Five years ago, Paul Willis started a now-booming business based on the concept that hogs should not be as confined as they sometimes are on farms, and that they should be free of antibiotics.

Niman Ranch Pork Co., Willis’s Thornton-based hog business, currently has about 50 employees and is thriving after help from Iowa State.

Willis said the university helped him find more producers through the Practical Farmers of Iowa Organization and the Leopold Center. With the help of these services, Willis was able to locate a more diversified population.

While starting his business, Willis met Bill Niman, a California meat processor who expressed a desire to purchase hogs that were raised the way Willis raised his: outdoors, and in a manner that allowed the animals to exhibit their more natural behaviors.

Niman also wanted pork products that were raised without the use of antibiotics or growth-promoting hormones.

Willis said it’s not humane or healthy for pigs to be raised in a confinement setting.

“I don’t think it is healthy for the animals, people working there or the environment,” he said.

Willis compared the sows in the confinement to pregnant women.

“Even women who are pregnant are recommended to exercise,” he said.

As the demand for the pork products grew, Willis found that he needed more producers to raise hogs like he did, organically.

“As we continue to grow, one of the concerns we have is to maintain the quality,” Willis said. “We could see it would be important to monitor the quality also, not only how the product was being produced.”

This concern was one of the main reasons that Lori Janssen, 1999 animal science graduate of Iowa State, was hired as Willis’s assistant.

“She seemed to have the things I was looking for to further assist me,” Willis said. “She has a good base from her education and farm background.”

Janssen currently is the quality manager for Niman Ranch Pork Co.

“Some things that I do include going to producers’ farms in the Midwest to do farm inspections,” Janssen said. “They need to be raising pigs according to the guidelines.

“I also visit packing plants to look at carcasses and take notes on quality to report back,” she said. “I watch for things like marbling, loineye size and backfat.”

Janssen said the average consumer today wants lean pork. The pigs that Willis, along with other producers, raises have a lot more marbling, a more average size loineye and also have more backfat, she said.

A little more fat on the pig improves its quality, Janssen said.

“The emphasis in our product is meat quality,” she said. The pigs are produced to be served in fine restaurant markets, where the emphasis is put on eating, Janssen said.