NW Local Meats serves as the retail front for Island Grown Farmers Cooperative. IGFC started in 2002 as an effort to develop butchering access to small farmers on the San Juan Islands. The goal was to preserve an island way of life as well as the historic island farmlands. Real estate development was eating up farms and those trying to make a living were finding themselves competing with corporate farms and processors while struggling to overcome the added costs of operating on the islands.

By creating their own Farmer Owned Cooperative they could better control the farming process from the beginning of the animals life until it was sold to the consumer. 80 farms in Island, Skagit, & Whatcom Counties now use IGFC’s Mobile Slaughter, USDA Inspection, and product wrapping and packing services.