Two generations. Forty-nine years. A farm-to-fork operation with nowhere to go but forward.
Pure Country Farms started with pigs. Paul Sr. entered farming under his father’s guidance, cut his teeth in 4-H and FFA, and spent nearly five decades building a pig and cattle operation in central Washington that stood for everything the industrial food system did not: antibiotic-free, hormone-free, non-GMO, free-range. His son Paul Jr. joined him young — not as an employee, but as a partner — and has farmed alongside his father for over 35 years.
In 2015, when the owner of Vern’s Meats in Moses Lake decided to retire, the Klingemans saw an opportunity. They bought the facility and restarted it as Pure Country Harvest — their own USDA-inspected butcher shop where they could process their own pigs and cattle without paying a third-party processor. From there, it was a short step to processing for other small local producers too. Cut out the middleman at every stage. Own the chain from pasture to packaged cut.
Andy Huff, the plant manager, explained the logic plainly: “All the meat that goes into the grocery store is handled probably 10 times before it actually hits the shelf, and everybody who touches it adds a markup. Because we own the farm and we own the processing facility, we’re cutting out a lot of middlemen.” The result is a premium product at a price that competes with supermarket non-sale pricing — without the supply chain overhead.
“There are a lot of small producers in Washington that produce a quality product but don’t have a place to process it. That’s what we’re here to do — not only provide high-quality protein for the local community but also provide a service for small producers so they can get their products out.”
— Andy Huff, Plant Manager, Pure Country Harvest
A farm-to-fork operation with a checkout experience that didn’t do it justice.
Pure Country Harvest’s online store reflected the reality of a farm operation that built eCommerce as an afterthought to the physical business. The catalog was functional but minimal. Product pages did not carry the farm’s production standards — the antibiotic-free, non-GMO, free-range commitments that are genuinely differentiated in the Moses Lake market and meaningful to buyers choosing between Pure Country and a supermarket. That information existed in the farm’s values but not on the product pages where buying decisions were made.
The fundraiser program — one of Pure Country’s most community-rooted revenue channels — had significant untapped reach. Schools and community groups across Washington could have been purchasing fundraiser bundle boxes online and shipping them via UPS, but the checkout experience didn’t make this simple or scalable. The program was essentially limited to buyers willing to coordinate a pickup in Moses Lake or Ephrata.
The two-location pickup coordination was its own friction point. Moses Lake pickups ran regularly; the Ephrata farm pickup only happened on Wednesdays. Buyers who didn’t know this called to ask. The team answered, explained, re-scheduled. Coordination calls consumed time that could have gone to processing or customer service. The scheduling information existed, but it wasn’t embedded in the ordering flow where it could do its job automatically.
The online store also did not reflect real-time stock. If a product sold out at the Moses Lake warehouse, it remained visible and orderable online until someone manually updated it. The farm’s commitment to “we’ll update you on any out-of-stock items” was genuine, but it meant post-purchase disappointment rather than accurate availability at checkout.
A store that tells the farm’s story, schedules the pickup, and ships the bundle box without a follow-up call.
Pure Country Harvest needed an eCommerce operation that matched the quality and intentionality of the farm and processing facility behind it. The brief: surface the production standards that make Pure Country worth choosing, make the fundraiser program accessible beyond Moses Lake, and embed pickup scheduling logic directly into the checkout flow. We built it in 14 days.
- Product storytelling with full production standards at product level. Every beef and pork product page now carries the complete list of what Pure Country does and doesn’t use: antibiotic-free, hormone-free, non-GMO, free-range, natural environment, no mRNA vaccine. Buyers choosing Pure Country over a supermarket alternative see exactly why the choice matters. The certification that exists on the farm now exists in the checkout.
- Bundle box catalog with tiered pricing and subscription option. Elite Steak Box, 20 lb Beef Box, 20 lb Pork Box, Braise & Bake Bundle, 10 lb Breakfast Bundle — each listed with weight, contents, and pricing. A subscription tier reduces the friction of repeat purchases. Buyers commit to a cadence; orders generate automatically.
- Fundraiser program portal with bulk group ordering. Schools and community organizations can now place fundraiser bundle orders through a dedicated portal section, select shipping via UPS, and track their order. The program is no longer geographically limited to buyers who can pick up in Moses Lake or Ephrata. Organizations across Washington State can now participate.
- Two-location pickup scheduling embedded in checkout. Moses Lake warehouse pickup and Wednesday-only Ephrata farm pickup are presented as options with real-time slot availability at checkout. Buyers select their location and date before confirming the order. The coordination call — “what day are you open?” — is now answered in the checkout flow.
- UPS shipping with auto-calculated rates and $100 minimum order enforcement. The $100 minimum order for shipped orders is enforced at checkout with a clear prompt. UPS rates calculate from the Moses Lake warehouse to the buyer’s zip code at the moment of purchase. No post-order price adjustment, no estimate surprises.
- Real-time inventory sync across pickup locations and online store. Stock levels update in real time as orders are placed. Sold-out items display accurately rather than remaining orderable. The post-purchase “sorry, we’re out of that” conversation dropped to near-zero.
Bundle boxes growing. Fundraiser program reaching beyond Moses Lake. Pickup scheduling calls eliminated.
The fundraiser program expansion was the result that surprised the team most. With UPS shipping enabled and a dedicated fundraiser section in the store, organizations that had never engaged with Pure Country because they couldn’t drive to Moses Lake began placing orders. A school in Spokane. A church group near Yakima. A community organization in the Puget Sound area. The product had always been worth the order. The digital channel made the order possible.
“We’ve been doing this for almost fifty years. The farm was always right. The butcher shop is right. The online store is the one thing we never quite got to feel like us. Now it does.”
— Laura Klingeman Smith, Administration Manager, Pure Country Harvest
The production standards transparency generated the second-order effect the team had hoped for but not fully predicted: buyers who arrived at Pure Country’s store from a search for “antibiotic-free pork Moses Lake” or “non-GMO beef Washington” converted at significantly higher rates than the previous store’s general-audience traffic. The specificity of the product commitment — which had always existed on the farm — now existed in the search result and the product page, matching the buyer who was already looking for exactly this.
Pure Country Harvest is the USDA-inspected processing facility of Pure Country Farms, a multi-generational family farm operated by Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. Klingeman in Ephrata, Washington. The facility is located at 2721 W. Peninsula Drive, Moses Lake, WA, with farm-gate pickup available in Ephrata on Wednesdays. Products are antibiotic-free, hormone-free, non-GMO, and free-range. Shipping available via UPS to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and beyond.
