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Terra Firma Farm Creamery: One-Stop Shop for Local Community
185 Plays4 years ago
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're delighted to host Brie Casadei with Terra Firma Farm Creamery. Listen as Brie shares how the Farm experienced tremendous growth by selling online with direct delivery and how implementing these changes empowers Terra Firma to support the local community.
Show Notes:
https://www.terrafirmafarm.org/
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to Farm Success Levers
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the weekly listen for farm selling direct. We'll talk about the four levers for farm success, which are quality, brand, price, and convenience.
Mission to Empower Farmers
00:00:14
Speaker
We'll hear from outside industry experts and producers like you to delight your customers, save time, and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the direct farm podcast. I'm Rory, your host.
Meet Brie Casade from Terra Firma Farm
00:00:30
Speaker
We've got a great conversation for you today with one of our newest farm advisors, Brie Casade of Terra Firma Farm. Welcome Brie. It's great to have you here. Before we get started, can you maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and some of your background? Sure. Thanks for having me. So I'm a first-generation farmer.
Brie's Journey as a First-Generation Farmer
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm blessed to farm here in North Stonington with my two kids.
00:00:56
Speaker
We have a mixture of chickens and pigs and goats and sheep and cows, but our main focus is dairy. I didn't grow up on a farm and I think as a kid, you know, farming was more of, I guess,
00:01:10
Speaker
More of a life with animals was the dream. So I went to the University of Vermont and got my degree in animal sciences. Awesome. Obviously there you have really deep roots in animals and in the land. Could you maybe give everyone a little context to the story of Terra Firma Farm and how it was founded, how that business has kind of evolved to the point where it's at today?
00:01:30
Speaker
So we started out as a nonprofit community farm in 2004. I was 25 years old, had 500 bucks from my dad, and that was it. So we've always relied a lot on our community. So we opened up the farm with the mission of reconnecting youth to agriculture. So the way that I saw being able to do that was have a working farm, have a working farm stand,
00:01:57
Speaker
where people could come and reconnect with how food was grown so see the chickens laying their eggs and see the pigs being raised and see the cows being milked and be a part of it so we did after school programs and field trips and summer camps and you know every way we could possibly get the community's kids on the farm we did it and we
00:02:19
Speaker
always had products for food production so it was always a farm stand with eggs and pork and beef and chickens and turkey and you know whatever we could we had a really big market card in the beginning and it was always just connecting that food that we were growing on the farm with the people you know in our community that were eating it.
Defining Sustainability in Farming
00:02:40
Speaker
Could you maybe kind of talk about what sustainability means to you and maybe a little bit on how you implement that at your farm?
00:02:46
Speaker
So I think sustainability is to me, it's the ability to keep moving forward. So economically, environmentally on the farm, and even emotionally, like mentally being able to move forward. And so, you know, you have to think about all the decisions we make as a farmer and as a business person, they have to be something that
00:03:09
Speaker
is good for us and good for our community and good for the animals and good for the land right now, but also 10 years from now, 30 years from now, you know, so as a first generation farmer and as a business woman, I'm always trying to think like, how can we keep her from a farm alive forever is obviously the goal.
00:03:27
Speaker
So sustainability, I think I kind of think about that all the time, you know, the impact we have on the land that we farm. We have to make sure that it stays healthy for as long as we want to, you know, have our animals on it. The business has to make correct decisions to stay sustainable for everything. Like COVID was a perfect example and switching to using branch door and direct consumers.
00:03:48
Speaker
sustainability is moving forward with change too. That's really awesome to hear. And you kind of started to touch on some of your educational field trips, the volunteer farm days, and you guys have some other youth programs. Could you maybe talk about those a little bit more and what those actually look
Educational Programs and Community Initiatives
00:04:05
Speaker
like? Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker
are in the middle of summer camp right now and so that's one of our biggest things. We do two different programs for summer camp and I think all of our programs it's basically showing the kids the day and the life. So whatever is going on at the farm that day, have them tag along. They hike out to the fields and you know we've rotationally grazed our cows so they'll hike out with us and move fences, they'll collect eggs, they'll
00:04:30
Speaker
feed the pigs and we always try to talk about different things with them so farming and food and environment I mean the farm is full of lessons so you basically teach kids about responsibility by showing them raising it you can teach kids about teamwork by all of us working together to you know harvest the long roll of potatoes so we've had the ability to really
00:04:55
Speaker
teach through actually physically doing things. Getting kids outside and back on a farm, that's a lesson in its own now. Not many kids are raised on farms. It used to be they might have a grandparent or somebody on a farm, but now it's not like that anymore. So this is their, you know, exposure to agriculture, which is so important because
00:05:16
Speaker
It helps them and their parents make decisions to shop locally. And, you know, they see us at the grocery store and they're like, there's strawberry brie. And, you know, they make that connection and it makes it real for them, opposed to just milk coming on a truck or tomatoes coming in a can. You know, it makes it real.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And I mean, feeding the pigs and collecting eggs moving, that's about as hands on as it gets. Well, something else that you guys are doing is your Terra Pharma give gallons campaign that you guys, I think launched in January of 2019. It's also the hashtag TFF give gallons. If people want to search it on social media, but could you maybe kind of share the vision and the mission behind that campaign?
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah. So terra firma farm give gallons or TFF give gallons is based off of the national idea of a customer can buy a gallon of milk and instead of us delivering it to them, we deliver it to the local food bank. And it's sort of started because let's start it for a couple of reasons. It started because our creamery was actually started through a Kickstarter program. When we wanted to bring dairy back to terra firma, we,
00:06:25
Speaker
started a Kickstarter campaign and it was 100% funded through our followers. So we raised $50,000 and then a lot of our own money as well. But that's what we used to purchase the pasteurizer and the bottler and to rebuild the creamery so it could be licensed. So it was our way of giving back to the community for them giving to us in the beginning
00:06:48
Speaker
We started that and it was a way for us to give the milk to the food banks. Number one thing that they need is dairy, but they don't get it because it has no shelf weight. I think if you're not bottling your own milk, dairy farming is a disaster. Farmers are paid on an amount of money that doesn't even cover the cost of raising the animals to make the milk. They don't have a say in it because they're shipping milk, but that's a whole different disaster.
00:07:14
Speaker
When we started, we also wanted to go above and beyond what we could produce so that we could buy milk from other local dairy farms and process it for them and put that into our give gallons program. So we were able to pay the farmers more than they would be getting if they were to be shipping their milk. So it was kind of like a three-way win for everyone, we thought. And it's been, I mean, it's been going since we started it. You know, we get donations every week for people to send milk to the food banks.
00:07:42
Speaker
And ever since we switched to Barnes & Door and started doing more direct consumer and online sales and people are shopping kind of off of the, you know, putting things in your shopping cart, we've noticed so many of our like weekly customers, they just toss in an extra half a gallon or they toss in a gallon every week or they'll buy the monthly donations. And so it's been a pretty awesome program for us to watch grow and to be a part of. It's one of my favorite things we do every week.
00:08:12
Speaker
That is so cool to hear about. And also that just the added convenience of the online store just makes it that much easier for people to kind of pitch in where they can and help out. That's a sweet, awesome platform that you guys have launched now kind of transitioning into more of the business side of things and how you guys run your dairy. You mentioned that you guys do some in grocery stores a little bit ago. Could you maybe talk about how you guys have leveraged both the direct to consumer, but also the wholesale side of your business?
Sales Strategies: Direct to Consumer and Wholesale
00:08:39
Speaker
So we've always sold products direct to consumers. So we've always had a farm stand. We've always done farmer's markets. We've dibbled a little bit into wholesale accounts, so grocery stores and food co-ops and restaurants. But when we started the dairy, that really kicked in because the cows make milk every day.
00:08:58
Speaker
We have an amazing family grocery store. McQuaid's Marketplace is our local grocery. And they, from the beginning, have supported us when we added the dairy. So our dairy has always been right on the shelf with the other, you know, big companies. So for us, that was great. Well, all of a sudden COVID hit and that changed everything that we were seeing going. So we no longer were able to keep our farm store open here on the farm. And we also saw a
00:09:26
Speaker
huge reductions in grocery store sales when COVID hit. And so our idea, and it was sort of amazing how things just let them happen. They always work out.
Adapting to COVID: Enhancing Consumer Sales
00:09:38
Speaker
But our idea to switch to direct to consumer and to increase our wholesale was huge during that beginning of COVID time. So I think things like Amazon and other larger, big companies that
00:09:53
Speaker
They really helped, I think, pave the way. They got people used to getting food back on their doorstep. And they got people used to home deliveries and those things. So for us, we started the home delivery. The idea was we were going to do it one day a week and we were going to do just a couple of towns right near us. And we thought, you know, whatever, it'll be small, we'll be fine.
00:10:14
Speaker
And so it started pretty slow. And then we realized, wow, we got to do it five days a week. And so it just, I mean, the growth that we had when we started doing home delivery was, it was insane. I mean, it was completely insane. And that was just sort of through a very simple online form. It was just milk.
00:10:34
Speaker
in dairy and eggs, the things that we produced a lot of. We were adding in some veal and some beef and some pork as we had it, but not something on a continual basis. And we weren't working with any other farms. So it was just what we were producing.
00:10:49
Speaker
Then we started realizing that if these customers are going to pay $5 for a delivery fee, they probably want to put that over a lot of items. We started to work with other farmers to make sure that we had the supply for the demand. We always have beef now. We work with a farm that helps us make sure that we do raise our own beef here on the farm too.
00:11:13
Speaker
We always have pork. Then we have vegetables that come from another farm. We have a restaurant that does prepared foods and granolas. We do a local coffee. We do some local soda. We do bread. We do chocolates. We do honey. We've just added in a lot of products to the online format so that we feel that our customers can spread that delivery fee over everything that they want.
00:11:41
Speaker
You know, they can fill their cart with almost everything they need for the week now. That's really cool to hear. There's kind of two things I want to touch on there. Maybe the first of which you talked about how you've been able to leverage product diversification to grow your farm business and get more people to come and buy from you. So dairy was the only thing that we were selling online for a pre-order pickup and for the small amount of home delivery that we were doing.
00:12:05
Speaker
I think the reason why we added in other products to basically increase the revenue that our home delivery was doing was on the fact of spreading out that delivery charge and also making it convenient. So if somebody is going to just buy milk from us once a week,
00:12:24
Speaker
That's going to get old because you're still going to have to go other places. You're still going to, if you're a farmer's market shopper, you're still going to have to go to the farmer's market. You're still going to have to go to the grocery store. So we developed it and grew all of the products that we had on our list so that we would become kind of the default shopping method for our customers.
00:12:43
Speaker
And so therefore, the more products that you can offer and as long as you keep your quality up, I think people will tend to do one-stop shopping. If they can get all their meat for the week and their bread and their vegetables and all the dairy that they need and the eggs that they need and throw in some chocolate chip cookies, then they have everything they need for the week. And we saw the more that we added, the more orders we were getting and the bigger the orders were. And so it was great to have that
00:13:12
Speaker
would be so easy for us. Barnsdoor took care of adding in all the items. We just had to get them all lined up and figure out what people wanted. It took a little while. You know, sometimes we have things where you think that, you know, oh, we're going to sell a ton of these. People definitely want it. And then you only sell a couple and then, you know, you have other things that customers ask for and those take off. So it's really paying attention to what your customers are asking for and just making sure that you can find it locally and have a good quality product and have
00:13:41
Speaker
The other farms have the same parallel methods that we do. We want to make sure that they're raised humanely and they're outside and they're grass fed and the feed that they're fed is of good quality and that they're processed in a humane method and raised kindly. So you have to kind of make sure that the other businesses that we're working with
00:14:02
Speaker
stay in line with who we are just because you have to stay true to the name. Yeah. I know that something that a lot of farms are trying to do is very similar to what you guys are doing in terms of adding more products from other farms that are around you to your store. Could you maybe talk about how you've kind of gone about establishing those partnerships with other farms and kind of turn that into something that actually is on your store? Yes. I've been lucky to be around in the community for so long. You know, you meet other farmers at farmer's markets and
00:14:32
Speaker
Most of my friends are food producers or farmers just by default. So, but we actually have some businesses that we work with that you know we thought out and I would have never known them before I realized like we needed to add lamb to the market. So, it's great to be, there's a lot of small farms around, and you know just by
00:14:54
Speaker
trial and errors, so finding out what they have and how they raise their animals or what they use for ingredients. That's basically how we pick all of our partners. Most of them I've worked with for years. The person that we use for honey, we've been doing business together since I opened in the beginning. Our vegetables that we get from Huntsburg Farm, I've known them for years. So that's been great. And then adding in some new businesses that we work with.
00:15:20
Speaker
I think for the business side of it, for them, most of them are just selling one product. Most of the farms that we've partnered with or even the food producers that we've partnered with, they sell one product. So it's pretty hard for them to get that.
00:15:35
Speaker
out in the same means that we do and that goes back to the convenience. So if we are able to co-op in all of these other farms and offer our customers all these different products from the different local farms, then it feels like they're shopping at a farmer's market in one stop. And it's great for these other smaller farms who don't have the time to do marketing and they don't have the time to make an online store and they definitely don't have
00:16:03
Speaker
the ability to do delivery. So it's been good, I think for both sides of it to work together and offer more. Yeah, that's super awesome. And a really good point there too. And that sometimes a farm does just have one product. And so it makes more sense to kind of team up with you. And obviously you have a great market that you're already serving. And so they can kind of tap into that as well. That's a great opportunity for them.
00:16:24
Speaker
So you kind of started to touch on a little bit ago about your decision to start doing delivery because you made me talk about how you decided to kind of take that step and start offering home delivery for customers and how that kind of empower you to meet the buyer expectations. So delivery was always something that in the back of my mind I knew was a great idea. It's one of those things that customers always asked for and it was just I don't have the time, I don't have the means, I don't have the methods. And then
00:16:51
Speaker
Slowly, but surely when we started trying to figure out how do we add this in, cause it seems like that's how things are moving. You know, the trends are moving that way. I think farmers markets were very busy three years ago, but now they're definitely not like they used to be. So I think delivery was really the idea was how can we make it easier for our customers to get our milk?
00:17:15
Speaker
And so home delivery was for us, it was the way that we could make it easier for our customers to get our milk, but also from a business side, it was also more convenient for us. So opposed to having a farm store that was open all day long, that maybe had five customers, we were able to set aside delivery times.
00:17:36
Speaker
So people can order all night long. I don't need to stop my day to take an order. They come online. We wake up in the morning and we print out the daily orders. So for us, it was also really a good time management decision because now all of the orders are basically, they're handled on their own and then we deliver them at a set time opposed to stopping and going to take care of a farm stand.
Optimizing Deliveries with Routeific
00:18:01
Speaker
So Terra Firmafarm has been one of the early adopters of Barnadore's new routing integration with Routeific because you maybe talk about how route optimization software has helped you save time and money while offering that delivery service. So we have used a couple of the different routing softwares and for me personally that's the most
00:18:22
Speaker
time consuming side of it all since we switched over to delivery. You want to make sure that the route that your drivers are doing, it's got to make sense. So we also live in a touristy area. So we have mystic Connecticut, which this time of year it's got to flow. So you want to.
00:18:40
Speaker
Obviously you want to deliver as many stops as we possibly can in the shortest period of time while still being safe and kind to our customers and all of that stuff. And it's time consuming and it always has been time consuming. And there was a lot of mistakes. We have a drawbridge in Mystic and sometimes the software would send our drivers over the drawbridge two times. So that's 45 minutes that they're just like going back and forth. So it's crazy.
00:19:04
Speaker
So when we watched the testimonials on Rautific and the integration was huge. So it's literally one button now. So I click the button, the same screen that I'm clicking our packing list from every morning. You click one button and it sends all of our orders right over to the Rautific software. And then I go over there and I pick the driver and I pick the number.
00:19:29
Speaker
and then it sends it to the driver. And then the app is amazing too. So the driver now on their phones can see and make sure they have all the right items. They can communicate directly with me saying, oh, I already delivered this one. And they can also communicate directly with the customer saying, hey, we just dropped your milk. It's in the back door. Or we didn't have one
00:19:53
Speaker
pound of ground beef. So we gave you two this week. So it's great because they have the ability to do that correctly with the customer. Obviously they can text a customer and obviously I can put all the addresses in Google maps, but the amount of time that this saves is amazing. I mean, absolutely amazing and the ease. So that's what this is all about. Like make it easy for all of us and make it easy for the customers and the integration on this one. I mean, that was like,
00:20:20
Speaker
an A plus on Barn To Door there. I even sent Miranda an email because I feel like Barn To Door is always one step ahead on figuring out how can we make this easier on farmers. And one thing, farmers, and I think all entrepreneurs, I don't think farmers are special in this sense, but
00:20:36
Speaker
I think all small businesses, we don't have enough time. There is not enough time in the day to get done everything that we want to get done. Naturally, we're driven people, so we have this huge ambition of what we're going to get done in a day, and there's not enough time. So going to the door and these little integrations that you guys do save us so much time in the long run that it just makes it easier. And therefore, it makes
00:21:00
Speaker
I mean, I think it lets us raise a better product and it makes us do more marketing and it has us, you know, deliver more deliveries and make more revenue and keeps us going, you know, talking about sustainability. There it is right there, right? Yeah.
00:21:15
Speaker
Well, I think that's always the hope, you know, we want to try and make it as easy as possible on the business side of things so that you can focus on, on not only the most important part, you know, raising the animals, raising the products, but I mean, nobody wants to sit on their phone at night, figuring out the route they're going to take the next day for all their delivery. So that's really awesome to hear that it's been good for you. Do you know or have any idea of how much time this has been saving your drivers since using the Rotific integration?
00:21:40
Speaker
So it saves me about an hour every morning, which doesn't sound like a lot of time, but that's a lot of time. And it's been saving the drivers at least that as they go out during the day. And that's huge. So all of a sudden this, you know, tiny little one button click is saving us two hours in a day. That's huge. And you're delivering every day, correct?
00:22:01
Speaker
We do. A lot of the days we have more than one driver out. So not only are we delivering five days a week, sometimes six, we have several drivers out every day. So it gives us the ability to make different routes for each driver. Awesome. And how have, I mean, you've been doing it for a few weeks now that you've had this integration going. How has the experience been for customers? What's the feedback been?
00:22:22
Speaker
They really like the communication for them is better. So we don't always have the same driver for every route. So I'm sure I know I, if I get a random phone number on my phone, I'm like, who is this? So at least they're feeling like the communication, I think it's a little bit more professional. It's not just randomly coming from someone's, you know, text messaging. So they really like that. And I think one of the most important things I've learned over
00:22:48
Speaker
doing the deliveries is the communication with the customer is probably the easiest way to keep them happy. I mean, they expect and they know they're going to get a good product, but that's the only customer service you have anymore is that tiny bit of communication with your customer when their order comes because we're not meeting face to face anymore. They're not talking to me when they order. They're not physically taking a bag from my hand. People still need to have that connection. So making that connection like, Hey, your milk is on your door.
00:23:17
Speaker
Hey, it's in the cooler. You know, Oh, you didn't leave anything out. Don't forget to grab your bag. They use like little moments of communication or even just like, Hey, your delivery's been made. Have a great weekend. That's the ease that the route tiffic software is made to communicate with the customer. And that's been good because if it's super quick and easy, it's more likely to get done.
00:23:37
Speaker
Maybe for farmers who are thinking about starting to do delivery, what's something you wish you would have known before you started your delivery program that might be good for them to be aware of? I wish I knew how awesome it was going to be. If I knew two years ago that our demand was going to grow this fast, then I would have had a heck of a lot more cows in the milking parlor.
00:23:58
Speaker
So to be prepared, but that's a good thing. So we've also been able to help, you know, other farmers and grow because of this amazing demand that we've had. And we have people who asked us about, you know, how's it been since you started using Brandador? How's it been since you started Dilt Home Delivery? And I have 99 positive things to say and, you know, one negative thing to say. I feel like there's huge things like
00:24:22
Speaker
our revenues gone up and we have way more customers and we're moving more products and people are drinking more local milk and eating more local meat so there's all those awesome things but there's also i'm a single mom and i eat dinner with my kids more now and like we definitely have
00:24:37
Speaker
changed our business in a way, because it's made way more streamlined for us. And all of a sudden we went from, you know, just this tiny little business. So I feel like I have this huge barn to door team, you know, I have like the marketing people and the onboarding people and all of these people at barn to door who help us every step of the way. And even the integrations that we have adding in the tech software and connecting our QuickBooks and making the routing things go faster. I mean, all of these things help the business run smoother, which gives
00:25:06
Speaker
me more time to do things that are important to me. So I always tell these farmers who ask me, you know, do you like adding in these? And it's like a no brainer. Yes. You know, I'm like, just do it. Just do it. What can happen? You do it and you realize that home delivery is not for you or that, you know, online sales is not for you. Then go back. But if you don't try, you won't know how good
Embracing Online Sales for Farm Businesses
00:25:28
Speaker
it is. And the other thing
00:25:30
Speaker
I think the trend right now is really online, I mean, for everything. People are just changing how things go. I mean, things change over time. Look at how many taxis there were on the road at one point, and now it's Uber drivers. So, you know, stay with the things that change. And I think for farming, online sales is how things are changing. And it's a convenience thing, and it's also, I think, diversity things, so they can, you know, pick and choose
00:25:56
Speaker
more products in one stop. And I just think it's how things are going and farmers definitely should jump onto it. Yeah. Awesome. That's really good advice too. And then finally, maybe just last question around delivery. Are there any extra things that you guys are doing to make a delivery either more convenient or just more enjoyable for your customers that are choosing to order that way?
00:26:18
Speaker
So I'm constantly trying to think of new and fun ideas that are different products or different things that we can help our customers enjoy the process more because it's not the same as coming to the farm. I will definitely admit that. So getting online and picking and choosing your products is not like it used to be when you would drive in and smell the cows and see the pigs and shop in a farm stand. So that's been removed. So like,
00:26:46
Speaker
you just said, I think you have to make sure that it's enjoyable for the customers. So we throw in little chocolate bars here and there, or stickers, or key chains, or however we can make it fun for the customers. I like to write personal notes to our new customers, thanking them for being new customers. We do giveaways through social media and through our email list. So one of the great things with Barn to Door is the integration with MailChimp.
00:27:13
Speaker
I was not good at emails before. We had a lot of email addresses, but it was a heck of a lot easier for me to take a cute picture and throw it on Instagram than it was for me to sit down and write an email. The integration with Barnes-Dore and the templates that they made and how easy they made it to basically keep in contact with our customers,
00:27:35
Speaker
I think that's been also a great way to connect with them. So weekly emails or monthly newsletters and just talking about new products that we have through email or specials that we're having, that's been a good way to keep in contact too.
00:27:49
Speaker
I think that's a great way small little things that you can do that go so far with customers, especially if they're just starting to buy from you. That's just something you'll never get at a grocery store. Yeah. And refunds are the other things and admitting you're wrong. So we grew.
00:28:05
Speaker
really fast and we made a lot of mistakes just how it happened. So we accidentally gave someone chocolate milk instead of coffee or we accidentally, you know, forgot somebody's eggs. Like we definitely made those mistakes. So I try to, we give out a lot of free eggs to make up for the mistakes because everybody likes eggs. And also just admitting like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I said that so many times in an email when a customer sent me an email and was like, you know, this wasn't,
00:28:33
Speaker
the right order or I mean we forgot orders we missed orders in the beginning before we started using the software and so you just have to be willing to say sorry and make the customer happy and I think when you have you know a farm store full of great products
00:28:50
Speaker
a simple half a gallon of chocolate milk or an extra dozen eggs. That's what they want. They want to be like, wow, like we realized that she messed up last week. She's saying, sorry. And like, we have breakfast tomorrow. And then it just moves it along. And it also makes me feel better because there were mistakes and there were forgotten items and messed up items.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, chocolate milk, that's a sure way to kind of cover up any animosity right there. That is awesome. Well, so as a customer and a farm advisor to Barnadore, can you maybe share kind of how your experience has been thus far with Barnadore and how it's kind of evolved in terms of product innovation and services and support? You've kind of touched on some of the integrations you've utilized, but yeah, just kind of how it's grown over the time you've been here. We've been open since 2004. So what's that?
00:29:37
Speaker
15, 16 years. Joining Bronjador is probably the best thing I've done business-wise since starting a business. And so I always say, so farming is like, that's the fun part of my day. That's the thing I love. Business is what makes it work. So like that's what makes it a job. The business side of everything, that's not my favorite part.
00:29:57
Speaker
But joining Bronzadore and tapping into the unlimited resources you guys offer, so the podcasts and the ebooks and the videos and the conferences and the staff. I mean, the process from the beginning was so awesome. It was basically like having, like I said, I mean, I've said this a million times, it's like all of a sudden you've hired a whole team to help you move forward.
00:30:19
Speaker
So the onboarding was amazing. I mean, we had all of our products in another, you know, software type of thing. And you, I didn't do anything. It was all the sudden, it was all done. And our website was completely done. And every step of the way has been so easy. So the questions that they asked on what I wanted for a website were so right on, because when the website came back, I was like, this is exactly what I was wanting. And so it's been great all along. And then,
00:30:49
Speaker
Having somebody like Miranda, who's been with me so long and we've talked on the phone and done so many interactions together. She knows our business and she knows kind of.
00:31:02
Speaker
She's figured me out, I think enough to know how she can help. And that's been awesome. So if I have a question, I can text her and she answers me. If I have a question on software, I text or email the website people and they fixed it. I mean, it's been so amazing to have Barnjador. And I think not only that customer service side, but the other side, the things I've learned from talking to other farmers when I did the Academy.
00:31:26
Speaker
That was great. We bounced back ideas and we, you know, I talked about mistakes I had made or things that were successful for us and other farmers did the same. And it was so awesome because they might've been in California and I'm in Connecticut, but we're both doing the same thing. So you can bounce ideas back and learn from each other. I mean, the things that Barns Door has done for our business is just, it's been amazing. I can't say enough about how great it's been for us.
00:31:55
Speaker
That's great. And honestly, just really humbling to hear because I think that's what everybody here wants to be the result, you know, as the last question here, what would be your final piece of advice for farmers who are considering a direct to market business?
00:32:09
Speaker
So I would definitely suggest you just jump in and give it a try, but make that jump, educated jump. So figure you're gonna sell more than you think you are because convenience is huge. Make sure you stay true to who you are. So over the years, we have a logo and we have a brand and we have a name and my name and my face is associated with everything that goes out for Terra Firma Farm.
00:32:34
Speaker
And I feel like you have to remember that and stay true to that, but add in where you can. So get other farmers or other food producers or other people to work with you and offer as much as you possibly can to your customers in the, you know, most convenient way you possibly can. And I think that would be, I mean, obviously that's using somebody like barn store. So stay true to who you are and then add in other people who you feel are true too and get
00:33:04
Speaker
you know, local food out to whoever you possibly can. I don't think no matter how hard we tried, I don't think local farmers should never feel like you're in competition with somebody else because there's so many people to feed and we could never feed all of them. So if I'm making it easier for customers to buy direct and expect home delivery, then I'm only helping out the next farmer who wants to do the same. And so if we can get people to have the mindset that, you know, farms are,
00:33:33
Speaker
up to date with technology and we have websites and you can order online and we're gonna deliver it and it's gonna be in good quality on your doorstep. I think that's a way that we can all work together.
00:33:44
Speaker
Awesome. That's really great to hear. Really good advice for someone looking to start a direct-to-market business. I want to extend my thanks to Bre for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn to Door, we are humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, including farmers like Bre who implement sustainable agriculture practices and support their local community. For more information on terra firma farm, visit terra firma farm.org.
00:34:10
Speaker
To learn more about barn to door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm, go to barn to door.com slash resources. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week.