Beef at Farmers Market

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What would you consider luck? Sold a few yrs here locally. It's not a big one, but try and move an animal a week thru it.
 
i would say thats good. never had one butchered so dont really know what amount of meat i will be dealing with. thinking a 1000lb steer. also wondered if people would buy it frozen and pay same prices that you see in chain stores.
 
Personally, I have not done it, but I know of a couple of folks (farms) in surrounding counties that do it regularly with success. They, generally, sell for more than "chain stores". They sell, primarily, frozen. One of them sells chicken in addition to beef.
 
If you want to be really successful at it (I mean making a $200k plus a year) you have to invest a lot of time and money into it. This means going to multiple farmers markets, having no time for chores so you have to have a hired man do everything, lots of freezers and a mobile card reader for credit and debit cards (no one carries cash). Also, you have to have the gift of gab and BS. Very few do it on any scale here, only one does it the way I described above. Also, you will have to have a picturesque farm and lots of happy cows grazing because some people WILL want to see your operation and if they go away disgusted, word will travel.

It's a whole lots of extra BS that I would never want anything to do with.
 
ky colonel":32w3f8is said:
i would say thats good. never had one butchered so dont really know what amount of meat i will be dealing with. thinking a 1000lb steer. also wondered if people would buy it frozen and pay same prices that you see in chain stores.
AFAIK, you will need it usda inspected to sell by the piece. Sounds like you are just wanting to sell a little, not worth the hassle imho. Just sell halves before you butcher, or get ready for beef every night (my preference!)
 
Aaron":au9cyf2f said:
If you want to be really successful at it (I mean making a $200k plus a year) you have to invest a lot of time and money into it. This means going to multiple farmers markets, having no time for chores so you have to have a hired man do everything, lots of freezers and a mobile card reader for credit and debit cards (no one carries cash). Also, you have to have the gift of gab and BS. Very few do it on any scale here, only one does it the way I described above. Also, you will have to have a picturesque farm and lots of happy cows grazing because some people WILL want to see your operation and if they go away disgusted, word will travel.

It's a whole lots of extra BS that I would never want anything to do with.
That's a very accurate description of direct marketing. I've read into it some and even crunched the numbers. But I have better luck selling somebody a pot load of live cattle than a $15 chicken and keeping my day job :2cents:
 
A friend did it for a long time and had success. He took his animals to a USDA inspected plant and had the meat wrapped and frozen. He hauled a chest freezer and generator to the market. I believe he stills sells direct from the farm to the customer base he established at the market, but not quite on the scale he had before.

The market operation changed and they started allowing non-producers to sell and now half of it is people selling auction barn produce, 50lb bags of potatoes and knock-off designer purses.
 
Farmers markets do consume a lot of time and energy, and they demand that you engage people with your farm story. The folks who frequent farmers markets are true believers and foodies. They have money, otherwise they would be at the food lion. They don't just want tasty beef, they want a lifestyle. As noted above, they want too see a beautiful farm, happy cattle grazing on lush pastures that are free of pesticides and herbicides. The people I know who are successfully selling into that market are organic-ish (mostly uncertified) and can speak the language that their buyers want. Walk into a Whole Foods, they have mastered that demographic, excepting the locavorians.

I have considered getting into farmers markets or direct marketing. The local farmers markets are dead, anyone around here who wants garden produce grows it themselves. Most do not even sell farm products but coffee, cookies, baskets etc. But I have been to higher income farmers markets in urban areas like Charlottesville and Northern Virginia and they are thriving. Those markets are impossible to get into and if I were to that would be an hour and half drive.
 
I think Dave nails it, (as do others above) and that describes to a T what we were trying to do.

However, it has taken us so long to get started I am starting to wonder. One of our obstacles is when we visited the closest USDA facility, it was downright nasty. That kind of turned me off on the whole thing, not that I haven't ruled it out, but compared to the super clean Amish facility (which is NOT USDA inspected) I was pretty disappointed. So, we had pretty much decided to just sell halves or quarters which are processed at the Amish slaughterhouse.

The whole selling the farm thing was something we wanted to do, have people come out and see where their beef comes from. We already have insurance for this sort of thing and we enjoy talking to new people, it's just the logistics of getting it packaged the way in a manner that will allow us to be proud of what we produce. Plus it has to taste good, and the jury is still out on whether we can produce good quality beef on our grass around here, will be this spring when the first steers born on our farm are ready. (never start in cattle by buying young heifers!)
 
great info here guys thanks so much. we started at a small farmers market this year and did well not knowing what we was doing really. we have a better plan this year on the garden side. We are small scale, we only have 5 steers, so i thought it might be worth a shot. We have two local usda facilities, local as in hour and a half away. I think i need to see if i can tour them and see how they do the meat. I have seen some projections of what to expect from a 1000lb steer, but need to know the cuts of meats to expect.
 
Aaron":iexescua said:
If you want to be really successful at it (I mean making a $200k plus a year) you have to invest a lot of time and money into it. This means going to multiple farmers markets, having no time for chores so you have to have a hired man do everything, lots of freezers and a mobile card reader for credit and debit cards (no one carries cash). Also, you have to have the gift of gab and BS. Very few do it on any scale here, only one does it the way I described above. Also, you will have to have a picturesque farm and lots of happy cows grazing because some people WILL want to see your operation and if they go away disgusted, word will travel.

It's a whole lots of extra BS that I would never want anything to do with.
I only had to read the last sentence to know that I agreed with you.
 
Supa Dexta":32vbb39s said:
Easy to say when you're born into thousands of cattle.

What does that have to do with putting up with the extra BS of dealing with the public? We are privileged to have js1234 post his views on this site. He's definitely in a different part of the cattle business than most of us. But without folks like him there wouldn't be folks like us.
 
We have several folks here who do it as a part of their marketing....it is not their entire marketing program.
premium farm direct to consumer is not a casual thing .....it is a commitment...involving salesmanship, marketing, social media, understanding what the customer wants and supplying it, thinking outside the box....no use pursuing if you intend to sell ground beef at commodity prices....we have one guy who has gotten into a couple of high end retail markets and has recently found a way to expand his supply to meet demand. his market is all natural and grass fed...beef poultry and pork.
 
I have two friends who do this. Both are full time at it. One does mainly chicken but adds in an additional 20 head of beef and 60 or 70 hogs a year. He is in 6 farmers markets a week plus supplying several high end eating establishments. I called him one day and he was just pulling into the V-Mac (the Seahawks training center). It seems he supplies eggs and chicken to the Seahawks. I didn't ask if they bought beef too. The other guy runs about 100 momma cows. Keeps the calves up to slaughter as two year olds. His stick is that they are all natural grass fed. He sells at two different farmers markets that I know of. Plus he has a local food coop (hippy) that provides beef to. They sells about one a week. He converted a third of a three car into a walk in freezer. Both get about $6.00 a pound for burger and up to $20 a pound for the top end steaks. They also get good money ($10 a pound or more) for the odd stuff you never see in the stores any more, tongue, heart, ox tail, liver, etc. The chicken guy even has a market for the chicken feet in the Asian community. But I guarantee you they both spend more time selling than they do raising what they sell.
 
True Grit Farms":2p5ihyol said:
Supa Dexta":2p5ihyol said:
Easy to say when you're born into thousands of cattle.
We are privileged to have js1234 post his views on this site.

Oh nothing against him, and Aaron should take some guff for the comment too really. But just because someone doesn't want a certain job, don't call it BS. Someone needs to shovel ****, mow lawns, feed people, pave roads, whatever.

I just meant it in a way that if you have 1000s of cattle to manage you likely don't need to be the guy peddling beef in a parking lot in town.. I do not have that many 0s after my number of head though.. I'm a 0 short, so farmers markets it is.
 
Supa Dexta":1ktc76jw said:
True Grit Farms":1ktc76jw said:
Supa Dexta":1ktc76jw said:
Easy to say when you're born into thousands of cattle.
We are privileged to have js1234 post his views on this site.

Oh nothing against him, and Aaron should take some guff for the comment too really. But just because someone doesn't want a certain job, don't call it BS. Someone needs to shovel be nice, mow lawns, feed people, pave roads, whatever.

I just meant it in a way that if you have 1000s of cattle to manage you likely don't need to be the guy peddling beef in a parking lot in town.. I do not have that many 0s after my number of head though.. I'm a 0 short, so farmers markets it is.

Did I touch a nerve, Priscilla? I don't like people in general and I don't care for the chitchat BS to sell a pound of hamburger, so for me, it is complete BS. I don't care if I only had 10 cows, I wouldn't peddle beef. Just giving the heads up that if someone wants to making a living peddling beef they better like the worst of people and be able to sacrifice their status as cattleman to CEO of "My Meat Is Better Than The Guy Beside Me."
 
For the ones that do it what can i expect from say a 1000 lb animal from meat return? i am hoping the facility i will be using to butcher will let me check out their operation and get a better understanding of what i will be dealing with. Also do you see people caring if the meat is frozen instead of fresh like in the store? Thanks.
 

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