Photographed by Mitch Tobias

Curiosity Experts: Bill and Nicolette Hahn Niman

Co-Owners, BN Ranch

• New York Times: "The Carnivore's Dilemma"
• New York Times: "Pig Out"
• New York Times: "A Load of Manure"
• New York Times: "The Unkindest Cut"
• Huffington Post: "Avoiding Factory Farm Foods: An Eater's Guide"

Nicolette Hahn Niman is an attorney and livestock rancher. She and her husband, Bill Niman, are regularly featured in media about sustainable food production, including an August 2009 TIME magazine cover story. Much of her time is spent speaking and writing about the problems resulting from industrialized agriculture, including the book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (HarperCollins, 2009, www.righteousporkchop.com ), four essays she has written on the subject for the New York Times, and one for the Sunday Los Angeles Times. She is a regular blogger for The Atlantic, and has written for The San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, Cowboys & Indians, and CHOW, among others. Previously, she was the Senior Attorney for the environmental organization Waterkeeper Alliance where she was in charge of the organization's campaign to reform the concentrated livestock and poultry industry, and, before that, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation. Ms. Hahn Niman served two terms on the city council for the City of Kalamazoo, Michigan (pop. 80,000), during which time she served on sixteen community boards and commissions including the Environmental Concerns Committee. She received her Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the University of Michigan in 1993 and her B.A. in Biology and French from Kalamazoo College in 1989. She lives in Bolinas, California with her son, Miles, and her husband, founder of Niman Ranch, a natural meat company supplied by a network of over 700 traditional farmers and ranchers. They now market the products of their ranch under the name BN Ranch.

Bill Niman is a cattle and turkey rancher in Northern California, founder and proprietor of BN RANCH, and founder of the natural meat company Niman Ranch, Inc. He has been providing naturally raised meats to fine restaurants and retailers for more than thirty years. A graduate of the University of Minnesota (B.A. Anthropology, 1967), and former teacher, he began raising first pigs, then cattle in 1970 on a ranch in Bolinas, California. As his reputation for superior-tasting meat spread among discerning chefs, Niman began marketing meat to San Francisco Bay area restaurants (originally, under the name "Niman-Schell" and later under the name "Niman Ranch"). In contrast to the conventional meat industry, Niman's animals were always raised using traditional husbandry methods and eschewing hormones, antibiotics, and slaughterhouse feed additives. Over the years, Niman Ranch, grew to a network of over 700 farms and ranches, which all adhere to a strict code of animal husbandry and land stewardship. The company has gained a national reputation for having the best-tasting beef, pork, and lamb available. Bill Niman left the company in August 2007, founding BN RANCH, which specializes in grassfed beef and heritage turkeys, shortly thereafter.

Niman was a member of the Pew Foundation's National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a blue ribbon panel that released recommendations for reforming the nation's livestock industry in April 2008.

Niman has been named "Food Artisan of the Year" by Bon Appetit magazine and has been called the "Master of Meat" by Wine Spectator, the "Guru of Happy Cows" by the Los Angeles Times,"a pioneer of the good meat movement" by the New York Times, "the Steve Jobs of Meat" by Men's Journal, and a "Pork Pioneer" by Food & Wine. He and his wife, Nicolette Hahn Niman, were featured in an August 2009 TIME magazine cover story on the crisis in the American food system. The Southern Foodways Alliance named him its Scholar in Residence for 2009, stating that he was "this country's most provocative and persistent champion of sustainably and humanely raised livestock." In 2007, Vanity Fair featured him in its "Green Issue" and Plenty magazine selected him as among the nation's five leading "green entrepreneurs." He has been honored with the Glynwood Harvest Good Neighbor Award by Glynwood Center, an organization that supports sustainable agriculture nationally and internationally.

Niman co-authored The Niman Ranch Cookbook (Ten Speed Press, 2005), which was selected as one of the year's best cookbooks by the New York Times, Newsweek and the San Jose Mercury News. He lives and works his ranch in Bolinas, California, together with his wife, Nicolette, and son, Miles.

Niman's meats have consistently been given rave reviews, including in several national taste-tests. The San Francisco Chronicle has put Niman Ranch beef in its food "Hall of Fame." In July 2004, Gourmet put Niman Ranch first in its Beef Buyer's Guide, stating that Niman aged steaks "had a rich, beefy-but-clean flavor." In October 2003, the Wall Street Journal chose Niman Ranch's bacon as "Best Overall" among all the bacons they tasted and in Spring 2004, Cook's Illustrated also choose it as the best bacon, giving it their highest rating of "Highly Recommended" and saying that it was the "hands-down winner."