Exactly 60 minutes later, he’s on the phone again, apologizing. “We got a lot of rain last night, and there were some things on the farm I had to take care of right away,” he says. “It’s funny—we’re either praying for rain or dealing with the rain. That’s just how it goes.”

In today’s model of food production, in fact, that is not ordinarily how it goes. As food production consolidates under a handful of large corporate agribusinesses, the image of the farmer tending to his animals is increasingly quaint. Equally quaint are the livestock practices to which Bill Niman and his cooperative of independent family farmers adhere: Only natural, vegetarian feeds. No hormones. No antibiotics. No crowding even at the slaughterhouse. And as few layers of distribution as possible between the farm and the fork.

For more than two decades, fine-dining menus have featured the branded meats of Niman Ranch, the 11-state cooperative of family farms that produce premium, naturally raised beef, pork, and lamb. Today, Niman Ranch meats are also available in the meat cases of thriving natural foods chains such as Austin-based Whole Foods. And, increasingly, the Niman name appears on the menus of quick-serve and casual dining chains that are betting consumers will pay a little more for the naturally raised label.

Denver-based Chipotle was the first national chain to sign on to the notion that the economics of serving natural meats would work, under the direction of founder and Culinary Institute of America–trained chef Steve Ells.

Chipotle launched Niman pork carnitas three years ago, but the relationship between Ells and Bill Niman goes back eight years, when Niman’s pork standards were the subject of a story in Edward Behr’s The Art of Eating, a quarterly food, wine, and ingredient journal. Ells, who was looking to upgrade Chipotle’s carnitas while sticking to the chain’s Food With Integrity manifesto, read the story and contacted Niman.

“At the time, their carnitas were mediocre at best, largely because of the meat block, the ingredient they were using in preparation,” Niman says.

Niman shipped samples of pork to Ells’s home. Liking what he tasted, Ells engaged Niman in the process of identifying which cuts Niman’s farmers should supply. “There are several muscle groups to the animal,” says Niman, “and it was amazing because he wanted to taste those groups and figure out which would deliver the eating quality and characteristics he was looking for in carnitas.”

For test after test, Niman shipped Ells hundreds of pounds of small industrial batches of pork. Once he was satisfied with the flavor of Niman Ranch pork, Ells asked to tour Niman’s farms to investigate the husbandry and animal welfare standards. Ells was seeking many answers. Would the pork production standards of Niman’s cooperative fulfill the vision of Chipotle’s Food With Integrity philosophy? Could Niman’s network of independent family farms in the Midwest deliver meat with a consistent eating experience? Could Niman’s old-fashioned pig farming live up to modern standards of food safety and butchering? “It was rigorous,” Niman says of the investigation. “[Ells] did all due diligence. He is an incredibly driven person who, when he is interested in something, focuses on every detail and goes in depth in his analysis and investigation.”

Perhaps Chipotle’s most pressing question had to do with the pressures of demand: Could this anti–mass-producer keep up with the company’s explosive national growth? Ann Daniels, Chipotle’s purchasing director, says managing the supply of natural and organic ingredients, including Niman’s naturally raised pork, is her single biggest challenge. “In 2004, our supply needs of every item increased 50 percent over the year before,” Daniels says. “This year, our needs will increase another 30 percent over 2004 levels.”

But, from the testing stages through a national rollout and nearly three years of sales, Niman’s supply has met Chipotle’s demand. The chain alpha-tested the Niman pork carnitas in a handful of stores, then beta-tested them regionally. In each store that rolled over to Niman pork, prices for carnitas items increased about one dollar. Chipotle then used the incremental margins made on those transactions to educate the consumer about the attributes of the meat.

Chipotle’s new carnitas recipe has been a strong success systemwide. “Something that was a small percentage of their menu choices originally has grown steadily because of the great flavor and great story,” says Niman. And while it’s hard to know which trait the customer is signing on for—the flavor, the story, or some combination—the bottom line is people are buying more each year. In fact, when Niman rolled its pork into Chipotle’s Manhattan market, the carnitas rocketed to the highest percentage of sales of any Chipotle market. “It was the opposite of what you might expect in that market,” Niman says, “and it’s because of the flavor and because we are branded on a lot of [fine dining] menus there.”

Chipotle’s success with Niman pork has proven a major catalyst for the growth of the pork side of Niman’s cooperative. When Ells and Niman began working together, Chipotle had about 60 locations, while Niman had about 55 pork farmers. The companies have grown almost in tandem: Today Chipotle has 415 locations, while Niman Ranch has 470 pork-producing family farms in its network. (Niman’s cattle and lamb ranches are separate networks with 50 and 9 farms, respectively.) In many ways, says Chris Arnold, Chipotle’s chief marketer, Niman’s pork cooperative has grown largely to keep pace with Chipotle’s demand.

Bill Niman never envisioned this kind of scale when he moved from Berkeley to the Marin area north of San Francisco some 30 years ago to farm. “People were leaving cities and urban areas, trying to get back to nature and self-sustaining [practices] and produce their own foods,” he recalls. “I got swept up in that movement.”

Niman became part of a community that was interested in producing food in a safe, sustainable manner. “I was really fortunate in that the community I moved into was an agricultural one, but the people already on the ground there, farming and ranching for generations, had not bought into the factory farm, modern, high-tech, heavy-duty production [model],” he says. “Instead, they were raising great livestock in a humane and traditional manner. They became my mentors.”

As he learned the ways of sustainable farming, Niman began producing food not just for himself and his family, but also for neighbors and the larger community. From there, he says, it was a matter of being in the proverbial right place at the right time. “I happened to be close enough, at that point, to the Mecca of new cuisine, the Bay Area,” he says. “Whether it was Chez Panisse and the people who were being influenced by that [style of cooking], there was certainly a huge interest in natural food, in getting [back] to the source.”