Our Story

The idea for Gather came up during a long drive around central IL - Jake and McCullough, two Chicago butchers, were riding along with Marty Travis, the founder of Down at the Farms, visiting farms and brainstorming ways to further support sustainable agriculture in our region.

There’s a wide network of incredible growers, livestock producers, and people all along the supply chain around the midwest working to create a stronger local food system. For Jake and McCullough, it felt like this abundance was just out of reach.

McCullough got her start at the Butcher & Larder in 2013 when it was still on Milwaukee Ave. She learned whole animal butchery as well as sausage and charcuterie making on the job. Since 2018, she’s run the Chicago Meat Collective, a small business focused on teaching butchery skills through hands-on classes and educational events.

Jake has been working in and around kitchens since he was a teen in the Bay area. After moving to Chicago he worked in several restaurants including North Pond before eventually taking a job at Local Foods at the Butcher & Larder during the pandemic. In a short time, he was the department lead. After Local Foods’ closure in 2023, Jake founded Cut Once - a mobile butcher shop - to continue to support the farmers he worked with and to continue offering ethically processed meats to his loyal customers.

Jake and McCullough met at Local Foods in the pandemic years, a time when they saw a lot of businesses and farmers weather booms and busts as people went from taking on elaborate home cooking projects to putting aside the sourdough starter and relishing the opportunity to visit restaurants again. McCullough and Jake see that the landscape of grocery shopping is changing and believe that local meat and produce need to be championed now more than ever.

Gather CSA is a response to that need, and a bringing together (a gathering!) of strong networks that already exist for the purpose of getting local food directly to consumers in the most convenient, cost effective, and fun way we know how. For us, fun is connecting with the producers doing great work in the midwest. It’s making connections with local businesses who support our cause and lend us space to meet our subscribers out in the world. And it’s connecting directly with you, giving you access to what we believe is the best local food out there, along with the resources of our own knowledge and the wisdom of our network, to help you make the most of each Gather CSA box.