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Changing times?

G

Grassfarmer

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 21, 2005
Messages
998
Location
Central Alberta, Canada
I don't know about anywhere else on the continent but I believe things are changing dramatically in Alberta. I was down in Calgary today dropping off a load of beef/pork to our customers - only one more load to go this year :-) We have seen an amazing demand surge in recent years - our beef and pork sales have exactly doubled this year - in a recession, in the province with the worst unemployment record in the country. I think this indicates a fundamental change in consumer demand. I find it hard to believe how eager people are to seek out meat they can buy from an actual producer. It seems like every new customer we have had recently has got 2 colleagues who would have bought too if they'd known about it before we sold out for the year. It seems 100% yearly increase in sales might be quite achievable on an ongoing basis - wow!! The customers we have are prepared to break the mold on how they buy their food - we meet them in a mall parking lot in the city to deliver their meat and I love the irony of that. Among the concrete jungle of big box stores the customer wants to shake the hand of the person who reared their food for them. They don't find it strange to buy their consumer goods in the store and the staple of their diets - meat in the parking lot! Better still the demographic we sell to are largely couples with young kids and babies - these kids are being brought up to think it normal that you get your meat from a producer in a city parking lot.
This just blows my mind - the potential is so huge, there are over a million people in Calgary, close to that in Edmonton - what percentage do you think would be prepared to buy their meat in this different manner? If it's affordable and of perceived better quality than store stuff the sky is the limit.
Now this post was not about blowing my own trumpet - there are better, bigger volume and more successful producers and direct marketers out there for sure. I don't think it's even necessarily about grass-fed beef, implant free or antibiotic free product - different consumers want different things. I just think there is a great eagerness among consumers to change the way they buy their food and I think this offers the opportunity of a lifetime for producers to capitalize. At a time when commodity beef production is paying producers so badly I would love to see more people get in on this marketing opportunity - lets grow this market together and see how big it can get. :D :D
 
You have not even touched he tip of the Iceberg Grassfarmer! i know a guy that started out selling at flea markets in 2001. Last time I talked to him he was killing near 500 a year.

Takes his animals to a kill plant they ship them back as box beef. He processes the meat vacuum packs and peddles it at the local flea market.

Only part I don't like about his program is his beef is aged in bags. We refuse to do that. Hang them 3 weeks and sell true aged beef. Once people try it no turning back to the supermarket.

One can price their meat 10 to 15 percent below the supermarket and still get rich. The reason this math works is no loss from beef not selling and being forced to grinding up the middle meats in to burgers. .

For anyone interested in the USA your freezers and coolers will qualify for government loans just like a grain bin. Grab a retail building equip it with used saws and grinders and your on your way to realizing a thousand dollars more net per head.

There are four other things that will achieve selling more beef than you can produce.

Hormone free, no antibiotics, source verified, and true aged beef. You wont be able to beat them off with a stick.

Last thing is if you do retail stay above the board and sign up to accept food stamps. Your local grocers will want to run you out of town. One can also develop a home delivery route. A route like Swans foods.
 
Grassfarmer they did a beef tour in Billings awhile back where they hired a bus and people went from restaurant to restaurant and sampled their signature beef dish as well as other libations-from the sounds of things it was a huge success-I'm wondering if a customer appreciation bus tour of some outfits-TK Ranch, Pure Country's and yours come to mind would go over well.
 
Congrats on the sales GF, sounds great. It is amazing how things are changing. I was at a meeting Monday night with a room full of city folk. Some grew up on farms, some did not, but none of them have farmed since they were kids. The whole room was buzzing though with how we can change food policy in our communities, our province and our country. It reminded me that us plain old farmers and ranchers are not alone - we can stand along side "consumers" and work together. Some of them really surprised me with the things they're up to. One lady writes letters weekly to her MLA and MP about school lunch programs and all sorts of things, trying to get junk food out of schools and organic/natural foods in. It was a real morale booster of an evening to say the least.
 
I see this also at the Farmer's Market. People really do want to know where their food comes from, but just don't know where to find it. This market has a huge amount of potential. I've had a lady look at an apple pie on my table once, and she asked if I grew the apples. I told her I did, so she bought the pie. If I hadn't grown the apples myself, she would have walked. Now that's someone who wants local food, if she buys on the basis of the ingredient in one little pie.

There is a young fellow at the next stand to me at the market who sells organic pork, lamb, and some beef. His lamb crop for this year is sold out, and so is his beef. The pork sells like crazy every week, and I'm pretty sure he'll be sold out of that soon. I asked him how many pigs he has, and he told me he had five sows. He breeds once a year, in the spring, they farrow outside, and raise their young in an alfalfa pasture. He sells about 50 market hogs a year, and his pork sells for well over the price in the store. As it should, because it's amazing. So, if he sells 50 market hogs at an average of three hundred dollars each, he's getting a pretty good return on five sows! He is making more money right now than guys with 500 sows, because they're losing money.

For anyone who likes to deal with the public, this is the way to go. But you better be a people person, or you will not enjoy it.
 
My uncle is an all natural guy. No vaccines no pesticides no herbicides no commercial fertilizer. Grass fed beef has honey bees. Freaks out over dust in the air and house etc etc etc. They he smokes cigarettes and pot I guess the pot is natural to the hippy people.These are the kind of people I see at the farmer markets both buying and selling that are around here.
 
Denny said:
My uncle is an all natural guy. No vaccines no pesticides no herbicides no commercial fertilizer. Grass fed beef has honey bees. Freaks out over dust in the air and house etc etc etc. They he smokes cigarettes and pot I guess the pot is natural to the hippy people.These are the kind of people I see at the farmer markets both buying and selling that are around here.
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Well Denny it sounds like your uncle is a pretty special guy. You are so lucky to have him as family.

So I guess that is why your judgment of the people that go to farmer's markets is as skewed as it is.
 
We've been selling a bit more beef the last few years as well, but still small potatoes. It appears to me that there is plenty of room to go in that direction. This year I turned away alot of guys that had heard about it from their friends and wanted in. Problem is I the way we're set up we need to know before we ship how many cattle to hold back for beef customers.
I have to say though that 'natural' is not the concern of any of our customers, only quality and price. They can buy quality beef from us off the ranch at substantially cheaper prices than at the retail counter. They have discovered that you don't need to buy long yearling steers to get good meat, that a young dry cow fat off the range is very good eating. This year rather than slaughtering at home and taking them to a butcher most went to the Hutterites to be dealt with at far more reasonable rates than the back yard guys, with the added bonus of not being up to my arm pits in blood and gore all day. If it works out well maybe we'll do more next year, at perhaps a slightly better rate :wink:
 
Up in our country the biggest roadblock would be wild game-I'm as guilty as the next guy of living off the Queen's beef-there's 3 or 4 outfits that process beef but for about three months they are full of moose, elk and deer-I live in a community of hunter/gathers for sure. It's amazing how much meat my family goes through.
 
Northern Rancher said:
Up in our country the biggest roadblock would be wild game-I'm as guilty as the next guy of living off the Queen's beef-there's 3 or 4 outfits that process beef but for about three months they are full of moose, elk and deer-I live in a community of hunter/gathers for sure. It's amazing how much meat my family goes through.
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I would assume it's the same here, seems like everyone's a hunter. Just not everyone is a killer :wink: The way the elk are flourishing here I'm surprised any beef is sold at all these days. But people keep putting their hands up for it.
 
Grassfarmer, like you, I sell out every year and maintain an email list of people wanting to become customers. I offer each year's production to past customers first...any not taken get offered to the email list, first come, first serve. I raise the animal and take them to the processor. The customer pays the processor, picks their meat up, and mails me a check. My goal is to establish a loyal customer base to service.
 

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