Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I welcome Tod Auman to the Project. Welcome, Tod.
Tod Auman: Hi, Toni.
Toni: How are you today?
Tod: Doing great. Nice to be with you.
Toni: Fantastic. Alright, Tod. Take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tod: Sure. My name is Tod Auman. I’m an owner, along with my wife, Chrissy, of Dundore and Heister, a whole animal sustainable butcher shop here. Berks County born and raised. We love this community. We have some amazing people, amazing resources, and are just proud of living here. Family lives here. It’s just a great place to grow up and to raise a family.
Toni: Have you been here forever?
Tod: Forever. Since the beginning.
Toni: Alright. Me too, so I get that. Alright, let’s go into the Project.
Tod: Sure.
Toni: What does inspiration mean to you?
Tod: Well, I think inspiration — when I thought about the question, I think that it can come in two forms. Inspiration can be a call to action — what gets you up in the morning. It can also be an innovation or a breakthrough — an ‘ah-ha’ moment. I view it in two forms. One of a call to action, but also something new and a way to look at the world in a new way.
Toni: Does the innovation piece drive action as well? If you’re inspired and go, “Wow. That’s a different way to look at something,” does that create an action for you as well?
Tod: Absolutely. I think the main thing…I think inspiration for all of us is something that gets us to act, to do something. To go out and change the world, so to speak. You can change the world in big ways and in small ways, and still have an impact.
Toni: Do you know when you’re inspired?
Tod: Absolutely.
Toni: You can feel it?
Tod: You feel it on the back of your neck. It’s chills. “Wow. Something big is going to happen.”
Toni: Oh. That’s a pretty cool feeling, isn't it?
Tod: It is.
Toni: So, how do you take that inspiration when you feel it and it moves you and how do you put that into practice here in Berks County?
Tod: I think that when that happens, you just know that you have to go do something. I think that is incredibly apropos to what I’m about the describe, which is our business, Dundore and Heister. My wife and I started a family. We lived outside the community. We were born and raised here, and we left and came back, and we had a family started. We wanted to eat better. We were surprised, going back 10 or 15 years ago that here in what is considered to be the bread basket of the Mid-Atlantic, our traditions of strong agriculture and being the bread basket to the Mid-Atlantic states for hundreds of years, that you would go to the Farmers Market and you couldn’t source local products.
It’s a belief that we have a really powerful resource here in our community. Not only is it a way of life for people as an economic resource, but it’s the vistas that we all experience driving around the community; the hilltops and the valleys, and it’s the history. We got a sense that in many ways it was dying when we moved back here. Farms were being plowed under for developments. The stories, the lore, the folklore that goes along with those farming traditions was going away. That was our call to action, that we really wanted to do something, and the belief was that food — which we believe is the least common denominator beyond organized religion and sports — it’s how we will connect. We can all relate — rich, poor, young, old — we all can relate to food. It’s the funnel cake. It’s those kind of things that we all know and love. We felt that food would be this great opportunity to have people engage with our local foodshed and take responsibility and believe that they can have an impact through how they buy their food.
Toni: So, you were inspired by what was missing.
Tod: Correct. There was a missing link.
Toni: Right. And then created and filled the gap.
Tod: Correct.
Toni: Do you find yourself telling stories around your product?
Tod: Food has to be about stories. It has to be the why. You say, “Why did you cook that recipe?” We have history, those old recipes that are handed down. You’re cooking your grandmother’s recipe because there’s a story to it. I think if you’re in the food business, I mean, there has to be a reason why you’re cooking or using ingredients the way that you do. I think it was trying to build a company that had a why in terms of not only where it came from and the producer who produced it, but also why you’re cooking that recipe, and a belief that if there’s a story there, that it keeps the traditions alive, and again, it unifies us. “Why” is important in food, I believe.
Toni: Fantastic. Who in Berks County inspires you?
Tod: I think along that same line, if you want to stick to my message today, a perfect example would be a gentleman by the name of Dave Kline. For those of you who don’t know him, Dave Kline is a really interesting cat. Very involved in the music scene here in the community. Also is involved with Berks Country, so they’re focusing on our agricultural resources. He loves the history. He likes to talk about the history. I think again he’s helping with a sense of place and reminding us of our history. We don’t want to lose that. He’s a very passionate guy. Again, if you’re trying to be inspired, passion is important, because those people that are passionate can really move mountains, and he’s one of those guys.
Toni: Mm-hmm. Passion does move mountains. Inspiration, then passion, then movement is what I’m hearing.
Tod: Indeed. Right.
Toni: Anybody else in Berks County inspire you?
Tod: Yeah. I think it would to go one of the questions you’ve asked in the past is, “Who inspired you today?” We had this great conversation that my business today, where there’s a farmer that we work with here in the county, we’ve been working with him for several years. Because of our work with them, they are having the first child in his family to go to college. I think that that has been part of our mission is that when we work with local farmers, we think it’s the community’s responsibility to not just ask of our farmers to produce a product for us, but also to show them how they can create a livelihood. We work with farmers and pay them a premium to do what’s right by the environment, and raise happy, healthy animals, grass-fed animals that don’t use pesticides on the pasture. We pay them a premium for that. Through that premium and keeping money in the community, he’s been able to have his kid go to college, which I think is the American dream. I think part of our message is trying to keep money in the community; then again, it’s about impact.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be, Tod?
Tod: I think all of us want to feel as though our life is not for naught. We’ve left an impact there. I tried to do that with my message with members of my team, is that we all want to feel like we’re part of something special. I think that’s another reason why Chrissy and I have Dundore and Heister, is we believe that by using Dundore and Heister as an economic means to drive healthy food in our community and telling a story, and keeping the history alive of our traditions is a great way to have an impact, and our legacy would be that we’re keeping some of the traditional alive, I’d say.
Toni: People that listen to this Project know that I always say that legacy is not just when you’re gone, but it’s how you live your legacy today.
Tod: Indeed.
Toni: Based on this interview, you are living your legacy today.
Tod: Thank you.
Toni: Thank you so much for showing up for the Project.
Tod: You’re welcome.
