Transcript
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.
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.
Speaker: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle Mayocko, CEO of Barn to Door, and your host for today's episode. Barn to Door helps independent family farmers successfully sell local food direct while maximizing their profit margins at each stage of their business. Serving thousands of farmers across all 50 states, our goal is to help farmers remove the middleman while having the information, tools, and opportunities to make the right business decisions, whether you're a hobby farmer transitioning to full-time farmer, or you're already a seven-figure farmer.
Speaker: By getting a system in place to manage everything from orders to deliveries to marketing, farmers can build a strong local business with recurring sales. In today's conversation, we are going to get deep into how to set up hard shares to maximize profitability, lock in customers, and establish recurring sales. I'm happy to welcome Peter from Bartlett Farms in North Dakota, who's part of our Farm Advisory Network and who has worked with us for a number of years. Can't wait to get into everything from packaging and pricing and markets and everything we need to know, whether you're just getting started or want to even improve your herd share, essentially line of business or way of selling, I guess. Before we get started, and so people have some context, um would love to understand, generally speaking, you know where are your farm's located, what products you're selling, general size of your farm. Let's start there.
Speaker: Yeah, well, our farm goes back to 2004. My family relocated from the largest city in North Dakota, which is Fargo, to 160 acres in the rural countryside of north central North Dakota. We were born and raised in the state, wanted to stay in the state, and we wanted rolling hills, trees, and lakes. and So that was about the only place in a state that's generally flat that we had a combination of all three. We had no farming background, so we're first generation as it comes to that. I like to call myself...
Speaker: 1.5 generation. My parents were the ones that sacrificed a lot to relocate us and get us going. But that happened in 2004, kind of a time when it was pre social media, but there was a rise in the homesteader blog world. And so everything from Herrick Kimball's Whizbang Chicken Pluckers to joel Salatin's You Can Farm book, and all of those resources were just becoming more widely available. And that inspired us along with agrarian philosophical writings like Wendell Berry and others to put down kind of ah an endeavor to build a business that we could work together as a family.
Speaker: And milking goats initially were was a big part of that, which transitioned into milking cows. And you know as a homeschool family with four boys and then mom and dad, we were encouraged to pursue what we believe God gave us talents in. And animals were something that I was drawn to. i remember when I was five years old saying I wanted to be a zookeeper.
Speaker: And that has become what my farm is, my zoo that I'm making a living off of. So that was the beginnings. We milk 16 mix of jerseys, Swiss, and shorthorn cows.
Speaker: We're milking year round, even through the harsh North Dakota winters. And then we're marketing that to consumers in our state. And being that it is one of the most rural states in in America, we have to go the extra mile to build the bridge to the consumer and provide that delivery service and a business model that can be understandable and attractive to be able to market and make sure that people are aware of what they're getting. And then we don't have an option to sell to a creamery. So this is really the only way to do it here.
Speaker: oh That's really, really interesting and good to know. I mean, a lot of people would just assume you have a creamery to sell to. So you have to do it differently and think differently about how to make that work.
Speaker: Can you just jump back to the cows? Because you were saying you have you have multiple types of cows. Yep. So we, um, we've gone, as I mentioned, we started with goats and that was our first experience with milking animals. I latched onto that and we soon realized that, you know, a handful of goats only give so much milk, but we wanted to upgrade that to a cow. So we started milking jerseys. Our friends in the state had a heifer. So we got a Jersey heifer, raised her up, started milking and been overall real pleased with the Jersey breed.
Speaker: There are some shortcomings when it comes to weathering the winters up here in in North Dakota. And so we've branched out into some other ah breeds and mixed breeds. And we found that Swiss cows are the most hardy.
Speaker: So we appreciate the the hardiness of the Swiss. Shorthorns are also a little bit more durable. There's ah a little bit more of a dual purpose you know condition to the cow. But then i would say if we could take our entire herd of Jersey, Swiss and shorthorn cows and blend them up, we'd have half Jersey, half Swiss with a little shorthorn. That would be my ideal cow, at least at this point.
Speaker: That's great. Who produces the most? Which breed? I would say the jerseys have been the best as far as longevity of their milking cycle. The Swiss probably give more all at once.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a mix, but I'd say combining the two between the jerseys and the Swiss. Do you still have goats and you also have how many cows now? We milk 16 cows. We have a handful of heifers on the side. And so we we probably have about 25 dairy cows.
Speaker: dairy cows And is that the majority? Is that all that you're selling? We do, in addition to the cows, we've got black Angus and British white beef cows. So that's a separate herd.
Speaker: And then we also have Nigerian dwarf goats on the side. So those are mainly for soap making and just a hobby on the side. We sell kids as petting animals. And then we do have poultry. We have turkeys. We have laying hens. We'd have about 600 laying hens. We do eggs as well as yeah broilers in the summertime. Wow.
Speaker: That's a lot. How many turkeys? We just did about 30 turkeys this year. They're really only in demand for one week in November. So it's a little hard to build our business around that. So it's just a compliment to give people a little variety in the proteins.
Speaker: Are you, sorry, I have a thousand questions. You're just doing layers, not meat birds, correct? um We do meat birds in the summer. So we did, I think, about 400 of them this summer, but then the egg-layer hens are laying year-round. So that's a very complementary enterprise to the dairy, you know, the the milk side of things, because people who purchase milk generally want to add eggs onto that as well. So... There's various things that each has its own place. The milk is the leading enterprise.
Speaker: The eggs are probably the second. And then the beef is probably the biggest complimentary overall. So the others just fill in the gaps. Yeah. Well, you take more of the plates or more of the table or more of the fridge, however you want to look at it, right, in terms of what people are buying and eating regularly, um including complimentary items.
Speaker: And are you doing yogurts? And I think you're doing butter and those sorts of things, too, if I'm correct. Yes. Yep, we do. We do. So on the milk side, we do the raw milk. We do cream. We do butter in limited amounts just because we're always selling out on our cream. And then we do yogurt, kefir, chocolate milk. We haven't got into cheese yet, but we do look forward to that in the future. Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's impressive. And you said you were one of four homeschooled boys. Do you have brothers on the farm too, or what does that look like? I'm the only brother that stayed with the farm. The others had other interests. One is a pastor in Northern California.
Speaker: Two are in, or one is in the Midwest, in North Dakota anyway, and he does media and marketing for small business. And then another brother is in kind of the landscaping world in Minnesota. So my wife and I, and we have two boys, one on the way, and we're the the ones at the farm here doing the day to day. So number three on the way two, two, two already helping out and another one. Congratulations. That's amazing.
Speaker: We love that. And they are helpful. Holy smokes. Yes. And I do want to mention, we have two very faithful part-time employees that work with us. You know, it's, it's their ah combined know full-time income. So that's our very big blessing to have that to rely on. So it's not just our, our own family.
Speaker: That's amazing. Well, it's good to get some context too. And how long do you feel like you've been farming? beside I mean, you grew up on it, right? And you know bless your parents for that. But like when you became full-time farmer, how long has that been?
Speaker: i would say we had a bit of part-time things, but really got serious a few years prior to getting married. So we've been married seven years now as of last week. So probably 10 years. That would be where I put myself.
Speaker: It's just good because we have so, you know, we have farms that are, you know, homestead hobby farmers who want to become full-time farmers. We also have farmers that are multi-generation or they started, they're into it enough now to be, you know, six or seven figures and really have figured out a lot of the kinks.
Speaker: Right. It's just and it just is different how you think about your business at different stages. Right. It's just you have a lot to learn and you have to be so much scrappier when you're first getting started and make mistakes and learn from them and try something different and do that again on repeat.
Speaker: So it's just really good for folks to know where you're at and clearly having great success to the point where you're selling complimentary items too, right? The milk and and the eggs and beef and now, you know, the add-ons like the butter and yogurt and everything else. And that's just your business developing.
Speaker: Yes, and as we've gone along too, we've realized at the beginning, you start out wanting everything to be sold because you eat it all, but you begin to realize there's a certain niche in the market that you really fill, and it seems to be for us, you know that's grown into the raw dairy, the eggs, and the grass-fed beef. As far as starting out, we were doing baked items and garden produce and all these other things, but then you soon realize you can't you can't have that all and do it all well. So even as ah as we've been doing it for a decade full-time, you realize you have to prune off. And that's a principle that I think is relevant from the farming world. You can improve your herd by culling. You know, it's kind of counterintuitive. You can improve your business by cutting. Yes, it is. It's good. I love that. The pruning actually really does help. And what are you good at? What are you, I mean, most success? Where's your profit? And how are the target customers responding?
Speaker: So how do you feel like you've figured out that your niche was that sort of raw dairy, you know, eggs and beef, like you didn't just fall into that day one. You know, did you just wake up one day and be like, wow, we're not selling enough muffins and carrots. This is not a good idea.
Speaker: Yeah, I would say sometimes it has a big part of what do you want to do. So you put more work into that. I love the dairy aspect. I think the routine, the building of a relationship between the cattle and the consumer, seeing the generations of how your herd you know goes along.
Speaker: I just love the fact that the cows are harvesting sunshine, creating milk. And making ah a product that consumers really want and that they need. And I think that in the Midwest, there's a real lack of appreciation for the nutrient density of our foods. We live in a place where the coasts, you might have a lot more access to healthy things.
Speaker: you have a lot more awareness. But out here in the Midwest, there's generally kind of a meat and potatoes, old Norwegians that are stuck in their ways that just want tater tots and hot dish, you know, everything that's highly processed, whether it's fast food, and they're learning, you know, I think we've used the slogan, food is medicine, we're on a mission to help make North Dakota a healthier place.
Speaker: And over the years, been communicating with customers, you know, over 15 20 years now. And the messaging has, you know, begun to be mainstream, even after, you know, in the more recent years, you see, ah you know, the local hospitals circular that gets sent to every mailbox, and they're talking about the benefits of kefir as a gut health, right, you see the trends shifting. And that is making us look all the more relevant, because early on, we were trying to convince people that they needed nutrient dense foods that were less white bread, you know, more whole, properly prepared nutrient dense foods. And now,
Speaker: they're getting told that everywhere they turn, know, whether it's the chiropractor or the grocery store or the the doctor, that everyone is aware that they need that. And now we just happen to be the ones that have been there the longest. Wow. Well, that's a nice change in scenery. And I appreciate that. When you're on the coast or in big cities, you are getting a lot of that messaging earlier in some cases, right? And so it's normalized elsewhere, which is a great way to see trends coming your way. Like you were pushing hard in a place it hadn't kind of reached yet, but that hopefully gave you some hope that it was coming your way.
Speaker: How did you find your customers? Because you are, like you said, you're rural and you're selling direct. And so you've got to figure that out. Starting out, we really, well, it was prior to the days of a lot of social media, you know, so we were starting out and you had to go word of mouth, right? So the first thing we did when we were wanting to build our business was we set up and sold handpicked raspberries at the corner store. You know, so we had a patch that we planted on our farm and it was ripe. You know, we'd pick 60 pints in the morning, go sell from one o'clock to 5 p.m. at the lake. You know, we just lived near a lake resort area. And that did get attention from people that were coming to the lake. And so had our hand painted sign for raspberries. And then we had a brochure that said we were selling broiler chickens and that attracted people's attention because good quality chickens were hard to find. And so once we built up kind of a consistent number of people that would drive out to the farm, pick up their chickens,
Speaker: then it's a natural sell to you know keep those same emails, keep their contact and say, we've got some other things. And then early on, we used the paper newsletter form. So in the back of Joel Salatin's You Can Farm book, he talks about that. you know That was kind of in the 80s. It was the annual newsletter and you'd send a paper copy to everybody in the spring saying, here's what we plan to do.
Speaker: If you want your chickens, send us a check with this many and check the box you know and then we'll raise your chickens. So In some ways that helped us front load the cash flow. We got some of those people that were willing to do that up front, but then we saw the market really change and we had more of the people who were just passing by kind of not really the type that are going to want to act on just a paper newsletter.
Speaker: So we saw the access to technology change as well. So we didn't need to use a paper newsletter, we could sell through a software, you know, and then get those people into a reliable way to use their credit card for purchases. And that, I think, really bumped us into another level, as far as it was changing the demographic to access customers with a lot more disposable income. Yeah, interesting. It's so neat to hear you say that because the motion hasn't changed, right?
Speaker: You're still collecting customers and with your raspberries, you were doing that in person and you went physically to where the customers were. um and then even then we're collecting their emails and addresses, right? Even their physical addresses so you could send paper newsletters.
Speaker: And it's the same motion, right? Today, it's emails and digital newsletters and go where they're at, like get in front of them online ah in social media. Or if you're, you know, some of our farmers go to farmers markets, that's a good physical way to get in front of people. But now digitally, you get in those buyer pathways through social media, but also then you're sending those digital newsletters every time you can collect those emails. Now it's emails, not physical addresses, right?
Speaker: So it's the same motion. It's just to your point, they're not checking boxes and you know writing checks so much anymore. Now it's like a credit card on file and click, click, click, and I'm done. It's just changed. But it's the same motion. You have to have customers who buy things. Yeah. Well, it's funny. Just in the past week, there's been a social media trend using AI to...
Speaker: reframe your photo as if it was in the eighties. You know, know if you've seen that, but people are, are saying, what would I look like if I was in the eighties? And we just came back from a week of vacation and my cousin was into the, he bought a Polaroid camera off of eBay. He's into the retro vibes. So he was snapping Polaroids, you know, right and left. And that whole 80s framework makes me think it wouldn't be a bad idea to just start doing that paper newsletter again, because as we get into this age of digital AI, everything, your emails are now beginning to get lost in the shuffle and a paper copy, something tangible that is a throwback to the old fashioned ways would probably stand out in a good way. So that's just something to think about as we go forward.
Speaker: It's good to keep thinking about it, right? Like, do you send postcards? Do you put up? One thing a lot of our farmers do is they have QR codes on on like postcards and or like posters that they put up in physical coffee shops, right? Like, and the QR code is a quick way to have somebody add themselves to your newsletter, which is really neat.
Speaker: It's good to keep revisiting the many, many ways to get in front of customers today and continue to stand out and try it. Right. And if it works great, and if it doesn't try the next thing. By the way, I have a lot of affection for raspberries because that was my summer job was picking raspberries. We used to always be so proud of how many scratches we'd have all up our arms. You know, I still love raspberries. So I guess that's a good thing. it We have a lot of fond memories picking. and And so our patch ended when the goats started eating too many of the bushes. Shoot. Yes. Goats will do that for you.
Speaker: What a fun evolution. Well, I know that one of the main things we wanted to chat about here today is herd shares. Maybe you could just share with, I know the farmers listening to this know what it is, but just say it again anyway, because you also might have some hobby farmers or other folks who haven't tried it or understand what that is. Well, I think, so just to quickly define it, a herd share or a cow share program is an arrangement where a farmer will act as boarding house for an animal that is owned by the consumer so that the transfer of the milk... is not classified as a retail sale, but the arrangement is basically a share of ownership of the lactating animal. The problem that so many ah farms face is that the raw milk legal situation varies from state to state. So if you look at farmtoconsumer.org,
Speaker: They have resources and a map that shows whether it's green or red or yellow. Different states have different statuses when it comes to is raw milk legal to sell and buy. And what ends up happening is that people are creative.
Speaker: And rather than looking at it at it as a loophole, the opportunity is there based on legal precedent for people. animals to be you know sold in shares. A classic example of that is a breeding bull or a racehorse.
Speaker: So in in back in the day, even in England or whatever, there would be a horse could be sold to multiple owners. So you go in together and if the horse wins the race, you know everybody shares in the profits. right So in the applied to a cow,
Speaker: If a cow is shared by multiple owners, then the production of that cow, you know whether it's milk or manure, you could say that, or you know a calf, you could write your contract in different ways. But primarily the milk is then shared by the owners and you're compensating the farm as boarding house so that you don't have to do the work of care. So in our situation, we started in 2009 using a contract that was adapted from the state of Virginia. We had some friends in Virginia that we got to know through the blogging world that were doing a cow share dairy.
Speaker: And they had a on a contract that was written up in help or with help from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense. And we adapted that for our state. So you do have to be aware that you should have legal counsel when it comes to writing that, because what works for one state won't necessarily work for another.
Speaker: And there's a couple of different ways that you can structure it. And in our state, we had no laws on the books. regarding raw milk, except that it was not allowed for sale unless you were a grade A dairy selling to a creamery or passing the pasteurized milk ordinance standards to provide it for sale. So there's a federal ban on interstate commerce.
Speaker: which means that whatever a state wants to do, it has to do within its own boundaries. That's why there's really no uniformity to it nationally. So when it comes to our state, there was no prohibition and no nod toward the legal status of selling a share.
Speaker: But the only thing that was clear was that you could not sell raw milk. So that was prior to 2011. And so we started using this adapted version of Virginia's law, our Virginia cow share contract. And basically what we wanted to do was we wanted to be the most safe that we could because we wanted to advertise it publicly and build it into something as business. So we chose to go the cow share route. It might sound like it's identical or the same thing to say a cow share or a herd share, but it's actually different.
Speaker: We chose to call it a cow share. So explicitly in the wording of the contract was the name of the animal that the customer purchased. So the way we would say it is we would want to be able to argue to a judge if we were brought to court that we weren't circumventing the law. We weren't just altering the language in order to make it to sell our milk. We were actually contracting for the care and maintenance of this particular cow. We would retain over 50% of that cow's or at least a majority share of that cow's rights. So what we we decided on was that one share
Speaker: was 1 50th of a cow. So we could sell up to 50 shares. And then we would assume that a milking cow, like a Jersey could produce approximately 25 gallons a week. yeah That's a conservative amount. So three gallons a day for seven days is going to be 21 gallons plus or minus. So even in ah a point of time where she's not giving a whole lot on average, we would say 25 gallons a week.
Speaker: So that way, one share equated to about one half gallon per customer or per share per week. You could purchase, you know, four shares and get two gallons a week. And so that way, what we took on ourselves was we made it so that when that cow went dry, the customer who owned shares in that cow did not receive milk.
Speaker: So that was a headache for us, but it also gave us peace of mind knowing that we are legally providing milk from that one cow. On the flip side, when you use a herd share language, you basically create a list of your animals and you sell shares, which is access to your herd.
Speaker: So it's a shared herd rather than a shared animal. And that way, generally more people will structure it so that you purchase or you compensate for your share of the herd based on the amount of milk that you receive. So if you get one gallon a week, you pay for your herd share by the number of gallons you get. So if you don't get any milk,
Speaker: you don't pay. And if you do get milk, you pay for what you get. So that could be scrutinized as more likely a loophole to just use legal speak to get around the prohibition on raw milk sales. So in terms of safety, we wanted to go the cow share route and communicate it clearly And then we were able to build up to, i would say, I think probably a hundred families or so using that method. And that allowed us to communicate, especially during the dry period when that cow goes dry. But we felt like it built some connection with the customer. We actually made magnets that said, my cow, Daisy, or my cow, Betsy. And so then that was on the fridge and people knew that they sent us a paper copy that was signed, the with the rights to this cow. So it was really, you know, a very solid arrangement.
Speaker: I love this. Thank you. Because I imagine some folks who know a lot about a lot of things are still learning more information than they even knew was out there. It's interesting. I don't know if we've done this for you yet through Barns Door, but we actually have a number of farmers in different states, right? To your point, you have to make sure that you're crossing the T and dotting the I in your state.
Speaker: But once you have that contract, we help farmers get that set up online so that people can come in and just do it all on their own, like literally sign the contract and buy their first share without having to first contact the farmer, just make it really a seamless experience. But then they have that documentation as well. So that's a big deal, but it's ah it's very freeing. Yeah. Well, I'll just talk a little bit about the legal changes that have happened in our state and a situation we were involved in. So in 2011, we had been selling cow shares for about two years.
Speaker: There was another farm that was a commercial grade B dairy that was also starting to sell shares. They were handling it a little bit more loosely, and I don't think they had as much of a formal legal contract. So their dairy inspectors were showing up on the farm, seeing them handling milk and glass jars and saying that they are selling cow shares or herd shares. And the inspectors brought it back to the Department of Agriculture and said, hey, this is going on and it's not allowed for retail sale.
Speaker: So therefore, we need clarification. That was their excuse. And so we got a letter in the mail on a Wednesday that the following day, on Thursday at eight o'clock in the morning, three hours away in Bismarck, our capital, there was a hearing that was going to be hearing this proposed bill to clarify that no cow sharing was allowed in the state. And that was our flagship enterprise at the time. So we rallied our customers. We put out the word. We had some very dedicated, angry moms that showed up at the Capitol. There must've been, i don't know, 50 70 people
Speaker: in this small committee room on this random bill that nobody thought would have any traction or resistance. And so what ended up happening was it got amended and sent to the floor.
Speaker: you know, after committee, there was some alterations. It was sent to the floor for a vote. And then through us and our customers, we would beg the the house floor. So we actually had somebody in the Capitol go distribute paperwork on the desks of the legislators and say, vote no. And it got sent back to committee, but multiple times. And then they wanted to register raw milk share farms or cow share farms with the state Department of Agriculture. And then it was up for another vote. i think it passed with that language into the Senate.
Speaker: And then on the Senate side, We also fought it there and they came to us asking, you know, what would you want to see? But then the original farm that was under question dropped off the face of the map. They weren't even showing up for the meetings, but it was basically my three brothers and i and some, maybe one of them stayed back to milk the cows or something, driving three hours in the middle of winter to show up for these committee hearings and And they ended up asking us, what would you want to see?
Speaker: And we said, we don't want regulation. We don't want registration. We just believe that's the camel's nose under the tent to have more quote unquote oversight by the Department of Agriculture. So it ended up working out that they inserted language in the North Dakota law that allows cow shares to be sold for milk. And then that they also added language that clarified that the Department of Agriculture could not add additional restrictions or rules to it. So it was a big win. It was you know very helpful to have that clarification. We were breathing a sigh of relief. And then you know we saw more farms that started with that and kept going with the cow share arrangements. And you know that was how we did business up until 2018 or 2020, somewhere in there, another legislative session where it legalized the raw milk sale altogether. Wow.
Speaker: It's encouraging. like We need to be encouraged right because there's a lot of overreach and too much regulation versus just freedom to sell what you grow to your neighbor. and We won't even digress into raw milk and why it became illegal in the first place, but that's a whole other interesting topic. i used to buy I used to always call it my hooch, raw milk off the back of a farmer's truck. When my kids were in high school and drank a gallon a day practically. But, you know, you just you want the quality. You want the way that milk was intended to be right without being stripped of everything. So then as it goes on, you know I think that the cow share language is still in the law.
Speaker: But there's an additional section that now allows raw milk directly to be sold to the consumer. And then further language was added that raw milk products. may also be sold to the consumer. So now we have one of the most free states when it comes to raw milk sales. And that was you know initially started by the Department of Agriculture trying to prohibit sales. Somebody needs to like create a movie out of that because that's just such a great story. All those moms showing up. That's that's beautiful. That's awesome. Well, good job. Well done. And thank you, North Dakota. Set a precedent. Let's keep rolling. you know It's surprising, too, how many times that other states' laws are used as rationale for other states to take that and go with it. So you know we haven't had any significant or any reported illnesses, outbreaks, or whatever. So we've been seeing good results. And that I think it's the next step would be to make it allowed to be sold in retail stores. But that might be a long jump. We'll see. Maybe. Keep pushing. We'll keep pushing. I love it. Okay, so you've done this cow share for the majority of the time.
Speaker: What was the breakthrough? It's interesting because I talk to, and when I mean breakthrough, I mean like you're pushing hard to educate customers, to get customers. I've talked to a lot of other firms who are like, subscriptions are a lot of work to get started and you have to keep pushing on it from a marketing perspective and educating and emailing, et cetera. But then slowly but surely you start to build it. And then all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're like, wait a minute.
Speaker: We have like 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 customers. It's like you get this breakthrough moment where it caught on and you're like, whoa, we did what we set out to do.
Speaker: We now have you know X amount of recurring sales every month or every week or whatever the goal might be because that's obviously good for your business and sanity. But it takes a lot of work to get there just because you wake up and are like, hey, let's do cow shares or herd shares and we want to do subscriptions. I think anything worthwhile like that is hard for but it can pay off. When did you wake up and be like, wow, we did it. We got there from like when you started and it was just an idea. Yep. I think there's two angles to that. We know there's so many one or two cow neighbors and friends that sell milk, right? or A lot of people, whether they're in your church or in your community, they they might know somebody with milk. you know They might be just Joe down the street.
Speaker: But that's where positioning. So there's positioning on your part that you need to think of. And then the flip side is charging and thinking of it as a business. So a lot of people might not be ready to sell a subscription because they're afraid that they don't have a consistent supply of milk. And that's common when you don't have very many animals. So if you have just one or two cows and you want to start selling subscriptions, that means that, you know if your pasture gets dry and you go down in production, you're going to have to handle that side of it. If you're committed to building this into a business, the mindset has to be, I'm going to do whatever it takes to buy better quality feed, work on getting the cow pregnant, you know after she calves, because if she doesn't get pregnant and bred back, then you
Speaker: you're doing cow share, you're going to have to tell your customers that you failed to get her bread and now she's not giving any milk and now they can't get milk. And so it becomes a big headache. So I would say that you have to think of your operation as a business and then build aspects of it to help make sure that you can continue to provide that to the customer. So if you have extra milk and you're like, oh, I just want to sell a gallon or two here at the farmer's market, you can do that. And I wouldn't recommend selling it as a subscription.
Speaker: But that's also going to end up burning you out because you can't predict what your sales will be a few months down the road. So let's just assume that someone listening to this wants to make their hobby of milking a cow into a business. It's going to be necessary for you to build cash flow into your business. And that means getting a customer willing to give you their credit card on file that charges them automatically. And then you deliver on that promise that they will get milk.
Speaker: That might mean having two or three cows so that you can have one always milking when one is dry. And it might mean if your timing gets off and you have to go buy another cow, having something in savings to be able to do that, think about that ahead of time before it happens. So then on the flip side, you're going to have to be positioning yourself as someone who's operating differently. And so if Joe down the street has a sign out front that says raw milk for sale,
Speaker: and somebody's going to stop in and buy a gallon, and then they're not going to buy a gallon for two weeks, and then they're going to think about getting a half gallon. And they're thinking of you like a little roadside stand that they're not really committed to and you're not really committed to. But if you're a business and you put yourself out there as a leader,
Speaker: Think of positioning yourself as the expert and the one who is educating your community on raw milk and the benefits of it. I've talked about it before on other podcasts, but there's a book called Worth Every Penny, and that early on was a a big help to us to realize that if you can create the demand for the product, you don't have to discount it in order to sell. So when you're thinking about positioning when it comes to the market, so if you've got people that are selling just a gallon or two of hand milked milk from a sketchy operation, right, they're going to be cheap. If you've got somebody that's showing up at farmer's markets, periodically, they're going to be selling it maybe a little bit more, but they're not really thinking about it like a business.
Speaker: they're going to be you know mid-range. If you have the person that like you want to be, that's the expert who is testing their milk, who is going the extra mile to make sure that their customers get a consistent supply. They are investing in software that will help save the credit card on file so they're not asking the customer to go onto the website and purchase it every week, you know which is a a hassle for the customer and it doesn't lend itself to consistency for the farmer, then that farm that goes the extra mile to make it convenient, they've earned more from the customer.
Speaker: And then you go the extra step and say you deliver, right? So if you're the one that's got nice glass bottles, credit card payments, nice website guarantee, if their milk is sour, you'll replace it. If there's, you know there's always milk to be available. If you're thinking of it like a business, then you're worth more.
Speaker: You're worth what the work is to make it pay. So in that sense, we charged $25 a gallon. And that has been even since I'd say 2020, probably when we started charging that much and we were sold out. We're constantly out of milk, out of cream. and all that So it's not like there isn't somebody willing to pay the price, but it has to be positioning yourself as the leader, as the sort of the Apple product. You know, I just noticed that Apple released their iPhone Fold or whatever, iPhone Dual, and people are talking about it as if it's the greatest thing. But, you know Samsung has been out there with their Z Fold for a while, and people still want Apple because they've done a good job of positioning themselves as this elite, exclusive brand.
Speaker: that customers are willing to pay more for just to get the brand. And polished. I mean, you're providing, especially from a dairy lens, consistency. You're giving convenience. That all takes extra work for you as a farmer, but also builds trust and your visual brand and your responsiveness and everything else is at a very high professional level.
Speaker: yeah and There's always room to improve. So it's not like you're going to be perfect. But what you think of it as you were asking, when is it when do you feel like you're successful? I would say when it starts to work like an engine, and people begin to refer others to you, I would say it was harder at the beginning to get people aware of our business.
Speaker: One thing we did was we did little presentations. So we went to a CrossFit gym, we went to chiropractor's office, and we did a little presentation or the Lions Club locally or something. And we basically said, you know, here's the story of milk. Why did raw milk get banned? Why was it that pasteurization was a thing? Well, it was because of poor management and lack of sanitation, and people didn't even know why sickness happened.
Speaker: Nowadays, we live in a culture and a time where processed food is the enemy. Now we're eating too much seed oils and it's hurting our bodies and we need to get back to the youthful first foods that mammals were created to eat. And that's why raw milk exists.
Speaker: And when people begin to realize that you're there as an expert, then positions you in their mind as one who's out there. And when they pay you, they're investing in a cause more than just buying milk like a commodity. Yeah, I appreciate that. How long do you feel like you had to beat your chest or hit the pavement before you had consistent subscribers and people now referring people?
Speaker: Because that's what's helping you capture that price, too. I'd say it was probably a slower start than it needed to be for us. I would say it probably you know six years or so until we really felt like we were seeing it happen by itself. We were always careful to save when we got a good customer testimonial. We'd save that put it out on our MailChimp email or something, talk about it, make social media videos talking about what somebody told us about how their kid got healed from eczema, just drinking the milk, and then continues to this day, making it something where people can talk about it. We show up at patient appreciation days for chiropractors that have been key partners with us. So tapping into the tribe of people,
Speaker: where their friends are going to talk about it. So like for us, we started going to this, know, one particular chiropractor in a strategic city, our largest customer potential, and we would show up there with animals for petting on their customer appreciation day. And so we're not there to sell milk. We're just there to build relationships and show that we are wanting to make sure that their patients feel appreciated. And we are just letting our name be known. And now if anyone is thinking about getting milk, If they're ah in the child raising stage of life, they're going to think about Bartlett because Bartlett's were at their chiropractor's patient appreciation day and they trust their chiropractor and they're going to transfer that trust.
Speaker: A name and a face. I do like that. The transfer of trust from your chiropractor or your doctor or a nutritionist or whomever else in the local community is a high trust. That's great. It's a great call out.
Speaker: Okay. If I'm a buyer and I want to buy milk from you, what is my experience? Let me tell you the experience as we were doing it as a cow share dairy. So let's say a little bit later on, started using Bar to Door as our portal. You can pretty much describe yourself as a subscription, even if you're selling shares.
Speaker: So you go to the website. We have a page that says about raw milk, and it says, here's what we do. We don't sell milk.
Speaker: We sell shares of ownership. When you invest in shares, you obtain the right to access the milk. So there's a clear pitch on the website of what you're investing in. And then on the the website, you'd see that there is a product that would be a subscription built into the Bartador e-commerce site that says, you know, one share of raw milk, which is a half gallon every week.
Speaker: And then we set it up so that the share will provide that half gallon on your delivery and there's no additional fees. Many cow share dairies will charge for bottles separately, and they'll charge for delivery separately, and they'll charge for a startup ownership fee separately.
Speaker: We chose to just charge more overall and go in lieu of those additional fees. And we think that really does make it simpler. So when it comes down to it, charging $12.50 for a half gallon glass bottle, that builds into our revenue enough to replace the bottle if that bottle doesn't come back to us rather than charging $10 up front for that.
Speaker: So basically, your experience would be you go to the website, click Add to Cart, run your credit card through the process, click Checkout, you get an email that confirms your order.
Speaker: And then when we see that the order was placed, we would send you a copy of a cow share agreement. And so in some small writing at the end of the product page, we would say by purchasing this product, you are agreeing to the terms of our cow share agreement.
Speaker: And you could provide a link to it if you want it in that description. So what we would do is basically with their receipt, provide a copy of the cow share agreement saying that they are Hereby entered into this agreement.
Speaker: We were initially using paper forms to do it, but after we went exclusively digital, we stopped specifying the name of the cow on the agreement just because it began to be a hassle for us to track exactly which cow and and that. So it it shifted to be a little bit more like a herd share after we started more of a subscription on the website. So anyway, you get that copy. And then you start getting your deliveries basically fulfilled, just like a standard subscription.
Speaker: And then when you're ready to quit, we would follow up with an empty bottle pickup. So those bottles come back to the farm and you're you're good to go. And I wanted to mention too, there's a great resource, the Rogue Food Conference.
Speaker: Joel Salatin and John Moody put together a great conference that brought together people doing creative ways of allowing consumers to access food. food. One of the last conference speakers talked about in Minneapolis, they would not be allowed to sell cheese at the farmer's market because Minnesota only allows raw milk sales on farm. But there was nothing that prohibited them from selling fish food and cheese as fish food. I guess fish eat cheese as a thing. So anyway, they were advertising fish food at the farmer's market and they could sell their cheese. So even if your state does not allow raw milk sales, there might be something creative, whether it's a
Speaker: food organization like the constitutional exemption membership program. There's different creative things that are happening, but check out the Rogue Food Conference for more on that. And then I just want to say too that cow shares are not a loophole. It is a legal framework. And one of the terms in the cow share agreement that comes from England is the agister. So in the king's ward of court officials, the agister was the keeper of the cattle. And so in some cow share agreements, you'll see that the agister is the term used for the farm and the owner is the term used for the consumer. So there's legal precedent for it and it it doesn't have to be a loophole per se. If your state allows it, you can work with it. If it doesn't allow it, you can still possibly use it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really encouraging. So cow share and herd share, keep those in mind. And then you mentioned, I just want to double click on this because if I'm a farmer trying to figure out how to price things, you said some people will have a fee up front.
Speaker: In fact, I actually had that. I get raw milk from a farmer here in Tennessee and I paid an up front membership fee. And then I pay weekly for my raw milk and eggs. And then I also pay a delivery fee The fun news is she does a good job sending out reminders. And then I pop back onto her website, aka Barnes-A-Dore Powered Store, and I buy a bunch more. Like she has beef, just like you, beef and butter and everything else. And then I often exceed the delivery. Like she says, hey, if you spend over $100 or $150, it's free delivery. And so it's one of my favorite kind of hidden features of Barnes-A-Dore. But if I've bought $25 a gallon from you and I go on there and I spend another $75 and clear $100,
Speaker: The system is smart enough to then waive the delivery fee that was set by the farmer, right? Like you can set that at whatever you want. So it's neat because I use it as, you know sort of, hey, when I need to double down on steak and beef and different things like that, I use that opportunity to get my delivery fee waived. It's funny how milk at $12.50 a half gallon doesn't seem so outrageous anymore. Back when the average was $16 a gallon, $25 seemed outrageous.
Speaker: And you know we've seen the cost of everything go up so much that we are now looking at adding delivery fees because we originally just used the fair price to cover more delivery costs, bottles, everything else. But we're seeing that we should probably be at $30 a gallon you know if we want to stay relevant and position ahead of the curve. We are adding an $8 delivery fee to our program. We do deliver four and a half hours one direction, and we have to pay drivers about $20 an hour to keep them working for us. And so it adds up. We figure about 30% of our revenue, it goes into delivery fees. So at $25 a gallon with the service of delivery, you know we're only making about 16 on a gallon. And that's the cost of being four and a half hours away, partly, right? It just is what it is. But you have your, what did you say at the beginning? The rolling hills, trees, and... Turtle ah turtle mountains. Yes. Yep. you can't You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, delivery, you know it's not free, right? You have gas, you have to have insurance, you have to have drivers. And depending on if you have trucks or not, like our farmers that work with Barnes to it's really neat because we have a bunch of options. like They can do it yourself delivery. And a lot of firms charge a fee, just like you, just like many of the other firms. And they they're either net equal. Some of them, if they live close to the city, don't feel bad. They actually make money on their deliveries because it's so close and They can be really efficient and if they're doing five or ten or I actually have some firms that charge 15, you know, they're making money by the time somebody does that quick loop and gas and everything else. And then we also have farmers that at scale get to the point where they have delivery partners.
Speaker: So we have a handful of them actually now that are across the entire country that a farmer can leverage if they don't want to do the delivery themselves. It just depends if you're a hobby farmer and you want to do it yourself and cover that cost or if you're getting to the point where you're delivering three, four days a week and you'd rather contract that out. I think I said to somebody the other day, our our goal is for farmers to have all the options to ensure that they can maintain their profit margin at any given stage and make informed business decisions that make sense for their farm, right? Because every farm looks different, like no two are alike.
Speaker: So it's neat to see that happening. But to your point, if you're providing the convenience of delivery, people pay for that and they should. Yeah. And you have to be very selective too in how you are not backing down from asking for that because you'll get people saying it's too expensive. You have to say we might be not the right fit for you. Yeah. I appreciate that. I think there's power in saying, hey, there are some customers who just aren't willing to pay what they should and they're not a good fit for your farm. And then you go find other ones. And to your point, you sell out of your you sell out of milk and cream and butter. So there's that. I have other farmers saying, hey,
Speaker: If you're selling out, you're not pricing it high enough. You got to push the um envelope of how much you can charge and when you start to see people drop off or et cetera, but keep pushing that. Okay. Just before we wrap up, do you have any final bits of advice for a farmer who's thinking about getting started or what would you have said to your to yourself early on? I'm sorry. I'm going to double down one more part of that question, which is And the other, you know, the other, I'm sorry, I'm going to double down one more part of that question, which is like, if you're servicing a particular city, I guess you already answered this, which is like, how do you build up your customer base in a very targeted area to make that delivery worth it, right? Because hello, when you start delivery, maybe you only have five people there.
Speaker: How do you get it to 25 or 100 in the same area? Because then you get the efficiencies and profit at scale, right? Right. When you first start an endeavor like that, you're going to lose some money.
Speaker: Like it's going to be inefficient. There's only five people, but you just need to grow it. And I just think that's such an important thing for farmers to hear when they're thinking about starting something.
Speaker: Yes. Well, I think um to answer your second part first, making sure that you are easily referable, you know, whether that's branding, because, you know, when somebody gets a product, you know, unboxing videos are a thing and posting on social media is a thing. And social media is the new word of mouth. So the the more you can create referrals naturally and organically through your customers talking about it with their friends, the more likely you will be to tap into each per each customer's own friend network. um
Speaker: That's probably the one biggest you know way to get new customers. Then, you know, showing up at farmer's markets, making sure that you're not just there to sell, but to collect contact information. That is another key way because an important thing is that someone can be a customer whether they buy something or not. And what that means is you can be a fan, you know, if somebody is, yes. Well, I think to answer your second part first, making sure that you are easily referable, whether that's branding, because when somebody gets a product, you know, unboxing videos are a thing and posting on social media is a thing. And social media is the new word of mouth. So the more you can create referral referrals naturally and organically through your customers talking about it with their friends, the more likely you will be to tap into each customer's own friend network. That's probably the one biggest way to get new customers.
Speaker: showing up at farmer's markets, making sure that you're not just there to sell, but to collect contact information. That is another key way because an important thing is that someone can be a customer whether they buy something or not. And what that means is you can be a fan. If somebody believes in what you're doing, whether that's you communicating that you believe food is medicine and there's nutrient density that is lacking in our modern society,
Speaker: standard American diet, if you just communicate that, people who hear that are going to be a quote-unquote customer or a fan of yours without necessarily even buying anything. And it might take them six months to a year before they actually give you cash for something. But don't think that they're not a customer just because they haven't bought anything. Concept- It is proof that sometimes you have to have a customer touch five to seven times before they become a customer. So they have to see your brand.
Speaker: They have to see your social. They have to get you get their email. You start to send them newsletters. They see you again at the market. All of a sudden you're building up a number of times that they've engaged your brand. And then to your point, six months later, you you know, you have a customer, but you have to work those five to seven touches. Yeah. And then also think of your product packaging, because if someone is a customer and your milk sits in their fridge and their friends come over and they serve your milk at their, you know kids get together or whatever, when their friends see that bottle, that's going to be either telling them you're premium or you're just an average Joe. So if you can package your products in a way that it serves as a billboard,
Speaker: then that counts as an impression and it leads to convincing your friends that this is something to get behind. So back to what would I tell myself getting started? I think that you have to be thinking about it as a business and you have to build a model that works. And that's something that I'm continuing to stress is that looking at your business at the end of the year is one thing and looking at basically out the rear view mirror of what happened, But you need to be proactive and think about what do you want. And so we call this our strategic objective.
Speaker: If you were to put your business on a shelf next to dozen other businesses, what would that look like in terms of... How much profit per percent do you make? You know, what is your gross margin, which is the difference between the cost of your, you know, items that are being sold and the revenue that you're making? What is your ideal mix of things you want to sell?
Speaker: You know, so if you're just getting started and you want to have a destination that you're striving toward, it helps to put that in writing. So when we think of our strategic objective, it might be for one year, it might be for 10 years, it might be for a hundred years, but what you're striving toward your future,
Speaker: And say, you know, um I want to have 20 cows. I want to have all A2, I want to have glass bottles. I want to have home delivery. i want to have a little farm store. i want to have cheese and aged cheeses, soft cheeses. i want to have chocolate milk. i want to have ice cream. Put that into a picture.
Speaker: And then work back from it. So that way you're looking out the front windshield of your business and you're actually driving towards something and not just looking in the rearview mirror and reacting to what has happened.
Speaker: And that's going to help you when it comes to you know planning what breed of cows you milk. or what customer you go after, or how you build your barn, right? So if you think about that, you're going to be a lot more in it for the long haul, rather than just, oh, I happen to have some extra milk, I'm going to go sell it. And then six months to a year later and think, you know, this is too much work. Yeah. You're just reacting versus planning, right?
Speaker: Remember, you own the farm. The farm doesn't own you, right? We say that to people here in our business, like, make sure you own your calendar, that your calendar doesn't own you. You're setting parameters. You're being intentional.
Speaker: You block things off that need to be blocked off. You're intentional with your time, et cetera, versus like everybody just schedules everything all over your calendar and it's just, you're just showing up and it's like a chicken with your head cut off.
Speaker: Retrospective, very helpful, but having a plan. And I love the work back into it. If this is what it looks like five years from now, what needs to be true year one, year two, year three, year four in order to get there, right? What needs to be true? And it's just a good way to map it out and get there. It's great. Make your dreams real.
Speaker: I think one of the things that I've thought all along is too many people say that having dairy cows ties you down. I'm not denying that it does tie you down, but I think that we can, as dairy farms, as local farms, we can work on making it systems dependent and not people dependent. So we are interchangeable and we're not the only ones who know how to milk the cows.
Speaker: And that we just returned from a week of vacation. And I was very pleased that our part-time employees were able to keep the farm running and we got back. They even ran a delivery for us while we were gone and we came back to everything as it should be.
Speaker: Peter, we should start the we should name the podcast, how How This Dairy Farmer Took a Week Off. Because anybody with dairy would be like, I need to listen to that. Good. Well, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and time today and for explaining so many important things. And kudos to you in North Dakota and your customers for pushing the envelope in all the positive ways. Really appreciate it. What world would we be without people like you? So we're very thankful for everything that you do.
Speaker: I want to extend my thanks to Peter for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more and follow Bartlett Farms on their Instagram at N-D Bartlett Farms.
Speaker: N-D as in North Dakota. So N-D-B-A-R-T-L-E-T-T-F-A-R-M-S. Here Barn to Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro. We talk every day to farmers, and farmers working at Barn to Door go to office hours daily or schedule one-on-one meetings. We're very human forward.
Speaker: And we are here to help. We exist to support farmers like Peter. If you're an independent farmer just getting started or interested in selling direct, or if you want to simplify your business or scale up, visit barntador.com backslash learn more. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you the next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
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. You are the backbone of our country.
Speaker: 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.
