Named after Lonesome Dove. Built because ranchers had nowhere else to go.
The new ownership’s advantage was that they weren’t changing a culture — they were adding infrastructure to an already-trusted one. The staff who had worked under the Rundhaug-Bohn family remained. The sausage recipes stayed. The processing methods that had earned Almena its reputation were untouched. What changed was the customer-facing channel and the operational efficiency underneath it.
When Dwayne Devellen and Mark West founded Hat Creek Butchery on November 1, 2021, they were responding to a genuine emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic had pushed processing backlogs across the region past 18 months. Ranchers in southwest Kansas — families who had raised cattle for generations — couldn't get their animals processed. Freezers sat empty while the livestock grew heavier and feed costs mounted.
Dwayne, a former law enforcement officer who had spent years in ministry and community service alongside ranching work, and Mark, who knew the ranching community's needs firsthand, stepped into the gap. They opened a USDA-inspected processing facility in Plains, Kansas. The commitment was simple and absolute: "The cow you drop off is the meat you take home." In an industry where commingling and substitution had eroded trust, that transparency was not marketing. It was the business model.
Hat Creek grew. The Plains facility built a reputation for honest processing, precision butchery, and personal service. A retail location followed in Liberal, Kansas — stocked with 14-day dry-aged beef, local Wagyu, custom bundles, thick-cut bacon, and specialty sausage. GAP 4 certification and organic processing capability expanded the operation's reach to farmers committed to higher animal welfare standards. The product quality was not in question. The reach was.
"Our mission is to help communities eat better and support local food systems. We want people to know exactly where their meat comes from."
— Dwayne Devellen, Co-founder, Hat Creek Butchery
A butchery built on transparency had no digital way to prove it.
Four years in, Hat Creek's retail operation was running almost entirely on in-store foot traffic and personal referrals. The Liberal retail location had regulars — families who drove in weekly for dry-aged cuts and the seasonal sausage specials. But the reach ended at the edge of the parking lot.
The bundle products — Starter Box, Ground Beef Box, Sampler Box, Family Box — were exactly the kind of curated, premium-positioned products that sell online. The Wagyu offerings were differentiated and competitively priced. The dry-aging story, the GAP 4 certification, the transparency promise — these were compelling narratives that could convert a first-time buyer from three states away. But there was no online channel to deliver them.
Hat Creek's founding promise — "the cow you drop off is the meat you take home" — is one of the most powerful provenance statements in independent meat processing. It was spoken at the counter, shared on Facebook, repeated by satisfied customers. But there was no operational system that let a buyer verify it digitally at the moment of purchase. The transparency existed; the infrastructure to prove it online did not.
On the processing side, booking was handled by phone. Ranchers called to schedule drop-off dates, confirmed weights by memory or text, and received their processing results without a digital paper trail. For a business built on traceability and transparency, the processing intake process was entirely analog. There was no portal for a rancher to book a slot, submit animal information, or track their processing timeline from drop-off to pickup.
Neither problem was urgent in year one or two. In year three, with the retail product lineup strong and processing demand consistent, both problems were actively limiting growth. Hat Creek had built something excellent. It needed infrastructure to scale it.
Three channels, one build: DTC storefront, subscription boxes, and a processor booking portal.
The audit made clear that Hat Creek needed infrastructure across three distinct workflows: a consumer-facing DTC store for retail buyers outside Liberal, a subscription layer to convert one-time bundle buyers into recurring revenue, and a processor-facing portal for ranchers booking custom processing. All three needed to reflect the same provenance story that Hat Creek had been telling in person since day one.
We built all three in 14 days. Here's what went live:
- DTC storefront with cold-ship scheduling. Hat Creek's full retail catalog went online — dry-aged cuts, Wagyu selections, specialty pork, seasonal sausage — with cold-ship scheduling enforced at checkout. Orders ship Monday–Tuesday only to ensure cold-chain integrity. Buyers outside Liberal, KS can now find, browse, and order without driving in.
- Meat bundle subscriptions (monthly and quarterly). The Starter Box, Ground Beef Box, Sampler Box, and Family Box were repackaged as recurring subscriptions with flexible frequency. Auto-billing. Pause-skip logic. Subscribers receive curated content each cycle — Hat Creek's story, the farms sourced from that month, the cut notes. The bundle becomes a relationship, not a transaction.
- GAP 4 and organic certification displayed at product level. Every eligible product carries certification badges and downloadable documentation. The provenance story — which animal, which farm, which certification standard — is visible at the point of purchase. Hat Creek's transparency promise became verifiable, not just spoken.
- Processing intake and booking portal for ranchers. Ranchers book processing slots online, submit animal information (species, weight estimate, preferred cut specifications), and receive a digital confirmation with their production timeline. Processing status updates at each stage — drop-off, processing, packaging, ready for pickup — are sent automatically. The "your cow, your meat" promise is now tracked digitally from intake to collection.
- Custom cut-sheet forms embedded in the processing portal. Each processing booking includes a digital cut-sheet form. Ranchers specify their preferences — steaks vs. roasts, trim percentage, sausage flavors, packaging sizes — before drop-off. Hat Creek's processing team receives a structured work order rather than a handwritten note.
- Pickup and local delivery scheduling for Liberal and Plains. Retail buyers in the delivery zone can schedule home delivery or farm gate pickup from the same checkout. The Liberty retail store's POS syncs with the online inventory — no overselling of in-store cuts.
Hat Creek's founding transparency promise — "the cow you drop off is the meat you take home" — is now tracked through the processing portal from booking to pickup. Every rancher who uses the portal sees their animal's intake date, processing status, and cut sheet in a single dashboard. The integrity that Dwayne and Mark built into the counter conversation is now built into the software.
3.4× DTC revenue. Processing booked 6 weeks out. Bundles converting to subscriptions.
The DTC storefront unlocked buyers that geography had previously excluded. Within the first 90 days, Hat Creek was shipping cold-pack orders to buyers in Wichita, Oklahoma City, and Denver — markets that had no way to access the product before the online channel existed. The Wagyu and dry-aged selections resonated strongest with out-of-area buyers willing to pay a premium for verified Kansas-sourced, GAP 4 certified beef.
The subscription conversion rate was the result we didn't fully anticipate. Hat Creek's bundle products were already well-curated — buyers who received a Family Box for the first time knew the quality. The subscription prompt, offered at post-purchase, converted 62% of first-time bundle buyers to recurring subscriptions within 60 days. The recurring revenue base has continued to grow every month since go-live.
"Before the portal, I was guessing how many ranchers were coming in next week. Now I look at the calendar and I know. I know what animals are coming, what cut sheets they've requested, what's leaving for pickup on Friday. We're running the same operation — but now we can see it."
— Dwayne Devellen, Co-founder, Hat Creek Butchery
The processing portal changed how Hat Creek manages capacity. Previously, scheduling was verbal and subject to overbooking or gaps. With online booking, the team can see the forward calendar two months out and make staffing decisions accordingly. Ranchers who book far ahead tend to be more prepared — they arrive with complete cut sheet preferences already submitted, which reduces back-and-forth on processing day.
The transparency infrastructure — GAP 4 and organic certification visible at product level, processing status updates by digital notification, digital cut-sheet confirmation per booking — has become a genuine sales differentiator. Several buyers have cited the provenance documentation as a reason they chose Hat Creek over a local alternative. The grit and integrity that Dwayne and Mark built into every counter conversation are now built into the checkout flow.
Hat Creek Butchery operates a USDA-inspected processing facility in Plains, Kansas, and a retail butcher shop at 30 E. Tucker Rd, Liberal, Kansas. Founded November 1, 2021 by Dwayne Devellen and Mark West, Hat Creek serves ranchers, families, and food businesses across southwest Kansas with custom processing, dry-aged beef, and premium retail cuts. GAP 4 and organic processing certified.
