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Jeff and Jill Burkhart opened
an on-site creamery to showcase their Iowa products, which they
promote through farm days and a new website developed with help
from SARE. Photo by Jerry DeWitt |
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For 23 years, all the milk from Jeff and Jill Burkharts’
80-cow dairy in central Iowa left the farm in a bulk truck for processing
and sale in the commodity markets. These days, however, the farm’s
milk takes a different route to customers. In 2002, the Burkharts
decided to build a bottling plant and start selling their milk directly
from the farm.
Today, the Burkharts’ 80-acre rotationally grazed farm has
become a regular destination for customers throughout the Des Moines
area, attracting 100 visitors a day and up to 400 when they hold
a special event. As the Burkharts had hoped, visitors leave the
farm with gallons of fresh, pasteurized milk as well as other products.
“Business is booming,” says Jeff Burkhart, who received
a grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education
(SARE) program in 2004 to test two marketing strategies: an open
house event and a Website launch. A year to the day after filling
their first milk bottle, the Burkharts premiered their Picket Fence
Creamery with an open house that drew more than 900 people for farm
tours, children’s activities and special sales offers.
The Burkharts have been innovators before. In 1988, they divided
their 80-acre grass farm into paddocks, where they rotationally
graze 80 Jersey cows moved twice daily to ensure ideal field conditions.
Once they started the creamery, they began making butter, cheese
curds, and 25 flavors of ice cream. To include other farmers in
their venture, they turned the creamery store into a local foods
marketplace, featuring everything from eggs, beef, elk and bison,
to maple syrup, baked goods, popcorn and wine from 76 other central
Iowa families.
“We’re taking the raw product, which is the grass,
and then adding value to it by feeding it to the cows, then taking
the milk and bottling it or processing it into butter, ice cream
and cheese,” Burkhart says. Our customers really seem to appreciate
it – they can see and smell and touch everything, they can
watch the processing through the observation window, and they really
think that’s neat.”
The Burkharts team up with two other farms nearby – Prairieland
Herbs and Northern Prairie Chevre – to share advertising costs
and prompt customers to make a day of their farm experience.
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Creative marketing ideas
such as extending farmers market sales through winter help the
Bolsters of Deep Root Farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Photo
by Ted Coonfield. |
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Shifting to on-farm sales has been a lot of work, the Burkharts
say, but the rewards are many. For one, the couple now earns a good
living. Just as important, the new enterprise has fostered family
togetherness. “We’re doing this as a family,”
Burkhart says. “We get to work together, our kids are here,
and we don’t have to commute to work. That means a lot.”
Proactive marketing strategies have proven the key to success for
many agricultural enterprises. Rather than accepting the relatively
low prices typically offered by wholesalers, direct marketers put
the power to turn a profit back in their own hands by capturing
a greater share of the consumer dollar. Direct marketing channels
offer direct connections to customers, providing them an opportunity
to buy fresh products – grass-fed beef, just-picked vegetables,
or decorative pumpkins – and knowledge about how they’ve
been grown. In return, farmers and ranchers learn what their customers
like, then fill those needs with products, often at a premium.
This bulletin from the Sustainable Agriculture Network describes
successful direct marketers, most of whom researched their new enterprises
with funding from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education
(SARE) program. It includes tips about how to start or improve a
number of alternative agricultural marketing channels and provides
links to extra, more in-depth information. (Resources)
Direct marketing strategies are numerous and varied. Before beginning
to sell direct, identify markets with special needs that offer large
enough volumes to provide profitable returns. Also consider researching
and writing a business plan, which will help you evaluate alternatives,
identify new market opportunities, then communicate them to potential
business partners and commercial lenders. (View here
and also view Resources)
Organic foods have held steady as one of the fastest-growing niche
markets for several years. More recently, demand for pasture-raised
meat and dairy products has risen considerably, with a small but
significant subset interested in ethnic specialty meats, such as
Halal and kosher-slaughtered products. Buying trends also support
a rising interest in food grown and produced locally or regionally,
so savvy farmers and ranchers are distinguishing their products
by location and quality. Finally, e-commerce has become an established
mechanism for sales of all kinds.
Consider selling at farmers markets, opening a CSA operation, developing
value-added products, offering on-farm activities like educational
tours, selling via the Internet, or marketing to restaurants and
schools. You can go it alone, or you can team up with others in
a cooperative. Most farmers use a combination of marketing methods
– both value-based strategies bringing higher returns and
volume-based channels selling more products – finding that
diverse marketing strategies provide stable profits and a better
quality of life.
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