Joey Mason is forty years old and has already sold two businesses, survived an embezzlement, rebuilt a company from scratch, and become — with no agricultural background — the operator of the only USDA-certified beef processing plant located on a farm in his part of Alabama. The through-line, in his telling, is simpler than the résumé: pay attention to the small voice, and be “crazy enough to follow through.”
That combination of faith and audacity has produced Mason Hills Farm in Grand Bay, a 250-acre operation with its own processing plant, butcher shop and a growing list of restaurant clients — and, its owner insists, a story that is more redemption than business.
Two Landscape Companies
Mason’s first act came before adulthood. Born in Bay Minette and graduated from Baldwin County High School in 2004, he had already started and sold his first landscape business before spending a year at Bible college. When the buyer couldn’t make payments, he started the company over from nothing. Fourteen years later — having grown it far beyond its original size — he sold it again in 2019, invested the proceeds in his first rental property (an RV park he still owns), and bought a home on Dog River.
The successes came with losses. A marriage ended. He found himself alone in the house on Dog River, a season he describes as identity-stripping. “I’m okay with solitude,” he says. “It gives me peace and allows me to hear what God is telling me.” He credits a habit of timing decisions to what he calls the small voice inside — “Obedience doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to develop ears to hear and be crazy enough to follow through.”
The 250 Acres
The pivot arrived in November 2020, in a boathouse, as a plain internal instruction: it’s time to move. Driving through Grand Bay soon after, he spotted a 250-acre farm for sale and mortgaged his home to buy it — a man with no farming background betting everything on a field. He later sold the Dog River property and reinvested the proceeds into more RV parks, building a portfolio around the farm.
Then came the plant. Research told him processor backlogs stretched a year, so he built his own — learning on the job, he says, until Mason Hills could operate what he describes as the only USDA-certified facility located on a farm in the area. The first cow was harvested under USDA inspection on December 12, 2022.
Dry-Aged by Design
The product reflects the philosophy. Most supermarket beef is wet-aged 24 to 45 days; Mason Hills starts with genetics — DNA-tested for marbling and fat — and dry-ages its beef for fourteen days, reducing moisture and concentrating flavor and protein. No injections, no growth hormones, no added water or chemicals to increase weight. “What you consume is what you become,” Mason says. “We’re a true farm-to-table operation, and our product is the healthiest beef on the market.”
Wholesale demand has followed. Mason Hills beef appears on menus including Roosters Tacos & Tequila and Dauphin’s in downtown Mobile, and the farm says exports to other countries are next. The on-site butcher shop stocks the farm’s dry-aged beef alongside locally sourced pork, chicken and bacon, ships holiday gift boxes anywhere in the continental United States, and hand-delivers within fifty miles of the farm. Ask for the Herschel Burger — the ground-beef blend named for Mason’s father.
More Than a Farm
Mason’s community footprint runs through Farmers in Action, the nonprofit supporting local food initiatives, which he serves as an active member; his Smoke on the Farm barbecue weekend sent all proceeds to the organization. But ask him what he’s actually building and the answer isn’t a plant or an acreage. “We take care of each other,” he says of his team. “The things I’ve built are just tools. What do you want to be remembered for? We’re all searching for peace in our lives.”
It is, he will tell you, not just a great story. “It’s a story of redemption, vision, and faith.” The 250 acres in Grand Bay are where it happens to live.