather and Clay realized what was happening. They moved the remaining cattle and kept going.

Over the years, they continued building their herd, including cattle and bulls purchased from established herds belonging to Clay’s father and uncle.

Today, Heather and Clay live in Commerce and own enough land to run about 40 cows while continuing to lease additional land. Neither one, however, spends the workday on the ranch.

Heather teaches middle school science in Caddo Mills ISD, while Clay works full time as a financial advisor. Farm work has to fit around those careers, which means early mornings, evenings and weekends. Clay handles much of the day-to-day cattle management across their property and leased pastures, while Heather has become the familiar face many customers know from the Greenville Farmers Market.

Pullen Family Farms has been built in the hours around everything else.

What It Takes to Raise Local Beef in Hunt County

Before Clay leaves for work in the morning, there may be cattle to feed or hay to put out. After work, he’ll rotate between their leased properties, calling the cows up, counting them and checking for problems.

Occasionally, the phone rings at 3:30 in the morning because police have been told there is a cow loose near the road. On those nights, they can only hope it belongs to somebody else.

The weather doesn’t offer many days off either. Heather laughed that every winter she wonders why anyone likes the season.

“I can see where somebody would like it if they just watch movies and drink hot cocoa,” she said.

Winter looks a little different when it’s 36 degrees and raining and the animals still need to be fed. Then summer comes with the other extreme of Texas heat.

Some of the hardest parts, though, have nothing to do with the weather. Just before our conversation, the Pullens had sold about half of their herd. Some of those cows had been with Clay for 15 years. He knew them individually, and they knew him well enough to gather at the fence when he arrived. After that many years, some inevitably become a little like pets.

“You take care of them and treat them with respect,” Heather said. “We take very good care of our animals.”

For the Pullens, that care also includes vaccinations. Heather said they use basic vaccinations to protect against diseases such as blackleg and pneumonia because preventing those illnesses helps protect both the individual animal and the health of the entire herd.

“The health of the animal is our priority,” she said.

If an animal becomes sick enough to require antibiotics, Heather said they will treat it while following the required withdrawal period before processing. For her, those decisions are simply part of responsibly caring for the animals they raise.

Bringing Locally Raised Beef to Hunt County Families

The Pullens were already selling meat to friends and family before 2020, but COVID changed the direction of the business.

As grocery store availability became uncertain, more people began looking for food closer to home. Heather bought freezers, worked through the required inspections and formally turned what they were already doing into a business.

She has now spent about five years at the Greenville Farmers Market, selling there nearly every Saturday and making local deliveries on Sundays. Over that time, she has learned there is a difference between wanting to buy local when something happens and becoming a customer a local producer can count on.

When grocery store shelves look uncertain or something happens in the news, Heather sees people begin searching for nearby farms. Sales may surge for a while, but only a percentage of those customers continue buying once the concern passes.

For a rancher, that inconsistency affects decisions that were made long before anyone started thinking about what’s for dinner.

“It takes us two years almost to raise an animal to get to the point where we can process it,” Heather said.

The Pullens have to make decisions about cattle, land, feed and processing long before they know exactly who will eventually buy that beef.

“If it’s not consistent, then we can’t consistently produce.”

Heather understands why people shop at grocery stores. They’re convenient, while buying directly from local producers can require a little more planning. A farm also doesn’t have an unlimited supply of every cut whenever someone wants it. There are only so many briskets on a cow and so much bacon on a pig. When something sells out, there may not be more the following week.

That availability is one of the realities of knowing where your food comes from. It’s also why Heather offered an interesting perspective when we talked about the surprising number of farms and ranches around Hunt County. Even with all of those producers, she said they couldn’t suddenly replace our grocery stores if something happened to the larger food supply.

The Pullens once calculated how much beef their own farm could provide, and it would feed only a fraction of Commerce.

A rancher can’t decide today that the community needs more beef and have it ready tomorrow. Supporting local agriculture when the grocery store shelves are full helps those farms continue producing before they’re suddenly needed.

Why Knowing Who Raised Your Food Matters

For Heather, one of the biggest differences in buying directly from a local farm comes down to something very simple: you know who raised your food.

Customers see Heather at the farmers market. They may see the Pullen daughters helping or recognize Clay around the community.

“You know who raised this,” Heather said.

That connection has changed the way the Pullen family eats too. Heather laughed that raising their own food has turned them into “a little bit food snobs.”

Her daughters recently called from Texas Tech because they hadn’t sent enough meat back to college with them, and they weren’t happy about having to buy it at the grocery store. The girls have learned something bigger than a preference for the beef they grew up eating, though.

The Pullens have four girls who have been involved in farm life through chores, 4-H, FFA and livestock projects. Heather hopes that no matter what they choose to do as adults, they’ll always understand where food comes from and the work required to put it on someone’s table.

For at least one of their daughters, that lesson may be carrying the family’s ranching story into another generation.

Through a livestock project connected to the Houston Livestock Show, she purchased a registered Brangus heifer. Years later, Clay planned to sell the cow and give his daughter the money, but she had other plans. She went back to the sale barn to get her cow and its calf.

“That’s going to be the start of my herd,” she told him.

Clay hadn’t expected that answer, but there it was: a ranching tradition that came through his grandparents, father and uncle was finding its way into another generation.

The People Behind Locally Raised Food in Hunt County

When I started asking people around Hunt County where they buy locally raised meat, I was surprised by how many farms were named. Pullen Family Farms was already on my list, but after seeing their name recommended again and again, I knew this was where I wanted to begin Harvesting Local Goodness.

Before we talk about buying local food, it helps to understand what it takes to raise it. For the Pullens, that means years spent building a herd, land and feed, freezing rain and Texas heat, early mornings before work and evenings spent checking another pasture. It also means four daughters who grew up knowing where their food comes from and customers who have learned to look for Heather at the farmers market.

When a Hunt County family sits down to eat something raised by the Pullens, Heather hopes they understand some of what came before that meal.

“The hard work and the love that we put into it, and the care for the animals that we put into it,” she said. “I think it makes a big difference.”

Buying local won’t look the same for every family, and it doesn’t have to mean buying everything you eat directly from a farm. Sometimes it simply starts with knowing where your food comes from, and when you do choose to buy from a local rancher, coming back matters.

Behind the Business: Pullen Family Farms

Pullen Family Farms LLC
5595 County Road 4713
Commerce, TX 75428
903-366-9096

Pullen Family Farms raises beef, pork and other farm goods in Commerce, Texas. You can shop their available inventory online, find Heather at the Greenville Farmers Market on most Saturdays, or choose from local pickup and delivery options.

Website & Online Farm Store: Pullen Family Farms

Harvesting Local Goodness

Throughout September, The Local Letter is following the food, goods and people that connect Hunt County from the farm to our tables. Harvesting Local Goodness is about knowing what is grown, raised and made close to home, and getting to know the people whose work makes it possible.

There is more to the story of what we buy locally. This month, we’re going to meet some of the people behind it.

Know a local business with a great story? Send them our way!