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Farmer Spotlight: Sasquatch Family Farms
371 Plays13 days ago
What happens when you have 2 Independent Farmers --- one from each coast --- talk shop? In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres (SC) chats w/ Shauna of Sasquatch Family Farms (WA) about growing a business from scratch, community support in clutch moments, and why and how Farmers can attract local Buyers to ensure ongoing sales.
For more Farm resources, visit: https://www.barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Farmer Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer podcast, the go-to podcast for do-it-yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman, and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers.
00:00:20
Speaker
This podcast is hosted by Barn to Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand, and sell online and in person. Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer podcast.
Alex Russell's Journey into Farming
00:00:42
Speaker
Hi and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. My name is Alex Russell. I'm the owner of Chucktown Acres in South Carolina.
00:00:53
Speaker
Once upon a time, I was a intern at Joel Salatin's farm, Polyface Farms in Virginia. And I had the honor of working under him for about three years.
00:01:06
Speaker
And after about three years in 2019, my wife and i decided to start our own farm.
Farm Operations and Offerings
00:01:13
Speaker
We moved to South Carolina and we started Chucktown Acres five years ago.
00:01:19
Speaker
We raise our own cattle, pastured poultry, and forest raised hogs. And we offer subscriptions to all of our customers.
00:01:30
Speaker
We do home delivery, farmers markets, you name it, we do it. We've leased a lot of land and built a brand and we've started at our own farm store. partnered with a lot of other local farms, and it's been an amazing journey over the last five years.
Enhancing Barn to Door's Software with Farmer Input
00:01:48
Speaker
And I love getting to share my story with farmers across the country, especially farmers that are really interested in switching to selling direct to their consumers, farmers that want to switch to regenerative agriculture and sustainable agriculture.
00:02:05
Speaker
so It's a real honor for me to be able to host the podcast today and get to have this amazing conversation with Shauna. and I am also a member of the Farm Advisory Network for Barn to Door. so What that means is I get to give Barn to Door feedback as a farmer, someone using their software, And I get to tell them, hey, this is working out really good.
00:02:32
Speaker
This needs to be tweaked a little bit. And so I can feed them my preferences. And the more of us farm advisors that they have, the more common feedback they get so they can improve the software. It's a really fun feature.
00:02:45
Speaker
It's really fun to be a part of. And I'm honored to do that.
Marketing Strategies for New Farmers
00:02:49
Speaker
I also get to teach the grassroots marketing Academy every month. So I take a new group of about 20 to 30 farmers through a marketing Academy.
00:03:00
Speaker
We do three sessions together that are all an hour long and we get to go through a bunch of new, marketing ideas, helping new farmers get into selling direct to consumer, figuring out who their best customers are and how to get in front of them and how to sell to them.
00:03:18
Speaker
So that's what I do. And I'm honored to be a part of Barn to Door and be someone who uses their software every single day. And I've used their software for the last five years every single day.
00:03:31
Speaker
As a reminder, Barn to Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, and selling under their own brand online and in person.
00:03:47
Speaker
I love getting to have conversations with farmers.
Shauna's Transition from Education to Farming
00:03:50
Speaker
You know, when you go to like a farm conference, you end up spending more time in the hallway talking with other farmers and getting to swap stories about all the crazy things that are happening in your world.
00:04:03
Speaker
You're spending more time in the hallways than you do in the actual sessions where you're supposed to be learning stuff. So for me, whenever I get to have a conversation with another farmer, it kind of feels like that that conference camaraderie that you have.
00:04:17
Speaker
And so I'm really excited to be talking with Shauna from Sasquatch Family Farms today all the way out in Washington State. So excited to dig in with you today, Shawna.
00:04:28
Speaker
She recently started her farm and has built a successful direct to consumer pork operation. and is expanding their operation. I'm excited to talk to her about her farm story, their success in selling pork to their community, and learning a little bit about what kind of advice she has for other farms.
00:04:50
Speaker
Shauna, how'd I do? You did awesome. All right. I am so excited to chat with you today and get to share our journey out with everyone. Yeah, it's going to be so fun. I'm honored to be here. So it's going to be a good time. Can you just, we've never talked before.
00:05:05
Speaker
So I want to know about you and about your operation. How the heck did you get into farming? Did you grow up farming? Let's hear the story of Shauna and how you got to 2025. Yeah.
00:05:20
Speaker
I'll give you the unedited story and and you just let me know what
Acquiring and Managing a Significant Farm
00:05:23
Speaker
you want. So i was an elementary school principal, had been in education for 20 years and absolutely love helping kids and changing systems and cultures and just loved my job more than anything I could tell you about it.
00:05:37
Speaker
Such a cool career and path to be on. And We kind of had a whirlwind of things that happened and I came out of a surgery, not able to walk or talk or take a shower or anything. And they kept saying, oh, you'll get better next week. And I couldn't get better. And I was needing really frequent naps.
00:05:54
Speaker
And it really became a apparent to us that I wasn't going to be able to go back to working full time in a traditional like educator setting again. And My kids are just amazing. And they were like, they're such great motivational coaches and they see the cans in life and not the camps. And they said, mom, we're going to drive you and we're going to go pick blueberries today. Wow. And I said, I don't know if I can do that. That's like a really big thing. And they said, you know, if you can't do it, you can take a nap in the car. Yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
It's outside. It'll be great. Come with us to go blueberry picking. You love it. It'll be just a good adventure. And I said, okay. So they loaded me up in the car and they drove us to the blueberry farm and we got there and there's a for sale sign at the blueberry farm. And I was like, oh.
00:06:39
Speaker
And so the kids and I go you picking and it was the best day I'd had in like three months. And I came home and I was, I said to my husband, Justin, I said, I had the best day. I love it. Can we go back? They have another you pick open Saturday. Will you go with me?
00:06:52
Speaker
So our whole family went to the You Pick and we had this great outing. And I said, it's for sale. Can we talk about it? And he said, uh. Oh boy.
00:07:05
Speaker
What? You're really on the struggle bus. I'm not sure. Like, we're just trying to figure out how we make, how we're going to make ends meet without your educator salary. And that point, my daughter's still braiding my hair when I get out of the shower because I can't like even like do those basic life things. And the kids and my husband were like, you know what?
00:07:24
Speaker
This would like give us a new beginning. Wow. What year what year are you in at this point? When you go, you pick. It's like 2022.
00:07:32
Speaker
21, 22. Oh my gosh. Three years ago. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. So fresh. So fresh, so amazing family who's selling this blueberry farm and they share everything about it and everything about being farmers.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I think probably one of the things that I love about farming in general, Alex, is just that sense of collaboration is and willingness to share. We hadn't been farming.
Overcoming Initial Farming Challenges
00:07:56
Speaker
My son's in high school and does FFA, but farming's not our, like, we don't have any experience. And every bank said, no.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah. You guys were suburban suburbanites. or but We had this great porch box delivery from another farm that we got our pigs and our pork and they came every week and dropped it off. That's amazing. Anyway, so we're going down this road and that farm's Macario's Acres. They also use Barn to Door. Sweet.
00:08:23
Speaker
And so we just started doing all this research and we took a class called Cultivating Success from WSU. And every week you get to meet different farmers. So one of the farms was in Washington, but quite a distance from us. It's called Alluvial Farms. And they laid out their whole pork operation and they were also new to farming. And I said, Justin, let's farm pigs.
00:08:44
Speaker
And he said, hard no.
00:08:48
Speaker
They have an open house. It's like three, it's like three hours from us, but let's go to the open house and learn how they're doing this aerating composting and check it out and talk to them. And we went to their open house about aerating compost and at their area to compost facility. And their farm was gorgeous.
00:09:05
Speaker
And we did the numbers and Justin's a finance guy. And he was like, well, if you really think you can do this, Let's try it. And so we talked to our friend who's a real estate agent and he was like, okay, what do I have to find you?
00:09:18
Speaker
Like, let's figure out the house. What can we find? So we said, we need a farm that has 20 acres. Ideally, I'd like it to be someplace I could do agro tourism and draw us 80 mile circle around our current house.
00:09:32
Speaker
Oh, nice. Okay. Okay. So those are the parameters. so So you're going to be an hour and a half from... Max, like I don't want max. I want an hour and a half.
00:09:44
Speaker
Like I'm comfortable with that commute distance. Find me something within that radius for me. Can we talk about this for a second? When you decide to leave city life or suburban life and you're like, I'm going to go to the country.
00:09:58
Speaker
Usually the land around the city is like insanely expensive and usually very, very wealthy people can buy it, but they don't even do anything with it. And so then you get to these outer layers of land that are much more affordable, but you got to move an hour and a half away and you have to decide, like you've got friends, schools, churches, like you have all this stuff and you have to decide, am I going to be willing to give up or at least hinder these relationships somewhat because I'm going to now be 90 minutes. How hard of a decision was that for you guys to make?
00:10:35
Speaker
Okay, well, this piece of property is like everything we wanted and then some. When we first got here, i couldn't even walk from the main house to the barn. like You're in a wheelchair or crutches?
00:10:49
Speaker
Not crutches, just really still struggling. And we looked at it and it's 76 acres. Oh my gosh. And it was an estate sale and overgrown. And we just saw nothing but potential.
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah. Did it have a house on it? Has a house. Sweet. Had 200 feral cats. Oh, God. Good luck getting rid of those.
00:11:14
Speaker
You know what? The real estate agent did a great job. They left us with about a dozen. And wow they control our rodent population.
Exploring Farm Features and Conservation Plans
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah. You probably don't have any rats at all for miles.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah. like I have to say, they're like it's fantastic like they're a fantastic rodent abatement. We have one cat and I wish that she would work a little harder. Okay.
00:11:37
Speaker
and I feed them every morning like a small amount and and I'm like, good morning cats. And they they've yet to warm up to us. Every morning I feed them. We make sure they're taken care of. I'm grateful they take care of our rodents.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah. So you were looking for 20 acres and you ended up with 76? Yeah.
00:11:56
Speaker
76. And we bought it and had been freshly hayed. And it was just, it's gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's everything we would ever want. It borders at a private airstrip, public airstrip, the Toledo field. And it was my son's first flight a million years ago. it feels like he oh my god you just got his private pilot's license, but his dad's a pilot. Justin's a private pilot. And it was his first, the first place we flew in for Mother's Day when he was a newborn baby was here to visit my parents.
00:12:24
Speaker
No way. There's skydive Toledo is our neighbor. So we have skydivers all day long skydiving over the farm. It is just like, there's all these general aviation, small aircrafts that circle all day long.
00:12:39
Speaker
Has anyone ever landed in the pigs? We had a skydiver who came real close and sort of freaked us out, but right. Man, that could have been on the news. It's so exciting.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Some guy fell out of an airplane and landed in the pigs today. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Okay. So what year do you end up buying?
00:13:01
Speaker
Did you end up getting the loan for this farm? Like how did that end up shaking out? Our real estate agent was amazing. His name is also Alex, Alex Hong. He's an amazing guy. And he walked alongside me and went to like a bunch of banks and a bunch of business banks. And he said, let's figure out how we package this up. I'll walk alongside you. We believe in you guys.
00:13:20
Speaker
And we figured out that we could buy residence, but it needed to just be a residence. It couldn't have anything else. So we bought a ah second home. Oh my gosh. No way. Yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
Wow, that's fancy. But it's zoned agricultural. Was that an issue at all? It's zoned residential. Ah, nice. But it fits in the agriculture. The county would really like us to flip the zoning over to agriculture.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah. And the farm is so cool, Alex. like It has so much. We worked really closely with Farm Services and NRCS. We have people out all the time, and we've learned we have...
00:13:58
Speaker
eight rare and endangered species. We have a cultural waypoint tree that if you were part of the Chehalis tribe, it would have been where you were wrapped.
00:14:09
Speaker
And like, we have so many significant cultural artifacts. We had this really cool pole barn that I was like, when we toured the farm, it was locked. We couldn't get in it. I was like, that barn's amazing.
00:14:20
Speaker
I wonder what's in it. And we got to Keys and we opened it up. And there's this community event called the Threshing Bee down here. Every year after everyone haze, they bring their tractors and they do these tractor pulls. Well, that's the farm we bought.
00:14:34
Speaker
Whoa, no way. And the whole barn was an event venue with a bar inside, ready to serve. And you didn't even get to open the doors until you bought it?
00:14:45
Speaker
No. Oh my gosh. That must've been the craziest surprise. And you open these doors and all of a sudden you're like, we bought a legit event venue. they That was our bucket list, but it was never. And then we have an RC airfield for little tiny airports. And so they had previously been here and it's our nonprofit work. So they use, we don't charge them and they've just been here forever. And people come out and fly their RC airplanes if they're part of the club. Oh my gosh.
00:15:11
Speaker
You guys are very generous. I think I'm telling you way too more about this. like I love this. No, because you're giving us all the details of like what it means to be a farmer.
00:15:22
Speaker
If we were to just talk about like selling bacon to people, we would not be even scratching the surface of like... What actually happens on a farm for real is a lot of crazy random stuff. Like someone's going to show up to your farm and you're going to be really busy and they're going to eat up 45 minutes of your time.
00:15:44
Speaker
And that is not in the schedule, but that's what happens on a farm. Like really wild random stuff happens on farms, especially when they're really aesthetically pleasing to people. It's really attractive.
00:15:58
Speaker
We were very lucky to be leasing this farm. That's just very, it's just a really beautiful, it's rustic, but it's beautiful. And there's a big lake right in the middle and people want to do their senior photos and stuff here. And it's, you just get a bunch of random people that ended up coming down your driveway asking you, can I buy your chickens? Or like, what kind of tractor is that? Or Like how long you been here? And you start, the longer you stick around, the more country kind of questions you get from random people.
00:16:29
Speaker
So you're giving us a taste of like, there's a lot of things you can do with a property like this. And it's like an endless list. We're hoping to put it into conservation so it never becomes a housing development.
00:16:43
Speaker
Love it. so So that's one of those blackburn it's one of those projects that you just kind of slowly work on. And we've learned there's so much of cultural significance here that that's our bucket list goal is to get it put into conservation so that it can be used by the community long term and never be houses.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Scaling Operations and Facing Farm Management Complexities
00:17:01
Speaker
The one we're on is under Conservation Eastman right now. So we don't ever... like developers don't even bother knocking on our door. It's a really nice, really nice situation. So, okay. I want to bring us back.
00:17:11
Speaker
Did you end up buying this place in 2023 or 2022? twenty twenty two We bought it at the end of August of 23 and September 1st, we bought our first bread sow. So like less than two weeks later. Oh my gosh. And then our, our business strategy was buy a bread sow a month for the next year.
00:17:29
Speaker
oh And then the farms that kind of lifted us up along the way, Alluvial and Macarios Acres, they had said, hey, you're going to need some income. Buy some feeders initially from us and you can grow those out.
00:17:40
Speaker
yeah And so they did a great job helping us get some feeder pigs initially from their farms to kind of be our business starter. And then we bought 12 bred sows.
00:17:51
Speaker
Over the course of a year? Did you stick with the one per month? Over the course of a year, one per month. And how many, about how many feeder pigs did you start with? Did you get like 10 or?
00:18:01
Speaker
We got 15. We got 15 littles that were just weaned. And then we got five that were ready to harvest in November. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. So they were mostly grown.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. That's great. We had had three more months to go, but they were like, hey, you're going to need some product. Like, I think that we really appreciate the farm community. Macarius was like, hey, you're going to need some product to hit the door so that people understand you have good quality local pork. Yeah, we'll sell you the baby feeders, but let's give you some to get you started.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, right. so Were you able to handle getting kill dates and processing dates for everything? Or was that kind of a disaster? We had harvest dates actually back in July. We made a reservation before we even bought the farm because we had been a part of this farm community asking, okay, what's the biggest struggles? And everybody was like, hey, it's like more than getting your kid into a prestigious preschool or daycare. You better call nine months ahead of time before those piglets pop, right? You got to know somebody who knows somebody.
00:19:00
Speaker
to get your pigs in here. So we we wanted to be animal welfare certified. So in December 23, we became animal welfare certified. Wow. And then that really narrowed our harvest places down a lot because there are just a few. And then we also process USDA. So then our circle just got smaller because we needed an animal welfare certified USDA And then we are working on our organic certification.
00:19:28
Speaker
So then wow that just became even harder to say, okay, if we're going to line this up. Is there a single organic processor? There what is only one in Washington state and they're working on it.
00:19:40
Speaker
And what happened was we got this harvest date for November. The processing plant is about 30 minutes from the farm. We had to haul there. So Alex, not a farm family. We have no budget. We own yeah no trailer to put these pigs in.
00:19:53
Speaker
yeah have I was going to ask, you probably don't even have a livestock trailer. You're right. And Barn-a-Dore had said, like, you guys were great with us at the Barn-a-Dore Connects because you were like, the worst thing you could do is take on a bunch of debt for equipment.
00:20:05
Speaker
Figure out how to scrap it by without anything. Yeah, borrow. Beg, borrow, rent. So we rented a livestock trailer. We put these five pigs in the back, and they cancel our processing date. Oh, man.
00:20:19
Speaker
And I'm sweating it, right? We've pre-sold some pigs. We're counting on the income. I wanted to do- Had you already loaded the pigs or did they cancel before you loaded? They they canceled before. and Thank God.
00:20:32
Speaker
Right? And these pigs, by the way, though, are escaping constantly. Oh, yeah. I want to ask about that next. Yeah. but Okay. So ah no, but our harvesting date got pushed back twice and then they eventually get them harvested for us in January and we get our cuts and we're super thrilled.
00:20:48
Speaker
Like it all comes back. It feels like the biggest success, right? Like I didn't realize, I think when we started this journey, that the hardest part of it, literally, I thought it would be the baby piglets dying or chasing the pigs or any of the million other things, the hardest part for us of being a farm to this day is getting the pigs from the time we dropped them off back, like the process, getting the bacon back.
00:21:12
Speaker
Right. So we end up those 15 feeders we bought that processing date ends up getting canceled. And by this point I'm panicking because with five hogs, it wasn't much of a feed bill. Yeah. But by the time get down for this next processing date, I've got 15 on the ground. They're eating us out of house and home.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we're talking 150 to 200 pounds a day. 200 pounds a day. And I'm like, we can't hold them. We can't hold them. What am I going to do? So I started.
00:21:38
Speaker
i They're like, yeah, you can pay 60 more dollars every day. No problem. Right. Every day, Sundays included. yeah Right? ah So we start calling around and Eastern Washington is about a three hour drive from us.
00:21:55
Speaker
But there had been this small farm that was on a farm talk podcast that we listened to from WSDA and they were called Wendy and Ranch. And they were this small family operation and they talked about how in COVID they couldn't get processing dates. So they've gone through the process to become a USDA processor.
00:22:12
Speaker
So I call them and I tell them my s sob story. And I'm like, Greg and Bradley, is there any way you can help us? We're this new farm. This is going to bankrupt us. yep And I said, and we're renting a trailer. And I like, it's so super hard. And they said, bring them to Ellensburg. We'll take care of it for you. Oh, thank God for those guys. It's turned into this Bradley and Greg, Wendy and Ranch. I'd like to give, they're also a Barn D'Or customer.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh, props. Props to Barnador. Yeah. yeah And they have this amazing animal welfare certified, but they have a USDA cut and wrap shop because I think that's the other.
Sales Strategies and Customer Engagement
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah. You have ah have to have a harvest facility and you have to have a cut and wrap.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yep. So they have a cut and wrap shop on site. Good. And they let us drop the hogs off and then they transport them on to the harvest facility. Love it. Okay. And they're animal welfare certified?
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah. And organic. Oh, and they're organic. Yeah. Wow. And they're the only ones in the state. And yeah, and fingers crossed. I mean, more people are coming online. I think they've just really helped us out. Like, I didn't know we're new Like, okay, what do you order for cuts?
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. If anybody's listening to this and they've been through my grassroots marketing class, they know if I start talking about cut sheets, it's going to be 30 minutes later that I'm done because I am very passionate about cut sheets.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, but Bradley's like this amazing butcher. Yeah. And he does things like, we have some restaurant clients and they said, can we get a Norwegian ribby? And I was like, what's a Norwegian ribby? Never heard of that. And he was like, I'll cut it for you, no problem.
00:23:49
Speaker
Sweet. Or we have another restaurant who said, hey, we want double cut pork chops. And I was like, I get one shot at this. And if we get it right, I get to be the featured farm to mountain restaurant.
00:24:00
Speaker
Like in our first year, I get to be the featured farm at Crystal Mountain, which is like this... incredible resort and they're gonna have us as their featured farm for pork chops for summer are mountain to farm dinners and bradley's like hey do you want me to i could have the butcher the chef come zoom in with me and the rest the shop to make sure i get your meat cut right wow that's crazy i've never heard of a butcher doing that before that is so rare Their level of attention to detail and like the packaging that they turn out of their shop is just incredible. And to have them partner with us has been like one of the greatest gifts.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's amazing. So you're talking about restaurants a lot. If you had to put a percentage on this, how much of your, let's just take pork for now. How much of your pork are you moving to restaurants versus whatever home delivery or farmer's markets or whatever else you do?
00:24:53
Speaker
Uh, well, I think it's fluctuated in our journey and I think it fluctuates to a bit by season. So we try to say we have three buckets of pork sales. We have the retail who buy direct from our website and there's just a really great group of people who've been really loyal and they find us and their kids come out and do farm tours.
00:25:12
Speaker
Clark's four is one of my favorite stories. And Clark was, his family is like, we want to show Clark where his bacon comes from. We're like, well, have Clark come visit us. yeah So they came and Clark's for and we feed the pigs traditional hog food. They could eat as much as they want. ye But then we have a partnership with Cascadia Produce and we bring in the produce from Cascadia Produce every week that isn't good enough to go to hunger relief or to get sold out in a traditional sales channel.
00:25:39
Speaker
Nice. yeah Yeah. Costco rejects bananas. yep Nothing wrong with the bananas, but they're not at the right temp. So we have a ton of produce. So Clark came and he fed out the pigs, their cantaloupe and their papayas and their watermelons.
00:25:55
Speaker
And then Clark went to the freezer and he helped pick out what do I want for my whole pig order? And he loaded up their coolers and he gets home and sends us this incredible picture of four-year-old Clark chewing on his sausage.
00:26:08
Speaker
His breakfast sausage. And Clark's a really picky eater. And he's like, no, the pigs eat fruit just like me. And I love the pigs. And mom, get me some more breakfast sausage. Man, that's so awesome. I thought Clark was like a 20-year-old guy. makes He's four years old.
00:26:24
Speaker
And Clark is probably like our biggest farm promoter. Clark tells all of his preschool friends, kindergarten friends about how they've got to get their pork from us. Man, let's get Clark a medal. Right? then So like Clark, he's an example of great retail customers.
00:26:38
Speaker
And then we have wholesale. We sell, i think, Barn to Door, your Marketing 101 class. You really helped me with that. Oh, thank you. That's very sweet of you. You said call and get into food hubs. Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
So we have a great relationship with the Southwest Washington Food Hub, and they currently are a very big distributor for us that they distribute out to schools and restaurants. And what I love about the Food Hub, Alex, is like they call, they pre-order and say, here's what we need.
00:27:05
Speaker
And I drop it off to one place and they do all the delivery driving for me. Oh, yeah. How far is that Food Hub from your farm? 15 minutes. Oh, that's awesome.
00:27:16
Speaker
And they have cold storage. All right. Keeps getting better. And they I'm guessing they put in pretty big orders. They do put in really big orders. In fact, they're the reason we're currently sold out of work because we're a small farm.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah. I also misjudged, Alex. I misjudged the actual supply team from the time we breed a sow until I have bacon ready to sell to our customer is 13 months.
Unique Product Offerings and Operational Insights
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah. i was going to say it's over a year. You're crossing a year. Yeah. Yeah. And you're raising Berks, right? We bought our breeding stock from Shipley Swine and Genetics, trucked them in from Ohio.
00:27:53
Speaker
Wow. and We researched and said, we want progeny tested, like the best you can find for us. And yeah Randy and his team at Shipley were amazing. We had a hard time figuring out where do you source really good Berkshire pigs from? And I can't even begin to tell you how much we love the pork they produce.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to mansplain to any of our listeners, but if you don't know about Berkshire hogs, they're my favorite as well. Like some of the best pork chops you'll ever have, some of the best demeanor out of a pig that you can have, and great mothers.
00:28:26
Speaker
They're my favorite pig of all time. I just really love raising Berkshires and harvesting them. And they do so good outdoors. They're tough as nails. And then the product that you get off of Berkshire is just incredible.
00:28:41
Speaker
We started with a good Berkshire base and then our hogs are eating out about 10,000 pounds of produce a week, 10 to 20,000 pounds of produce a week. What?
00:28:52
Speaker
So Cascadia produce is shipping us. Del Monte is a frequent, like they rejected banana. We got 20,000 pounds of bananas last week. They were too cold. So, but right after Christmas, we got that shipment. was That was 20,000 pounds of pink rose gold pineapple.
00:29:08
Speaker
what Pink rose gold pineapples. Wow. Got to Google that. So the pigs ate pink rose gold pineapples for a month. I didn't realize. and A month.
00:29:20
Speaker
A month worth. And all they're eating, I'm like, okay. They never want to see a pineapple again for the rest of their lives. I mean, they love, I didn't realize they're a natural denwarmer. I didn't know that either.
00:29:33
Speaker
I've only heard of, you know, you always hear about pumpkins. Yeah. Our pigs eat a lot of fruit. Yeah, that's amazing. So, okay, on a logistical side, are they dropping off bags? Like, it's got to be a really good way, efficient way to load that.
00:29:49
Speaker
This has kept us from, like, taking restaurant scraps and stuff because I've never been able to figure out the logistics of, like, how to make spent produce work for your operation. So please educate us.
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think I want to give a huge shout out to Jeremy at Cascadia Produce and say, like, follow along. He's been a real huge farm supporter for us all along. And he has this huge commercial warehouse and he sets aside for us every week things that have been rejected that can't go on. And I would tell you that the produce he sends me is better than what I can actually buy in the grocery store and my rural grocery store. Wow. like the pig, the kids tease me every day. that You're like, I might take a couple of these.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah. ah with the house ah So he works really hard to make sure that food's not wasted. And he's just this amazing guy who, and I think just like the food he sends us is top shelf quality.
00:30:46
Speaker
So there's not, it's not in general, it's not molded. It's been rejected for being outside of temperature. Yeah. Yep. Got it. It's really high quality produce. And for like the bananas, i learned like I could go on like a tangent about the things I've learned about produce. I think yeah another like podcast we got to talk about that I really want other farmers to know is Jeremy taught me about PACA law.
00:31:09
Speaker
And I didn't know about PACA before Jeremy told me about it. And he was really insistent with me. as a farmer, that I needed to put the PACA blurb from the 1930s on every invoice.
00:31:21
Speaker
And it guarantees me the PACA law. It guarantees me that I, you're giving me this quizzical look, that I get paid before it gets resold. You get paid before it gets resold.
00:31:33
Speaker
And they have to pay me within 10 days. And as you scale your business and you start working with a lot of restaurants and grocery stores. Yeah. Billables become sort of an issue in cashflow.
00:31:44
Speaker
Yes. Yep. you're like, all alright guys, you can go ahead and pay up now. That would be nice. Can you spell PACA for us? You know, I should just read it right off my invoice, shouldn't i That's wild. I never knew this.
00:31:58
Speaker
But I don't work with a lot of restaurants. so anytime I do send something to a restaurant, I do COD. And I'm like, I'm not leaving here without a check. I'm sorry. I know it's annoying, but I rarely do this. So you guys can, and I just make them, I just stand there until they write me a check.
00:32:14
Speaker
I think that's probably one of the things about barn to door that I didn't appreciate on the front end. Cause
Expanding into New Markets and Marketing Support
00:32:19
Speaker
we're new to business. We're new to farming yep and all of my barn to door people, like our customers from there, they pay on barn to door. And I actually get paid before I deliver in most cases.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. I love that. I think I, that was like, that wasn't such a big deal until we bought our second farm. That's produce. so Oh, you have a second farm now? So we bought a second farm. Oh my God. You've been farming for a year and a half.
00:32:45
Speaker
Already on to number two ah where i be number Well, okay. So we've got the pigs, right? And they're eating all this great produce and yeah and we're part of the Farm Bureau and we go on the Farm Bureau. The Lewis County Farm Bureau down here is incredible. And once a year, they host a tour of the five best farms in Lewis County.
00:33:04
Speaker
We have not made the list yet. Oh, come on. They're missing out. We go on the tour in August of this last year. We go on the tour and we toured five exceptional farms that I cannot stop talking about. One of them was a microgreen farm. And I was like, man, that's so cool. And and we're birthing a lot of piglets here.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah. And that's really intense. Yes, it is. And as much as I love the pigs, my friend from Cohen Family Farms said they're going to reach a teenage point stage and you're going to know they're ready to go to processing because they start tearing everything apart.
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah. Not only are they eating you out of house and home like worse than a teenage boy, but they start destroying stuff and they start running and you're doing the pig fit. Oh, yeah. Nope. I've chased way too many pigs in my day.
00:33:49
Speaker
Right. You know, you know, you missed the harvest date. Yeah. Oh, yeah. ah They know. They're like, man, I think I'm a week out. I better get it out of here. Right, right. You know. They know. Shauna keeps looking at me funny when she comes out to feed me.
00:34:05
Speaker
Right? You're giving extra mangoes, extra papayas that week. that The fruit bowl is increasing because I want them to be extra good when they hang. and Anyway. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. i bet your I bet your pork tastes different than anything like anyone's ever eaten before with all that fruit in their diet.
00:34:21
Speaker
We had a school who buys our breakfast links and they called and said, are the breakfast links pre-cooked? And I was like, no, no. And they were like, they've got to be pre-cooked. We're not getting any fat back. Yeah. And I was like, what do you mean? And so I put them in the oven and I was like, oh, you're right. There's no fat back on our breakfast links. That's kind of weird.
00:34:41
Speaker
Okay. Go on. So our pork, I think taste has a different flavor profile because Like people tell me they pay a lot for pork that's apple and acorn finished in the fall, right?
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, right. Except our pigs are eating that quantity of produce from the time they're born. Like at day two, I'm making them their little chef bowl of hand cut. Like every mama sow gets her own little bowl.
00:35:06
Speaker
Like the pictures of it are online, but like they all get their own bowl. And from, I mean, they have the commercial hogs. You've got to make an Instagram. you could be sitting You could do an Instagram about this like ah once a week.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, i got to get better at that. Here's Susie's smoothie in a bowl today.
00:35:26
Speaker
We should. video of you chopping it all up, giving it to her. They would love that. People would eat that up. Absolutely. Right? Because now we own the microgreen business. So after the microgreen, like they get all the microgreen mats.
00:35:40
Speaker
Wow. That's like after you cut the microgreens off the top? After we cut the microgreens off the top, then there's these mats left. And we do 50 acres of traditional seed in a month at the mom's microgarden. I'll give a like shameless plug there.
00:35:55
Speaker
Mom's microgarden. Microgarden. And there's 50 acres of seed we plant a month there. 50 acres? 50 acres of traditional seed. Now, are you in a container or you literally out there?
00:36:08
Speaker
i mean, how are you doing it? How are we doing the microgreens? Yeah. Well, we bought the microgreens and partnered with this really cool farm called Degote Farms. And they have a hydroponic lettuce grow.
00:36:19
Speaker
And they're in the Puyallup Valley. And they're renting us a cold frame to grow our microgreens in. But we wanted to rent from this cool farm because they have a cold storage facility. And they have a loading day for cross-stocking and all the things. Oh, Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
All the conveniences. Right. That's awesome. And you're selling microgreens to who? Restaurants and store like grocery stores? and Yeah, that's like a whole other podcast. But yes, that's a whole other, like, I'm going to run out of time.
00:36:50
Speaker
That's crazy. And that that farm had a different way. And I think what I want to tell you is Barn to Door, I love my connection with Barn to Door. And before we bought the microgreens farm, we signed on with Barn to Door for the second farm, three months ahead of actually closing the deal because our experience with Barn to Door had been so great.
00:37:10
Speaker
And they've really, like, between the personalized farm accountant that meets with me once to twice a week and makes sure I stay on tack We took the marketing 101 class. We've taken the finance class.
00:37:21
Speaker
We go to the Barn to Door Connect yeah twice a week to meet farmers all over the nation who are doing the best. and far like We didn't have time to learn how to scale. We had to learn from the best.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah, right. Oh, that's a huge... i want I desperately want other farms to hear that. You can skip ahead of a lot of mistakes that by listening to other farmers who have recently gone through what you're going to attempt to do now.
00:37:53
Speaker
And the podcasts and the books and the eBooks. And i mean, all of that is going to help you leap across years of frustration. Like I still have friends that are in the farming world that are taking orders over text.
00:38:10
Speaker
No. And I'm just like, guys, you've got to stop doing this. Like there is such a better way. And you're limiting yourself to the amount of business you can do because you're only one person and you're trying to do this archaic version of taking in sales where I'm getting sales in my sleep. I'm like literally woke up this morning to like orders that came in overnight because we have barn to door.
00:38:37
Speaker
and It is because we have Barn to Door, but it's more than just like someone was like, oh, Barn to Door is such a complete package. It's the farm account manager who says, Shauna, let me help you do your MailChimp. And every time I send a MailChimp, we get seven more orders than while I'm sleeping.
00:38:51
Speaker
Right. I get seven more orders because the farm manager, because I said, I oh i don't have time to do it. No, I'm going walk you through it. I'm going to call you at two o'clock on Tuesday and we're going to walk through your MailChimp. That's so awesome.
00:39:03
Speaker
It's like a built-in accountability partner for me and somebody who doesn't let me forget about my business side of things. Yeah. Okay. So I have two questions about MailChimp. One, how often have you chosen to send your emails?
00:39:18
Speaker
And two, no judgment. No judgment. We're all on a journey. I just want to know what's working for you. What would be working for me, Alex, was if I was staying on the plan. Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
Staying on the plan is ah email a week. Yes. Because when I send the email a week, we get consistent sales. People consistently show up to the farm. An email a week and three to four posts a week are the goal.
00:39:45
Speaker
Yeah. Right. The goals don't always happen. But if you don't have any goals at all, you're just going to not do anything. I think the firm account manager from Mardador, what's important about that? Because like there's no shame or blame that I didn't make the goal, but they're always there like, hey, okay, minimum, what's the monthly email? Recently, they've convinced me that it would be okay to buy the marketing toolkit that comes out every month. Yeah.
00:40:09
Speaker
Since I'm feeling overwhelmed. Just do it. And that was also like the best add-on I've ever bought. Yes. Oh, yeah. They're pre-packing all this stuff to make your MailChimp look really awesome.
00:40:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I want to encourage you because we started doing weekly emails like three years ago. And I've taken, first of all, it's worked a million times better than once a month emails. Like it's not even close.
00:40:39
Speaker
But I've taken a lot of pressure off of myself and given myself a lot of grace to not have the most professional, extraordinary emails you've ever seen. I try to keep them very simple.
00:40:53
Speaker
I still try to make sure they look good. And I'll have other people read them for me before I send them out. So it's usually my wife, I also have my mom does admin for me. So I'll send her stuff too.
00:41:05
Speaker
And we just keep them very simple. Not a lot of complex stuff because I know as soon as I try to start writing a bunch, posting, like putting up a ton of pictures on this thing, making elaborate emails, I get really overwhelmed and I'm just like, screw this. I'm going back on the tractor.
00:41:25
Speaker
I can't do this computer thing anymore. I'm out of here and i get overwhelmed. So if I can just do a simple one section, right? on my email.
00:41:36
Speaker
And then I can have like a second section that's just going to have like stuff that we have for sale and making sure that they have stuff to click on. And then my third section is literally like, Hey, don't forget we have a farm store and that thing just stays on there pretty consistently. So I'm really only adjusting a little bit of that section, that second one.
00:41:55
Speaker
And then the first one, I'm either going to write something about regenerative. I'm going to write something about what's going on in food today. Or I might just say like, hey, don't forget the farmer's markets this week.
00:42:06
Speaker
And I'll just put a little blurb on there. Keep it really sweet and simple. Because most of the time, your customers just need to be reminded that you're here and you have the product for them that they love.
00:42:21
Speaker
We just all are of the understanding that they are really busy. And they've got a lot of stuff going on. They've got soccer practice and ballet and school pickups and drop-offs and carpools and all this stuff. And they got cook dinner and all this stuff.
00:42:36
Speaker
If we can just simply tap them on the shoulder once a week with like a, who we're still here. Here's some so easy stuff for you to click on to order. Then that seems to go way longer than like a once a month elaborate ordeal, you know?
00:42:53
Speaker
Right. ah We went to this Good Eat Seattle conference and they said, ah don't you think like we're competitors? And I said, I don't see it that way. Like my biggest competitor is a grocery store chain. Another farmer is only going to lift me up.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah. My biggest competitor is the Knicks Housing Development that's buying out the farm down the road. And my biggest competitor is a grocery store chain where it's super easy to roll into the Kroger's and get everything you need. And it's a little bit hard to buy from the independent farmer. Yeah.
00:43:21
Speaker
Right. like It takes an extra step for our customers. And I appreciate that they take that extra step for us. Yeah. But it's harder for them and they do need that gentle nudge.
00:43:32
Speaker
Yep. So we have grace for ourselves to understand that farming is ah very, very difficult profession to sustain. And like only the strong survive.
00:43:44
Speaker
But if we are of among the strong that do survive, we're going to make it because we can get through the difficulties of farming, the difficulties of the marketing to get to those people.
00:43:57
Speaker
And we can just find out rhythms that work for us. And for me, this rhythm of like an email every Thursday, I'm like I can do it. I can do an email every Thursday.
00:44:08
Speaker
I can do two or three posts per week on social media. I'm never going to feel like it, but I can do it. And if I've got all my eggs in this basket of farming and regenerative agriculture, I got to make this work.
Subscription Models and Customer Loyalty
00:44:23
Speaker
So I'm going to find out what works best for my customers and what works best for me. And I'm going to do that together. And that's been working for us for forever. Like literally that popped into my head three years ago when I decided it was all about weekly emails for some reason for me.
00:44:42
Speaker
It was like, okay, I get it. My customers usually shop once a week. So I should remind them once a week that we're here. And that's really got us going in a really nice groove with like with most of our customers. Yeah.
00:44:58
Speaker
So we work with Good Roots Northwest, who does a lot of really great things about learning about what do customers do and how often do people shop. And their recent research says that people are going to the grocery store.
00:45:09
Speaker
The average American household in Washington state needs groceries every three days. Yeah. That's so crazy. As a farmer, that like doesn't make any sense to us. Like we have a year's worth of food.
00:45:22
Speaker
I think that marketing one-on-one class though, it was important to like, our customers aren't primarily in the county that we are farming in. Yes. They're three counties away where people pay more.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Because the people in your county, they, a lot of them grow their own food too. They do. And they know how to can. Yeah. You know, so it's like they don't need you. The people in the neighborhoods need you.
00:45:47
Speaker
And that's one of the best things about are you guys doing home deliveries? We are. Yeah. why my teenage kids You know what? It's great. Teenage drivers. They love to go for a drive. Oh, yeah. So they do all of our home porch box delivery and they snap the picture and send it to our customers so that they know their deliveries there. Yes. And Barnador has been great with that because the pick sheet comes out and it has all the information they need.
00:46:10
Speaker
Amazing. That's one of the very first things I tell people when they're on the fence about signing up with Barnador. end up getting a lot of calls from people that like, Hey, I'm thinking about Barnador. What do you think? And I'm like, dude, just for the pick and pack sheet alone,
00:46:26
Speaker
I would do, let alone, they designed my entire website. They can make logos for you. They can do one-on-one calls and coaching with you. And they're going to build you. mean, just the pick and pack sheet alone saves me so much time and keeps me, I'm a very unorganized caveman when it comes to these things.
00:46:46
Speaker
And they keep me organized and on track. And I just, the ability to just print off a pick sheet that has everything that was ordered that week and is going out on Wednesday. i was just like, Oh, I feel a weight coming off my shoulders every time I print that thing off. Cause I'm like, thank God I don't have to go through every order and add it all up and figure it all out.
00:47:07
Speaker
It's a huge time saver. That's for sure. It's a giant time saver. Yeah. What about subscriptions? Have you guys got any subscriptions going on? Yeah. Shout out to Barn to Door on that again.
00:47:19
Speaker
Can we talk about how much I love my farm account manager? Yeah. Again, didn't quite know what to put together. And they said, Shauna, you got to put up a bundle box and subscriptions versus selling whole or half or quarter or eighth of a hog, right?
00:47:33
Speaker
We passed this USDA and they said, you need to do a farmer's choice bundle box. And I said, yes, okay, you need to do a farmer's choice. They said, you need 10 things in your store.
00:47:43
Speaker
I want you to think about what are the 10 things you're going to put. And of those 10 things, you need a breakfast bundle, a farmer's choice bundle. yeahp Those are like non-negotiables. And I was like, I'm not sure anybody's going to buy that.
00:47:56
Speaker
You everybody buys? Breakfast bundle on the farmer's choice. The farmer's choice bundle or a breakfast bundle. They don't buy any of my other choices. I should have just gone with bundles. Yep.
00:48:07
Speaker
And we have a ranch CSA subscription box that's coming out because a couple of other farms have been doing that with really great success.
Pursuing Organic Certification
00:48:15
Speaker
And so yeah we're now doing the quarterly ranch bundle box, which I'm super excited about launching.
00:48:23
Speaker
What's in that? Well, everybody that ah has come to the farm to pick up, I always like, if we ordered those double cut pork chops, for example, right? I needed 400 of those, but you don't just get 400 when you go to the butcher shop, you get a few extras.
00:48:37
Speaker
And so those top end chef cuts in the farmer's choice bundle box, that's always what I'm throwing in. And they were like, no, you need to do that in a subscription. Like we would just buy those all the time.
00:48:49
Speaker
Those pork chops are like the best we've ever had. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, well, the double cut pork chop is the baby back rib and a pork chop. Yeah. They were like, yeah, but I want the foodie cut.
00:49:00
Speaker
Like you need a foodie box. Yeah, right. It's not extra and surplus. It's the foodie box. So, yeah. So the breakfast bundle and the farmer's choice bundle, are those subscriptions as well or one time?
00:49:14
Speaker
You can do them as subscriptions. If you do it as a subscription, we give you a little bonus. We take some money off because that helps us know that you're going to be consistently buying. Yeah. So if you're buying it for just one time because you want to know what are all the breakfast choices, I mean...
00:49:29
Speaker
Who knew there were so many breakfast choices? Let me like load your bag up with 10 pounds of delicious bacon and chorizo and breakfast links and all the things, right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. I think we've also seen consumers have that consumer fatigue.
00:49:44
Speaker
Yeah. Right? Like they don't scroll past page one of my barn to door stores. No. I can have 10 breakfast choices, but they're never going to. They would much rather say like, give me 10 of a variety yeah of these things.
00:49:58
Speaker
There's a small portion of them that will, they won't like sage or they won't like whatever. Those people aside, the vast majority of people are just going to like, I just love all breakfast things. Please give me a box full of breakfast stuff.
00:50:13
Speaker
Right. And my kids love jalapeno bacon breakfast sausages. Like that's the thing they order every, they're like, mom, we'll load hogs for you. If you promise when we go pick up the meat for you, that the jalapeno bacon breakfast sausages come back.
00:50:28
Speaker
Jalapeno bacon. breck Is this a link? or a It's a link. It's a link. Wow. I bet that's amazing. i have never We have jalapeno cheddar, but we've never done jalapeno bacon.
00:50:40
Speaker
Right. Okay. I would just say like, but that's probably our most popular thing. If you didn't know that you wanted it until you got the breakfast bundle. Yeah. Okay. So it takes them a little while to try it and then they try it and they're like addicted to it.
00:50:53
Speaker
Right. Okay. And I'm also, a I'm not a big fan of breakfast sausage. I'll just, yeah right. But the jalapeno bacon breakfast sausage, I'm like, I'm going to cook that up while everyone's gone. Yeah. Okay. Technical question there. Is your butcher actually putting cured bacon in there or is it just pork belly, like extra pork belly into that?
00:51:13
Speaker
Do you know? Cause when we get our bacon cut, we get all these bacon ends on the side and I'm like yeah desperate to find something to do with the bacon ends. you know, because nobody wants to buy them.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yes, that's what we do. Oh, that's it. That's it. but Yes, that's what we do with the bacon scraps that Bradley. So along my journey, I don't have a lot of expertise in this. And I think that's where finding experts to help you is so important.
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah. Bradley is an expert at packaging high end cuts. And Bradley was like, hey, don't waste your bacon scraps. Make it into these bacon breakfast sausages. Yeah. Hey, let me throw some jalapeno and people will love it.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, man. That's a brilliant – I would eat those for breakfast every day. Okay, but I have one question that's been burning in my mind basically since we started that I have to ask you.
00:52:03
Speaker
If you can, tell us why you want to do organic pork. Because that's something you mentioned early on, right? Am I remembering that correctly? You are. Sell us on the idea because a lot of pork farmers are like, I'm not doing organic.
00:52:19
Speaker
Get out of here. Okay. Well, so far we are following organic practices. yeah So we were all the way to the point we're ready to certify organic. And the reason why we are following those organic grow practices is our family has some allergies.
00:52:33
Speaker
And when my son was little, his grandparents were super sweet. They fed him some Costco grapes that weren't organic. And he ended up in the hospital. Wow. He has this huge allergies.
00:52:44
Speaker
So we're really committed to having nothing on the farm that would make our family
Financial and Community Support in Farming
00:52:48
Speaker
sick. Yeah. And so for us, organic is really because things that aren't organic make my family really sick. Yeah, right.
00:52:56
Speaker
And so we don't feed the pigs anything that I wouldn't eat. Yep. But I can't certify organic unless I give up their 10 to 20,000 pounds of produce a week. Yeah. That was my next question. I mean, like. That's the only thing holding us back from certifying the pigs organic is this produce connection. Yep.
00:53:14
Speaker
And so part of our wonder is we're hopeful that our microgreens are certified organic. Like we started growing cantaloupe last week in the compost pile because the microgreens we grow cantaloupe for.
00:53:25
Speaker
and they sprouted out of the compost heap. And so our wonder is if we get a hoop house going for the compost from the microgreens, am I able to to grow enough fresh fruit and veg for the pigs?
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah, right. That's a lot of veg to replace. It's a lot of veg to replace. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Thank you for explaining that to us.
00:53:47
Speaker
I was so, so curious because you know organic pork is so rare to find, but people will pay extraordinary amounts of money for an organic pork product because it's like next impossible to find.
00:54:03
Speaker
It's also like double the cost to produce, right? Yeah. The difference between the regular hog food and the organic, I'm paying like double the cost on that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. yeah I know.
00:54:14
Speaker
I know because we've done we've gone through a journey on our farm of organic feed, non-GMO, corn-free, soy-free. And we've landed at non-GMO, corn-free, soy-free for the egg layers.
00:54:31
Speaker
And we can charge a premium for that. But when we would try the organic feed, the cost became to where I would have to charge like $18 $20 a dozen.
00:54:42
Speaker
for eggs. I'm at 13 right now on corn-free, soy-free, non-GMO, and they're willing to do it. I think this is where I'm going have to shout out to, you have to stay connected to your network of farmers. Again, Wendy and Ranch in Ellensburg keeps pushing on us, right? About let us help you cuss costs.
00:55:01
Speaker
And you need that supportive farmer friend that's been doing it a while who can help you. So they, for example, gave us a giant silo so that we can start grinding our own food. And at economy of scale, if I can truck in my own organic and we grind it here,
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah. The double the cost difference kind of comes down a little bit. Yes. I've seen a lot of farms switching to grinding their own, even if they just, just buying the whole grains and the minerals and everything on the side and mixing it their own, they can make some pretty significant benefits to their margins. Yeah.
00:55:36
Speaker
And I haven't made that leap yet, but I've seen a lot of farms doing it and they seem to really, really enjoy it too. The feed seems like way fresher and the animals seem to be that much more excited about it when you feed it out too.
00:55:48
Speaker
Yeah. I think that there's definitely benefit for us. I just appreciate that Wendy and Ranch is mentoring us through that journey because to be animal welfare certified, we have to have a certified nutritionist sign off on what the hog fuel, the food is for the animals.
00:56:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And they're helping us with, hey, here's our certified nutritionist formula. And then the Southwest Washington Food Hub is also a grain hub. And so we're going to be able to source everything within the state for the food, which I think for us is like we're pharaoh to harvest already. yeah But being able to source our food from the state as well.
00:56:24
Speaker
That's amazing. That's next level. I love that. That's our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint, right? Like source everything as hyper local as we can. Yeah.
00:56:35
Speaker
Okay. I know I've said last question like four times, but I really do have one last question. Farmer's markets, yay or nay? i love the idea of the farmer's market.
00:56:47
Speaker
We are pro-farmers market. yeah So we have the four of us running the farm. And we have, I would say, the most incredible network. My parents volunteer to help. We have no paid employees.
00:56:59
Speaker
We haven't paid ourselves yet from the farm. We've collected zero paycheck. yep And to commit to go to a farmer's market, I think it would be amazing public relations for us. It'd be a great marketing. yeah I think it'd be a great next sales channel.
00:57:12
Speaker
But we... you can only do so much. We have put that on my next things list. Yeah, right. Yeah. And for folks listening and hearing Shauna say she hasn't paid herself yet, if you are shocked, just realize I didn't pay myself for the first three years.
00:57:32
Speaker
And so that's very normal. And that's one of the things that makes farming the most difficult is that getting into the game of direct-to-consumer farming is very intense the first couple years. And it's like a gauntlet. It's going to...
00:57:51
Speaker
Knock off the people who were not meant to do it but thought it'd be a fun thing to try. And you will see at the end of three, four, five years who's really dedicated to this but can also survive without taking a paycheck for a couple years.
00:58:09
Speaker
It's really hard. Like the farm pays all of its bills, which is exciting, right? But yes, wonderful. Yeah, I think I came to Barnador and listened to a podcast. And when we were first doing this, and they said, you'll know you're there when the farm bills far exceeds your home bills. Yeah. And like the kids go to pick up feed for us every Saturday at the feed store, and they pay the bill for me every week.
00:58:33
Speaker
And they said, Mom, dude, yeah do you know how much the feed bill was today? They also have to go do all the grocery shopping. Yes. Because mom doesn't have time to leave the farm. Yes. So they the kids also do all the, growth and they said, mom, that was like the whole month of grocery budget that we just spent in a week of hog food.
00:58:50
Speaker
ah And I said, I know. Yep. And they said, those pigs eat so good. Yes, I know. And that was a really hard roadblock for me. When my feed bills would get so high, buying cattle is so, i mean, you're looking at, you know, $15,000 for like six to eight cows and your brain just starts to melt.
00:59:15
Speaker
we will have spent more on processing than I spent in an entire year making as an educator. Yeah, yeah. And I think what's hard, we have the two businesses, right? Microgreens takes me seven days to correct a problem and we get paid on day eight. Yeah, love it. Hogs take 13 months and we get paid on month 14. Yeah.
00:59:33
Speaker
yeah Hopefully. And I think the two businesses, they strike contrast there. Yeah. And it's a hard go. And I think it's a hard season of farming right now because we had a port contract through the hub we were really excited about in January that started for us.
00:59:51
Speaker
And we shifted and we told our customers we are sold out as we make the shift. We're scaling. So it came at a perfect time for us. Because bought the hogs one a month.
01:00:01
Speaker
Now they're having two litters a year. We're scaling at the right time to say yes to it. But we put all of our pork in this contract for January and the cuts for it were very specific and cut in a way that I can't sell them out anywhere else.
01:00:16
Speaker
Oh my gosh. But it's a three-year contract for us and gives us a lot of stability. And then with the change in the federal government, the grant money got frozen. And I think another piece of the puzzle was Barnador said, you're not a cold storage facility because I said it's expensive to go buy a chest freezer, right?
01:00:34
Speaker
Yep. it's expensive And bar into door, my farm consultant said, Shauna, you're not a cold storage facility. Your problem is in distribution. You need to figure out how to get your hogs through the distribution channel. And the day they're done needs to be the day you deliver.
01:00:48
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Love that. And so we have this great relationship worked out with Wendy and Ranch, and they have just enough cold storage to get it all processed and ready to go for me for this pork contract we took. Yeah.
01:01:01
Speaker
And it's sitting in their freezer and the contract gets shut down. And I've put my entire month until I get paid for that pork in January. We can't make a mortgage.
01:01:12
Speaker
We can't buy hog food. bill I can't pay the cut and wrap bill. It backs up because then I can't pay the USDA harvest facility. And until you pay your harvest facility bill, you can't schedule your next harvest date.
01:01:24
Speaker
right so all of a sudden my world comes to a screeching halt because we gave up like you said earlier in the podcast you said who are your customers and i would tell you we had it ah really like nice now i understand why that was such a complicated question to answer we had this nice setup like my retail customers pay us before they pick up so i can pay my like their bill for them right their bill pays my processing fee well We took a gamble and said, you know a three-year contract would be great.
01:01:53
Speaker
And it wasn't because we couldn't pay any bill in January. And we are way overextended as a first-year farmer. And I've had to say thank you to everybody this month who has like gotten us through because the USDA facility said, you've never been late. If your issue is this grant, we're going to go ahead and say, okay, we'll extend credit.
01:02:12
Speaker
for 15 days. But like, I think it's made us really think about farming and like, do you say yes to that contract? Right. yeah Tough, tough, because that's a very tantalizing offer to have a three year contract and you kind of just have, all you got to do is grow the food now.
01:02:33
Speaker
Well, we grow the food and then we still wear Like I said earlier to you, like if I'm doing 200 cuts, I know I'm going have a little bit extra. And the little bit extra allowed us to keep our loyal customers, right? Yes. Right.
01:02:45
Speaker
Right. But it didn't allow us to keep, like we had to give up some things. Like we gave up, we have a retail co-op that we were doing some really great business through, or we have a farm stand store that we were doing great business through, yeah through another farm. And we had to give some of that up to say yes.
01:03:00
Speaker
And we'll see how it pans out. but You're still in the middle of it right now. We're recovering from it yeah because it delayed everything. So it got us behind for the first time in 25 years of marriage that we've ever been behind on a bill.
01:03:14
Speaker
Yep. Right. Yes. And because we're behind, then that takes you a bit. And we also qualify for no farm help. Like we don't qualify for a farm loan.
01:03:24
Speaker
We've maxed out all of our personal, what like any personal day I had, it's all maxed. Yes. And thank goodness our kids are teenagers who are like super understanding. And yes, we have a network of great people, but farming is hard.
01:03:38
Speaker
And Absolutely. Absolutely. Farming's hard. You're in the testing grounds right now. You need to think of it. I mean, farming's so hard that my mom, who's 70, is driving 600 miles for me today to make deliveries so that wow we don't have to pay somebody.
Reflecting on Farm Life Challenges and Rewards
01:03:55
Speaker
But she's dropping off pork.
01:03:58
Speaker
She's picking up pork. She's going to the walk-in cooler tonight that we've rented because we don't have any of that here because of the regulations. So we rent a walk-in when we need one. Yeah.
01:04:09
Speaker
Right. But my 70 year old mom's helping us out because we literally can't afford to hire anybody yet. What a saint. Yeah. Like that's her, like it's her third trip this month. Wow. What a savior.
01:04:22
Speaker
That's amazing. Without our network of people who've stepped up that I wouldn't have asked to step up, we wouldn't be successful today. Yeah, absolutely. So you're still waiting for this contract to go through or have you given it up and you're going to try to sell the pork somewhere else?
01:04:37
Speaker
They've said whatever the grant comes and goes, we're going to go ahead and fund it. There are 35 other farmers in the same boat with me. Wow. Yeah, from the hub and props to the organization that's buying from us as farmers. And they've just said, we're not going to make you ride this roller coaster. We're going to just make sure we fund it. Yeah.
01:04:53
Speaker
And we actually don't drop off pork for 10 more days. And they called today to say, go ahead and and invoice us. We'll make sure you get paid. We know you're in a tight spot. Wow. Oh, that's amazing. Wow. So I didn't realize when I was at the bank, like trying to deposit the check from the last time that they were there, like hearing my farmer, like, because we were late, the bank put a 15 day hold on my deposit.
01:05:15
Speaker
Thank you for your honesty and your openness and giving people a view into real farm life, real farm experience, being an entrepreneur, going out on your own, taking the risk.
01:05:30
Speaker
This is the kind of stuff that we've all run into. and not exactly your case and my situations are different than yours. You have no idea what kind of curve balls farming is going to throw at you.
01:05:43
Speaker
But it will throw curveballs. That you can be sure of. And there will be challenges. i mean, my cows were out this morning. and like They were all over the place. Wherever they weren't supposed to be, they all decided to scatter in different directions and go there.
01:05:59
Speaker
And that's farm life. like This is what's going to happen. You can prepare as best as possible. But crazy stuff is going to happen. And i think you're sharing your story is going to give a lot of courage to other people who are like, feel like they're trudging through the mud right now because farming is ah challenge.
01:06:21
Speaker
But the reward of getting to live this life and getting to grow, that's what we have to think of, right? When we're in the thick of it, it's like, I always have this view. I have a pretend friend And I pretend that, let's call him Steve.
01:06:37
Speaker
Steve is in a cubicle right now working for a marketing agency that he doesn't care about. And that could be me. Or i could be here doing what I love, connecting with the passion, connecting with my calling.
01:06:53
Speaker
And even though today sucks, I'm still happy that I'm here and not there. I completely agree with you. I would not trade the life we had before we bought the farm for the farm life we have now.
01:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful. Even given any any struggle we have, this life is the probably the most incredible gift I could ever be given. Yeah, absolutely. it's It is a lifestyle worth fighting for.
01:07:22
Speaker
Even in its worst days and its toughest days, you will have some days that you just are like euphoric. I had such a fun time talking with you and it was so great to meet you.
01:07:35
Speaker
And would just really appreciate the time that you took to do this podcast with me today. i am humbled that you took the time to have a farm moment and connect. Thanks.
01:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, you're welcome. I love it. I want to extend my thanks to Shauna for joining me on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of what she's doing on her farm at Sasquatch Family Farms on Instagram.
01:08:01
Speaker
Barn to Door is humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country to help them access more customers, increase their sales and save time on their business.
01:08:12
Speaker
Sasquatch Family Farms in Washington and my farm, Chucktown Acres in South Carolina, both benefit from partnering with Barn to Door. Not only from the software and not only being able to cut out the middleman, but also making it very, very easy for our customers to shop with us.
01:08:33
Speaker
Barn to Door takes the friction out of the relationship with shopping for your customers. Being able to offer home delivery and pickup locations within like a click or two on their computer or their phone makes a huge difference.
Barn to Door's Role in Supporting Independent Farmers
01:08:49
Speaker
And also Barn to Door offers one-on-one coaching with your account manager. And so if you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or you are transitioning to selling direct or you simply want to streamline your business management, you can check out Barn to Door today.
01:09:06
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to seeing you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
01:09:22
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn to Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities.
01:09:37
Speaker
You are the backbone of our country. For free farm resources or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barntodore.com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.