MONTICELLO, Ill. (WCIA) — Cattlemen are supposed to raise and sell cattle. But we found one who raises cattle and sells sandwiches. Our Harvest Heritage is about a fellow who goes the extra mile to promote his livestock. He takes it all the way to the consumers taste buds.
His name is Wes Hornback and in the Monticello community, he is the consummate cattleman and community chef. We found him serving up Philly steak sandwiches at the Monticello Farmers Market.
“The idea is to kind of come full circle with everything,” Hornback said. “So, we sell our frozen products right next door. About once a month, we’ll do a cook to maybe showcase a product that people aren’t used to cooking themselves. And then be able to tell that story from start to finish, essentially, and be able to provide something that is homegrown.”
Hornback is one of the Illinois Beef Association board members.
“Trying to bring the farmer to the consumer and tell that story about how beef is raised, and we can do some different things with that,” Hornback said. “Within the Beef Association, I’ve gotten a lot of ideas from other producers about how they do things and how they communicate with the public and we’ve taken some of those pieces and hopefully I can give something back to that as well.”
Beef Association executive Josh St. Peters says Hornback is an exemplary beef producer.
“Illinois Beef Association is fortunate to have Wes as a member and leader in our organization, and his outreach in East Central Illinois is a great opportunity to promote beef through the products he offers from his family farm at Sunset Acres,” St. Peters said. “Wes and his family are one great example of the thousands of local beef producers we have across the state raising a high-quality and nutritious protein source right in our own communities.”
That was kind of the whole point in getting into this: to be able to have that conversation with people that are a little bit farther removed away from the farm, and don’t necessarily know how things are raised and what all goes into raising crops or beef or pork or whatever,” Hornback said. “That was the idea of getting into this and coming to the farmers’ market and being able to have those conversations.”