This NFL Player Built One of the First Regenerative Organic Certified Chicken Farms in the United States
Long before the Super Bowl, a Texas A&M meat-production class sparked an idea he’d turn into his own poultry business.
Most NFL stars collect sneakers, cars or maybe a restaurant or two. Von Miller collected chickens.
You probably know Miller as a Super Bowl MVP and one of the most feared pass rushers of his generation. What you might not know is that one of his biggest off-field passions started in a college classroom.
As a student at Texas A&M, Miller took a meat-production class that introduced him to poultry farming. In an interview with Entrepreneur, he said the course sparked an idea he would eventually turn into a business.
Years later, at the height of his NFL career, he turned that interest into Greener Pastures Chicken, a pasture-raised poultry company in Texas.
It turns out the idea had plenty of fans in the locker room, too. Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees and Nick Foles have all invested in the company, giving it a roster of backers most startups could only dream of.
The farm’s next big win came in 2026 when Greener Pastures became Regenerative Organic Certified and Halal certified, marking a new stage for a business Miller had spent years building.
It’s also a sign of where food could be headed. As regenerative agriculture grows more popular, Von Miller’s chicken farm offers an early look at what that shift might mean for the meat aisle, where shoppers may soon have more chances to choose chicken raised with both the animals and the land in mind.
What makes Von Miller’s chicken farm different?
Plenty of chicken farms keep birds indoors for their entire lives. Greener Pastures takes a different approach, raising its chickens on pasture, according to its website.
The birds start out in a brooder for their first few weeks. Once they’re old enough to regulate their own body temperature, they head outside.
From there, the farm says the chickens are moved onto fresh pasture every day. They forage for grass, insects and grit, and they eat certified-organic feed, too.
All that moving around is also part of the farm’s plan for healthier soil:
- Chickens graze and forage
- Their manure adds nutrients back to the soil
- Microorganisms help break that manure down
- The pasture gets time to recover
- The birds eventually rotate back onto healthier ground
Greener Pastures describes the idea as one where “healthy birds and healthy land can work together,” and says its chickens are raised without antibiotics or added hormones.
Giving chickens outdoor space and room to behave naturally also becomes part of how the farm manages and improves the land, tying animal welfare directly to soil health.
That’s why Miller calls Greener Pastures a “country club for chickens” and told Entrepreneur he wants people “to see everything” because “there’s nothing to hide.”
What makes Von Miller’s chicken farm Regenerative Organic Certified?
In 2026, Greener Pastures earned Regenerative Organic Certified status and is listed at the Silver level by the Regenerative Organic Alliance.
ROC builds on USDA Organic, then adds extra standards for soil health, animal welfare and social fairness.
Greener Pastures is a good example of how two of those pillars can overlap on the same farm:
- Rotational grazing is designed to support the soil
- Outdoor pasture gives chickens more room to move, forage and act naturally
- The birds themselves become part of the farm’s nutrient cycle
The farm added a second certification that same year when it became Halal certified through the Halal Food Standards Alliance of America, and the company says its chickens are hand-processed according to Halal requirements.
That combination is rare. In fact, a Greener Pastures press release distributed through the National Restaurant Association Show described the company as one of the few U.S. poultry producers to hold both ROC and Halal certification.
“Foodservice operators are asking for poultry they can trust. Our ROC and Halal certifications formally validate the production standards we’ve delivered all along,” Neil Dudley, EVP of sales and marketing at Greener Pastures, said in the release.
The two certifications cover different things, but together they give buyers additional verification around how the chickens are raised, managed and processed.
Greener Pastures Chicken shows where regenerative organic could go next
Greener Pastures may be one of the first chicken farms to earn ROC certification, but it’s part of a much bigger shift in regenerative agriculture.
ROC has been branching out beyond early categories like rice, coffee and produce into a wider range of grocery products. That means shoppers have more chances to spot the label outside of specialty stores.
Elizabeth Whitlow, former executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, told Organic Produce Network that ROC “is not intended to replace USDA Organic but to set a new standard for what’s possible in our food and farming systems.”
Greener Pastures offers a glimpse of what that new standard can look like: animals raised differently, soil managed differently and a certification built to verify both.
And with names like Von Miller and Patrick Mahomes attached, Greener Pastures has something most regenerative farms don’t: built-in star power. That kind of visibility could help introduce regenerative organic chicken to fans who might never have noticed the label otherwise. Not bad for an idea that started in a college classroom.
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