I have quite a few phone numbers in my phone that I use to sell cattle. They are buyers for large packing plants and auction barns. I have always wondered when I walk past the meat counter at a grocery store if the cut of meat was from our farm. There is no way to know. We almost always have meat in our freezer from an animal we have the history on and can trace back to birth. Kellie’s Dad, Tom has a cow herd and enjoys keeping a couple calves to fatten so we get our beef from him. Cattle from our feedlot have always been sold to the best market at the time, wholesale. An idea for the future was to dip our toes into a retail meat business. Early 2020, the Corona virus moved into the USA and currently has disrupted our nations meat processing capacity due to worker health concerns.
My regular cattle marketing phone numbers have not been used in several months. Calls have changed to conversations with local lockers who can process our cattle for us. Social media has been used to start to reach out to potential customers who would like to purchase beef from us. Applications and fees have been sent and inspections have been scheduled to be legal to store and sell food from our farm. Our “someday in the future” idea was pulled forward to now and it’s exciting to have a new project on the farm.
Our product has always been good. Consumers love beef. We believe enough in our beef to put our label on it and let the consumer know exactly where it came from. We have chosen several local lockers to process the animals. We believe they are able to enhance our product with their attention to detail. Supply and quality are not a problem, we raise and feed out plenty of good cattle. We know nothing about retail and consumer interest. It will be fun to learn about the consumer side of beef.
-AJ