Karen Way, CEO and founder of Ovoka Farm, wasn’t born into cattle farming, despite her ease in the pastoral countryside of Paris, Virginia. She spent over a decade as an attorney in Chicago, dreaming of a more bucolic life. Opportunity found its way into her hands in 2010, when the historic Ovoka estate came on the market. Way’s husband, Guy Morgan, spent his childhood running around Wildcat Hollow, just on the other side of the mountain, and the couple knew the magic and the pull of the Shenandoah Valley.
The family moved into the circa 1780 manor house with their four boys, taking over the 700-acre equestrian property. Their dream included turning the acreage into a working cattle farm.
What they didn’t know was how to farm.
“I spent late nights burning the midnight oil, looking at farm manager job descriptions, trying to figure out my new job,” Way recalls. She started with what sounded right, investing in standard beef cattle. But after getting a taste of Wagyu beef in Texas in 2013, her wheels started spinning—and, again, she jumped blindly and optimistically into her vision, relying on grit to find her way through.
That first year, Way imported 100 percent Black Wagyu embryos—yes, you can buy bovine embryos. These were top-of-the-line cattle, bred to produce the most mouth watering, tender meat. She inseminated her cattle and crossed her fingers till calving season. Luck was on her side. The calves grew into cows, and she patiently waited until they were big enough to harvest. The meat lived up to its tender expectations.
Ovoka Farm
So tender that those first cows harvested turned to gravy.
Way didn’t know how to cook wagyu, and she realized, when the day came, neither would potential customers. She went back to the drawing board, diving deeper into meat and landing on an F1 Wagyu, which is a 50/50 cross between an Angus heifer and a Wagyu bull. The resulting meat product has the heft of the Angus with the melt-in-your-mouth interstitial fat marbling of the Wagyu.
But that meeting of import and domestic beef didn’t make the process easier.
“We had to learn every detail—from what to feed to what to look for in an animal,” explains Way, standing in front of Paris Mountain, where her herd roams free throughout the property. It’s a foggy autumn day where the clouds hang romantically over the landscape. The elegant beauty of the land is a sharp contrast to the easygoing, quirky dynamic of the small Ovoka Farm team.
Jessica Morton, Ovoka’s Chief Operating Officer, pipes in, “We had to learn to make hay! We were making hay every month, and we looked at other farmers wondering, why are these guys only doing it twice a year? We had to learn everything.”
The duo, who found their way together via their sons but solidified their friendship over late nights in the field, agree that Wagyu are weird, unpredictable, and high maintenance. “When you say it’s a different breed, they really are,” says Way. “They have different personalities, different nutritional requirements, different finishing times. Even the way they’re calving is different. Everything is hands on.” [Editor’s note: finishing time is the length of time for the animal to optimize its marbling in preparation for harvest—aka slaughter. Finishing happens from 26-28 months.]
Way and Morton, who’ve dubbed themselves the “badass bitches of beef,” aren’t afraid to pull on their boots and get up close and personal with the cattle. They know the mamas and the calves intimately. But they needed someone who understands not only the cows themselves, but the business of farming, so in 2021 they brought on Roy Lambert, a Virginia native with more than 30 years of experience in agriculture. He was thrown into the Ovoka family, introducing a rotational grazing program and adding the technical expertise they needed to produce a stellar, Virginia-specific wagyu product.
Ovoka Farms
“There’s only a handful of us here. We have to do one thing, and do it well. We’re farming 700 acres with six of us. Every day, it changes. These cattle change,” says Lambert, as he points to the mountain where they once spent hours looking for a single lost cow.
That small team makes it easy for this-tight knit group to embark on late night cow hunts in snow storms or scheme an unconventional launch. “We crashed the town party a few years ago,” laughs Way. “It’s on Bastille Day—we’re in Paris, Virginia. We grabbed a little red wagon, 100 pounds of ground beef, and showed up.”
Morton, whose background is in retail management, was brought on to move the product, beyond showing up with a little red wagon. Getting into the fields and interacting with the cows—that’s just her way of knowing the business. She’s also using her retail chops to cultivate customers. “I’m cold calling. Making connections with the chefs. It’s a dating game, but whether it’s a Michelin star restaurant or a burger joint, those placements are what give us street cred when we go direct-to-consumer at the farmers market,” says Morton.
Her first successful cold call? The Inn at Little Washington.
Now they count dozens of restaurants as Ovoka Farm customers, including Field + Main, The Dabney, Bourbon Steak, Shilling Canning Company, and their next-door neighbor, the Ashby Inn.
One of the biggest challenges, however, is education and exposure. “Fast food burgers are two percent Wagyu and they’re advertising it as Wagyu. How are you, as a consumer, supposed to judge what is actually a good deal?” asks Way. She wants customers to understand that clean beef should be accessible to all, and she’s doing her best to bring non-GMO, all-natural Wagyu beef to customers at a reasonable price point. Focusing on F1 beef is part of that equation; it’s easier to cook and more affordable. But her emphasis on ethical cattle raising is just as critical. In Way’s words, the cows only have one bad day. They spend their lives being hand-fed, roaming throughout the property, and relaxing. A relaxed cow is a tender cut of meat.
Ovoka Farms
And relaxed cows should be surrounded by relaxed guests. In the past few years, Ovoka Farm has introduced agritourism, creating additional revenue streams through farm stays, tastings, and gourmet dinners. They’ve infused the same learn-on-the–fly, get-it-done attitude into this venture that they’ve done with the beef.
At the first Ovoka Farm gourmet dinner, there wasn’t time to find people to staff the event. Way and Morton jumped into action, pouring wine and serving steak. “I’m thinking, ‘Is it serve from the left, pull from the right? Out to in?’ Oh boy, I never did the debutante thing!,” exclaims Way.
But the group was blown away by the intimate, engaging evening. Seated in the grand dining room, the guests wanted to immerse themselves in every aspect of the farm—and Ovoka’s tiny team, including Way, Morton and Lambert, is what defines this farm, its meat, and the future of Wagyu beef in Virginia.
“People can come here, feed with us, and be a farmer for a weekend,” says Way, realizing she’s tapped into a market of city dwellers ready for a more bucolic life—just like she was.
Heather Bien’s work has appeared in Garden & Gun, The Spruce, Martha Stewart Weddings, Apartment Therapy, and more.
