Sometimes the name says it all, and that’s the case at Pasture to Plate. The shop is located in the heart of the most politically correct neighbourhood in Vancouver—that would be Commercial Drive—so it’s no surprise that the journey from the field to the butcher block places a big emphasis on making things humane.

All meat—beef, chicken, pork, and turkey—comes from the Rafter 25 Ranch, a 60,000-acre spread in the Chilcotin run by Swiss expats Felix and Jasmin Schellenberg. Cows spend their days grazing in irrigated pastures, pigs feed on organic produce when they aren’t out foraging for wild roots. To reduce stress, harvesting is done by the farm at its own abattoir.

There is of course a small premium to be paid for organic beef koftas and meat from turkeys that have never seen the inside of a factory farm, which is to say that Pasture to Plate costs a little more than, say, butchers with names like Fattening Pen to Styrofoam Container and Raised In a Veal Crate. Neither of which, by the way, would last a month on the Drive.