Althea Farms

Our story began 6 decades ago on a cattle ranch on Petit Jean Mountain in AR with a recipe for a holiday pecan. And every Christmas my grandmother, then my mother, then I would make this special pecan just in December. I started giving them as gifts when Tim and I first married in 1990 and it very quickly became a seasonal business as I raised my 5 kids. Fast forward to 2024, kids are grown and flown, Tim retires, we decide to move back to our home on the mountain where our kids spent countless summers and holidays, where weddings happened, and traditions rooted deeply. We don't sit still well and here we are!

That's the easy part of the story. The passion project of clean, safe ingredients is rooted in a passion project of sorts. We had mold in one of our homes. I got very sick and ultimately was diagnosed with a myriad of autoimmune issues including celiac in 1999 (I like to say I was gluten free before it was cool). Even worse was my kids were getting seriously ill despite not living in the mold any longer thus began a true journey to living strong and healthy and not just "living" with feeling bad. We quickly figured out after a trip to Paris that while gluten was a trigger, I could actually eat a little of it there without becoming horribly ill. What was different in their food…farm to table, no factory farming, fewer pesticides and chemicals…ok so we buy from the farmers market as best we can. But I still have flares, now what. It didn't take long to dig deeper and figure out that glyphosate was probably at the root of most of the flare ups. So I cut out not only gluten but corn, oats, and rice and bought organic and things really began improving. I really missed oatmeal and granola so I tried many different brands of gluten free oats to find the one we now use in our granola. It causes no issues for me or my kids.