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Central, PA | Now I’ll be honest, I don’t know the difference between boston butts and backyard porking. There seems to be an underlying theme in here for guys that have champagne tastes on Bud Light budgets. I completely understand the reality of the small time operator with retail costs and commodity prices. I am not blaming anyone for want more for what they are selling.
Reading some of the posts around pork production from dexter 860 below I believe you can find your own opportunities. You are already on the internet in this forum. What’s wrong with using the internet to bring new customers to you? I get it that many farms are not near the right clientele to pay $2-$4 per pound of hanging weight, but those people are not on Craigslist. Those people are probably not on your fb page right now. Family and friends are the worst to sell things to. The right people are out there and the right people will come right to your door and happily pay for whatever farmstand adventure you choose.
Here’s how:
Can you find a forum just like agtalk that relates to people that want to consume pork? I typed cooking with bacon into reddit and and here is what came up lots of stuff there
If you want to sell pork, then sites like the Weston A Price foundation would talk about using the whole animal- this is gold for selling the whole hog
There are food blogs that eat this stuff up find one like girlscangrill.com
Learn the lingo of the end user
All you are looking for in these sites are the language that people use that are looking to eat pork And buy direct. Do they ever say gilt or talk about price? No, they don’t. They say things like tastes good and I know the farm it came from.
Next:
Hammer out a target market.
After doing some research what food blogs are near your location, You will learn that not everyone wants your pork
What recipes are heritage to your area? Are you kraut and sausage, or are you pork chops and black eyed peas?
Pick a demographic that you think you are going to sell your pork to- 30-35 year old mom’s in yoga pants or 50 year old guys that what to roast the whole pig for a party on a spit. Your market will affect the language you use in selling pork
Next:
Take your ideal target market and go back to reading blogs and forums. What kind of language do they actually use?
If you have a roadside stand offer a easy product like sweet corn
In your stand have a signup sheet that says something like this- This fall we anticipate a limited supply of fresh pork for your freezer. If you would be interested, please leave your email address
Email is gold.
You can then send updates on your freezer pork and use that as a medium for education about your farm or story. Tools like Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and Aweber make this super easy. Dexter 860’s photo alone would sell pork in an email.
Imagine if you had 20 hogs and 50 email addresses. You could move all of the pork for whatever price you wanted and people would come to you to pick it up.
How do I know?
44 people from right here on agtalk have purchased a Dairyhack course in the past 7 months. All of them farmers of some type. They didn’t have to sign up. There were no tricks. Farmers are supposed to be tighter than the skin on a hot dog. If I can do it with Dairyhack, you can do it with selling pork to Tilly Thunderthighs rocking out to Taylor Swift in her mini van.
If you want some help email me [email protected]. I’ll help you get started
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Closing the gaps between retail and commodity prices
