Can we talk about where our tallow actually comes from for a sec?
Lindenhoff, Baambrugge. A tiny, ridiculously picturesque village about 20 minutes from Amsterdam. That's where Dirco and Joëlle te Voortwis live with their four kids, their Gasconne cattle, their pigs, their sheep and an approach to farming that honestly makes me emotional if I think about it too hard.
We’re talking four generations of the same family on the same land. Dirco's grandfather started it. His father Ben pushed back against industrial farming in the 1980s when everyone else was going the other way. Now Dirco and Joëlle are running 75 hectares of herb-rich grassland with zero pesticides, zero artificial fertiliser, and a philosophy they call landbouw-inclusieve natuur.
Most farms ask: how do we farm while damaging nature as little as possible?
Dirco and Joëlle ask an entirely different question: how do we let nature lead, and build our farming around that?
Nature is the blueprint.
The cattle are a French Gasconne breed and, honestly, once you learn about them, it is hard to imagine a more fitting animal for Fat of the Land.
They originate from the Pyrenees, where harsh mountain climate and scarce resources shaped them over centuries into something remarkably resilient. Spending summers high in the mountains and winters in the lowlands, they adapted to conditions most breeds would struggle to endure. They are a hardy, low-input breed, able to thrive on wild plants and grass, with strong maternal instincts and a natural resilience to changing environments. Not crossbred for performance and never pushed beyond what is natural, they grow at a slower pace, taking longer to reach maturity than modern commercial breeds. The kind of animal the industrial food system has no patience for.
Most commercial beef operations separate calf and mother within hours or days of birth. It's standard practice. The calf goes one way, the mother goes another. It's efficient. But if you really think about it (like really think about it) it's also one of the most heartbreaking (not to mention distressing) things that happens completely routinely in modern agriculture and no one bats an eye.
At Lindenhoff, the Gasconne calf and mother graze side by side from birth. The calf drinks real milk, from its own mother in the pastures. The mother raises her calf the way she was designed to.
It sounds like the most basic thing in the world. And somehow it's radical.
In winter, when the fields are too wet, the cattle retreat to their koeientuin — a literal cow garden — “a barn that looks as little like a barn as possible” with a light-permeable roof, fresh air moving freely through open sides, thick straw underfoot, and trees planted inside for shelter. Yes, trees. Inside the barn. 
Most farmers would ask: why go to the trouble of planting trees inside a barn?
Dirco and Joëlle would reply: why wouldn’t you? 
Because if you watch cattle long enough, you’ll notice they don’t choose to rest in the middle of an open field. Cattle are prey animals. They move toward edges. Toward shelter. Toward trees. Being able to lean into something solid, to stand in dappled light rather than exposed openness, makes them feel safe. So instead of designing a barn for efficiency, they designed it around their natural instinct. It also softens the contrast between winter and spring. Instead of months of confinement followed by sudden release, the koeientuin becomes an extension of the pasture. A place that still feels like the outside, even when the land isn’t ready yet.
I feel very lucky to source from them and I thought you should know where it comes from.