Bonus Episode: Farm Innovator Series: Tom’s Tactics to Doubling Sales
Barn2Door has partnered with ACRES USA to produce the Farm Innovator Series. In this first episode Zoe one of Barn2Door's very own Sales Managers Interviewed Tom Bennett of Bennett Farms in Michigan.
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Zoe: 0:24
Well, hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here. I'm super excited to be sitting here with Tom Bennett of Bennett Farms in Michigan. My name is Zoe and I'm one of the Sales Managers here at Barn2Door. I get to talk with farmers every single day kind of hearing about what their goals are and what the priorities are. So I am, again, just super excited to be sitting here with Tom. And we're going to dive into our first, of the ACRES and the Barn2Door Innovators series webinars. Tom, I'm just really excited to kind of get started. I want to have you kind of introduce yourself first as we dig into this past year of growth at Bennett Farms.
Tom: 0:57
Yeah, my name's Tom Bennett, I started Bennett Farms oh, probably 10 years ago as more of a hobby farm. And then as it grew into a full time, opportunity, I transitioned into that a few years ago to farm full time. I come from a Marine Corps background. It's what I did right out of high school for a decade. After the Marine Corps, went into a normal nine to five job with a food service company and as a sales service rep. And then from there as the farm grew was able to transition away from that into farming full-time.
Zoe: 1:27
At first, then it sounds like you were kind of in a transition phase. Did you have the farm and you were also working a nine to five at the same time?
Tom: 1:35
Oh, Yeah. yeah
Zoe: 1:36
That's a lot.
Tom: 1:38
Yeah, it was, I would not sleep for three days.
Zoe: 1:40
Wow. Oh my gosh. And then how long did the transition take you?
Tom: 1:44
I suffered that for about two years. I could jump from one to the other, but I tried to do both for as long as I could to just kind of give me that support, but it takes a special type of person to do that. So, and I don't recommend it. It's not good for you. Because prior to that, it was more of a hobby farm or we were just doing bulk sales where it was just whole and half hogs, you know, and bulk chicken orders several times a year. So it wasn't like, you know, 13 farmer's markets a week and everything like we are now, so.
Zoe: 2:11
I love to hear from you though that is doable. It's just sounds like it's something you kind of have to dive into because so often I hear from the farmers that I'm talking to on a daily basis that they're like, I'm just not sure when to make that leap from part-time to full-time.
Tom: 2:25
You just gotta do it. I mean, and it's not for everyone, like if you're risk adverse and you're a person that has anxiety by nature, like really hard to make that jump, because you got to have a lot of self confidence in yourself to say, okay you know, I believe that I can do this and just do it. Because the worst thing that's going to happen is it's not gonna work. You're going to run and then you're going to go back to your job because they would hire you back. I mean, still today, the place I was working, three years ago, they would have gladly hired me back today. The scariest part is losing healthcare and 401k and vacation days and paid holidays, all that stuff. That stinks because now when I take a day off, I don't get paid for it so.
Zoe: 3:05
But that's awesome though, just to see how far you've come as well. Also then I want to hear a little bit, or have you tell kind of everybody a little bit more about all the different products and kind of the range of different items that you sell and what kind of led you towards those product specifically?
Tom: 3:19
We just do pork and poultry. We also do Turkey for Thanksgiving. Pork and poultry are our primary items. And believe it or not, you don't have to do beef to be in this business full time as a direct to consumer farm. We don't do any beef. I've never sold a pound of beef in my life. We started with pork and poultry because that was the, what we thought was the lowest threshold to entry. Like as far as like to get your foot in the door and start moving product, like that's the most accessible for people. So we started with that and that's still growing today. So our favorite way to sell stuff is through the website and almost all the farmer's markets we do, the primary goal there is to convert those people into our online customers because we need those people to keep buying from us year round, not just in June and July and August, because we still have a business to run in January. So we really try and drive everyone in that direction.
Zoe: 4:11
Okay, well then, awesome. I want to also hear a little bit more about your experience too, cause I know you briefly just mentioned, you obviously were in the Marines for 10 years, you know, prior to becoming a farmer and transitioning into full-time farming. So tell me just a little bit, I guess, about how. You know, either that work ethic or kind of the skills that you picked up there over that 10 years serving how they kind of relate into, to farming now.
Tom: 4:35
Yeah, I think everything I am today. Like I owe to the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps training. I would say it's the fortitude and that nothing is insurmountable with the proper mindset. Also I mean, there's a lot of managerial skills, you know, team building, team leading. That of course was beneficial, but I just think it's a self-confidence that really was the primary benefit of that experience.
Zoe: 5:01
I know you're part of the Farmers Veteran Coalition has being part of that just brought another kind of level of community surrounding you of like-minded farmers as well?
Tom: 5:09
Yeah, because prior to that, I mean, I thought I was alone. Like I was like, I felt like, oh, it must be like one of a handful of people in the world, that like got out of the Marines and just started raising chickens in their backyard. But no, There's a ton of people like that, just like me that are that transition from the Marine Corps and got into farming. And we're all going through the same things. We all face the same challenges. And so it's nice to meet those guys. And it's just nice to know that someone has the same background as you. It's a really cool organization and that's one of the highlights of my year is their annual conference that they put on.
Zoe: 5:44
Oh, I love that. Dive in a little bit and tell me a little bit about what farming practices you're using on a regular basis. And what brought you to those practices?
Tom: 5:52
We're pasture-based, non GMO, and antibiotic free. When you're direct to consumer. It's almost expected that you're going to be bringing something different than what they're getting at their grocery store and, you know, local and everything. We didn't really see any other way to do it. That's what we wanted to do. And it's what we believe in it's what is better for the animals. It make creates a better quality product all the way around. It's just all good things we abide by those things. That's the best way for these animals to thrive and enjoy their life that they have with us. As a side benefit it lowers the barrier to entry for new and beginning farmers. So pasture-based, you don't have to build a half a million dollar barn to start raising hogs. You can raise hogs on pasture, moving them every week to a fresh pasture using portable electric fences. And so you can get into it to see if this is what you want to do without, you know, ruining your life.
Zoe: 6:42
Yeah. That's a really interesting point. I actually hadn't thought of that.
Tom: 6:45
Yeah. So you can, you know, you can do this as a side hustle for however many years you want until you decide, like, is this what I want to go all in on? Or is this just something that I'm glad I tried out? So you don't have all that overhead of the commercial farms.
Zoe: 7:00
Yeah. And I also, I noticed too, you used the word specifically that your animals live really relaxed lives. I think it was. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you're providing them to let them be relaxed?
Tom: 7:12
They are, they just chill out. I'm like sweating and it's 90 and they're just a good time playing. There's no stress on them. We want them to have as good of a life as possible. And especially when it gets close to the end of their time here and we're getting ready to take them to the butcher. We keep them as low stress as possible because those hormones and everything, if they get excited the day that they're going to the processor that could ruin your eight months of hard work that you put into them because of the chemicals in the body and the hormones that are released will affect the quality of the meat. I know our our pork processor, they're a humane handling certified processors. So, so they've done some extra steps to make sure that the everything on their end also in the last step is done the best way possible.
Zoe: 7:56
Did you have to do extra digging to find that processor?
Tom: 7:59
So we've our situation with processors is we have to have USDA inspected processors, so that right off the bat limits our ability to processing. Extreme example of that is poultry right now, there's only one poultry processor in the entire state of Michigan it's USDA inspected. That's currently operating that will take small farms' birds like us. And so we're small. We're not Tyson or Purdue. They, those guys have their own federally inspected plants. So at a mom and pop butcher shop, that's USDA inspected. There's only 20 in the country that do poultry. That are USDA inspected. That's how much bottleneck is in the system. And so even if I want to switch butchers. I have to do it a year and a half out because they're booked up right now, every poultry processor in the country, those 20 that are all booked through the entire season.
Zoe: 8:47
Yeah. you find too that your customers are even more tied into the brand of Bennett Farms because you have such sustainable practices kind of all across the board.
Tom: 8:57
Yes. We've converted a lot of vegetarians back to bacon.
Zoe: 9:01
That amazing.
Tom: 9:03
We don't try to
Zoe: 9:04
Quite a feat in and of itself.
Tom: 9:05
They come up to us at the market. They're like, oh, I'm a vegetarian, you know, I haven't ate pork. I'm like, oh, that's great. You know, you do you. That's awesome. I'm all for it. Like, I'm not gonna, you know, I sell meat, but I'm all for individual expressions of what they believe in. So go for it. But then they're like, but I see that you're, you know, you're raising the animals right. And that's why I'm a vegetarian, because I don't like the way they're treated. And I explained to them how they're treated and everything. And then they'll buy, okay. Maybe I'll buy bacon for my husband then they come back the next week and they look like they're just loading up their arms with all this meat. Like that bacon was great. You know, and then they sat down $200 worth of stuff on the table. So that's happened many times.
Zoe: 9:46
And I noticed too, one of the big things for you, I know, kind of before getting started with the online store, e-commerce was something that you were really thinking about and once you deployed it I had just seen that you are finally able to like have dinner with the family at night and do the little things, because your, you know, your farm store is open 24/7, which I think a lot of people don't really think about, but it's working for you while you're off the clock.
Tom: 10:08
It's great. I mean, you could be, you know, inside getting ready to go to bed and like last night we got an order
at 12: 10:14
30 in the morning. You know, in the middle of the night, people are still buying stuff So yeah, it's great. It doesn't close. It doesn't have any overhead. I mean, we spend less on our Barn2Door subscription per year than we spend at one farmer's market substantially less. It's a really good value for what you're getting. If you're a farm out there, that's like looking to get into direct to consumer There's no way that you could, in my opinion, make this work without being online in one way or another like selling online, it's the leading edge of what's happening right now, like in direct to consumer. And so if you don't evolve and get with it, you're going to get left behind, you know, it's, it happens in every industry, you know, look at taxi cabs, they got replaced by Uber. You know, look at, you know, things like standard hotels, motels, they're getting replaced by Airbnb. I mean, this is a industry disruptor and you can either get on the train and be a part of it, or, you know, you can be left behind.
Zoe: 11:09
But the question I've gotten from a lot of farmers is like, well, what do I do then about pricing? And you do a really good job of pricing your products at a more kind of premium rate. How did you come up with the cost for it?
Tom: 11:21
You know, I mean, I'm not going to work for minimum wage and free. Like if I'm going to do this, I'm gonna generate a decent return for my family and my time. I mean, you know what something's worth. So you can just take in, break down all the cuts and a whole pig. You know, you only have to do that a few times to figure out how to price stuff, and then make sure that once that's sold, you have X amount of dollars, you know, gross for retail off that unit. And yeah, pricing so we're already in a premium niche market. If someone's looking for the cheapest, pork and poultry, they're not shopping with me, they're going to Walmart or Save A Lot or whatever. So our customers aren't necessarily price sensitive as much as you know, some of the, some other customers that shop at box stores are. And almost every market we're at, we are even amongst our peers that are at the market with us, we are the higher priced option. So, I mean, there's other certified organic pastured, pork and poultry guys, you know, three booths down from me. They work construction during the week. They enjoy farming. They have off-farm jobs, they're not paying their healthcare and their kids from their pork sales. So they're not getting what they should get and it hurt everyone when people do that. So if you're not sure if you're charging enough, charge more. And you'll probably actually sell more because I've seen when we've raised our price on things, we increased our price last week on one item by 30%. Thinking that that would slow that item down. Cause we were tired of selling out of it. It actually sold after we increased the price. And even if you've got two side by side well his bacon's, you know, $10 a pound and his bacon's $8 a pound, the $10 a pound must be better. Let's buy that one.
Zoe: 13:00
I was actually going to ask, if you felt like by raising your prices, that kind of tied into your branding do you think that it actually kind of gets people even a little bit more excited and prideful about buying your products?
Tom: 13:11
Yeah. I mean, there's always a limit to everything, but we're not looking at other people in our industry's prices and saying, oh no, should we lower our price? Because that's what they're selling it for, uh uh. We're going the other way, if we're both selling it for the same price, I'm fine with raising my prices. But there's always a limit. You got to find that tipping point to where volume goes down. But yeah, don't be afraid to be the most expensive in your market.
Zoe: 13:33
I love hearing that from you, actually. I think that's something that, a question that I get all the time, it's just like, where do we begin with pricing? We want to make sure we're competitive.
Tom: 13:41
Especially when you're young and you're starting out with your farming adventure, in your mind, you're like you feel embarrassed that your prices are so high. People don't realize what costs goes into producing these animals in the processing and things like that. Like just our chickens alone, $7 a bird, just to process. Do the math on that bird weighs four and a half pounds. So you're paying almost a $1.70 a pound just for processing on that chicken. So when you, when you're seeing the price tag that it's $4.95 pound, well, remember the butcher is getting about two bucks of that, you know, when you're not Tyson or Purdue your cost are more per animal it's just the way it is.
Zoe: 14:17
Well, can you talk to me a little bit too, about just like the difference that adding or implementing subscriptions has made in the business as well? I wanted to touch on that too, for everybody.
Tom: 14:27
Yeah, it really smoothed out the flow on our sales. Like I know every month about how many subscriptions are going out in a given month. And I can count on that income every month. Like it might rain today, when I get done with this interview, I'm going to a farmer's market. And I don't sell hardly anything because no one comes out. But subscriptions, I know that those subscriptions are coming in next week, you know? So it gives you some stability. Customers love it. They love the idea of a subscription box. You know, I've had customers come to me at the farmer's market. They're like, oh, we really love your stuff. Like, we'd love this. This is awesome setup. It's great. But we order from ButcherBox and we really like it that they delivered to our door. I'm like, you should go to my website like, actually do the same thing. You know meat box subscription, monthly, cancel whenever you want. And they're like, really, you know, I hand them my flyer and now they're a subscription customer the next day. So you can convert a lot of those customers because some of those brands have done a good job in subscriptions. As far as like getting customers used to that idea of getting meat in the mail or delivered to their door. So capitalize on that convert ButcherBox into Bennett Farms customers. Cause we do the same thing as them, except it's more local and more personal.
Zoe: 15:38
Yeah. And 94% of people prefer to purchase locally. So if they can find a local option, they're going to go for it too, which is really cool. So it's so cool to be able to come in at a farm market and be like, we actually already offer that.
Tom: 15:51
Yeah. It blows people's mind. They're like, no way. I was like, yeah, we'll deliver it to your door. And they're like, it's not a centralized pickup location? Like no, like to your door step, leave a cooler on your porch. If you're going to be at work like they're like, wow. That's awesome. You know, so people are impressed when they find out all that they can do on their phone with our farm and ordering.
Zoe: 16:08
Awesome. Talk to me real quick about, I just want to kind of touch on your pre-ordering system that you have for Thanksgiving with turkeys. Tell me a little bit about how that works for you and kind of how you get that out to customers.
Tom: 16:20
Yeah. So the turkeys we put up the next year's turkeys available for pre-order, as soon as the pickup from the previous year is complete. So like we've had turkeys up on our website, since December of last year and where we're currently taking pre-orders for turkeys. People, they see the sign at our booth and they're like, Turkeys? I don't even want to think about Thanksgiving. I'm like, I know you don't, but if you don't get one now, they will be gone. Like, I'm just letting you know, like you can wait a little bit, but by August we're going to be completely sold out. So like, yeah, I'm selling turkeys every week right now. And it's springtime. And no one's even thinking about Thanksgiving, but we raise a finite amount of turkeys because we have to start those the first week of July in order to have them finish and go to the butcher and come back fresh prior to Thanksgiving to the customers. They come straight from our butcher. We pick them up in a refrigerated truck. We drive to three drop points. We do not deliver turkeys to your doorstep because we have too many to deliver. And such a short time period, because those are refrigerated, not frozen. So we have to get those to the customers that day, which is a few days prior to Thanksgiving.
Zoe: 17:22
Do you think a lot of that is tied into kind of creating that fear of missing out you'd also mentioned kind of telling your customers, say, if you don't get them now they're going to be gone so.
Tom: 17:31
Fear of missing out. It's a real thing. Like seriously.
Zoe: 17:33
Yes, on me.
Tom: 17:36
Yeah, we see it every day at the booth too. Cause I mean, you can be kind of slow for a half an hour, like no one's stopping in at your booth or whatever. And then, but as soon as one person comes up and starts looking through your coolers at your stuff, it's like a line generates because people see other people and they're like, what's going on over there. And then so a crowd draws a crowd.
Zoe: 17:54
So true,
Tom: 17:56
Yeah. It's so the same thing with turkeys. And it's not a bluff like last year we had to turn people away and we're like, sorry. We only did X amount of turkeys and they've been gone for a month.
Zoe: 18:06
Wow. Okay, Okay. well then let's shift gears too, I also want to make sure that we have some time to talk a little bit too about like your ability to storytell really effectively and get out to more of the customers that you're reaching on a regular basis. So can you tell me a little bit about how you're kind of leveraging the brand that you've created and how that's kind of empowered you to expand, reach a larger customer base. And then you know, even start to send out, like you'd mentioned those emails that you're sending out a couple of times a month.
Tom: 18:34
So on our brand as far as like our reputation as a business, I'll do anything in the world to avoid a bad review from a customer at any cost. And we've never had a bad review left about our business from a customer for that reason. I'd tell all of my employees at the markets, if anyone ever has an issue. And they weren't happy with something and they come up and they vent to you about it. You have my full authority to do whatever you feel is necessary to make sure that they leave with a smile and that they don't feel upset when they leave, like that's what that's worth. So if they said, oh, my bacon was too fatty, or I didn't like this, give them free bacon, give them a refund, do whatever you want to do just to make the customer happy. But that's just one example, but we do that across our whole business to make sure that our customers feel appreciated and that we hear them. And that they're important to us. So that's a big part of our brand is just taking care of people because then those people go and tell their friends like, Hey, this business, they're awesome. Like these are good people over here. They really, they care about their animals. They care about us. On our storytelling, I'll admit that I don't have a 20 minute schtick that I have about our farm. I don't like talking about myself and like things that I've done. So a lot of our storytelling about our farm is done by our customers about us, to other people on our behalf.
Zoe: 19:51
Word of mouth is a thing. And just being able to lean into even Facebook or social media or emails and allow for customers to then share information or share products that they've purchased. it is so much more effective than you just, know talking at people and telling them how great the product is. Would you say you have one outlet that has been the most lucrative for you, or do you think it's really just kind of a combination of all of these different places that you're reaching buyers?
Tom: 20:19
I mean, most lucrative is email list. Second, most lucrative is Google. And I can see the analytics from Google. I can see exactly how many people called our farm from Google search engine. I can see how many people read the directions from Google's analytics. So Google is number two. Okay. And you know, Facebook and Instagram, they're not good for sales, but they do have a purpose. They are good for brand building. So that's where, you know, why have I heard of them before? Well, it's because I was flooding your Facebook accounts for three months for the ads, you know? I mean, they didn't buy anything, but they're going to recognize my name now.
Zoe: 20:51
Right Right It's kind of that brand recognition. And then when they see you in person, they're like, I have to buy from him because they can think of you and they remember that they've heard of you. someplace. And I think too I've heard also more specific specifically even about you you have a really cool way of getting email addresses from your different types of buyers with that like boots on the ground being at farm markets, can you maybe share a little bit about that as well?
Tom: 21:14
Yeah email addresses are important They're like that is our equity in our business it's one of the most valuable assets that our business has is our email list. So at our farmer's market when customers are checking out there's a clipboard with an email signup list and we you just let them know, Hey if you want to sign up for our email list you'll get a coupon in your first email for $5 off an order we'll just send you a an email about once a month with updates from what's going on around the farm maybe new products we're going to be carrying soon things like that and people will sign up and then we pay our farm market salespeople a dollar per email bonus for all the emails they collect.
Zoe: 21:52
That is awesome. Let's do it into talking a little bit more about convenience. I know we touched upon the fact that you guys do door to door delivery. Tell me a little bit about how, I guess, how you decided to get into delivery and kind of the, the effect that having a little extra convenience has had on the business and then where you'd like to take it, because I know you've been growing on a really consistent basis kind of year after year.
Tom: 22:18
Yeah, door to door delivery and not even doing pickup points, like just going straight through the doorstep. It sounds like it would be a lot, but it's not like once you have routing software, once you have, you know, your fulfillment's set up for certain days, you're, you're thinking in your head, oh my gosh, I've got 40 deliveries to do. Like, that's going to, it's not that bad because you're getting out of your car every three miles. Like those go really quick. Like we can do 20 deliveries and two, because they're all, you know, just a block away from each other. Delivery is great we did that just to take away all barriers for customers to say, oh, we would, but, well now there's no more buts. Like you can get our stuff anyway, anyhow, all year long, like there's the customers no longer had any excuse that they could think of as to why buying from us would be inconvenient. You know, we've removed them all.
Zoe: 23:08
Convenience is totally the tipping point. So when it comes from a buyer's perspective, when you're looking at a farm that allows for even online ordering, or like you'd mentioned door to door delivery versus a farm that doesn't. Usually they're just like, Hey, we need the one that's going to show up right there on my doorstep that I don't have to think about. And I think that also kind of ties into you now offering subscriptions for products too.
Tom: 23:30
Yeah. And there's, there's pastured, poultry and pork producers in our region that have been doing it for 30 years. Family farms that have been around for generations selling direct to consumer, just at farmer's markets. And we don't go to the same farmer's market. I respect them and what they built and I try and not eat their lunch. You know, there's plenty of markets. So I go to other ones, but their customers find us. And we use the same butcher us in the other guy. Like, so our products are very similar, but I have an online store. They can order from their phone. He doesn't. Like, because he hasn't evolved yet. So, I mean, I'm gaining customers from other similar farms in my region, just because of the convenience factor.
Zoe: 24:11
What would you suggest to farmers we're thinking about doing door to door delivery in terms of one just the cost or the delivery fee, and then also, You know, how to choose areas that are most effective for delivering to.
Tom: 24:26
So go for the densely populated areas first, but then on your way to, and from those densely populated areas, as your areas also hit that corridor on that main highway all the way to, and from it, because you're right there on the highway anyways, you know, say, if you're 50 miles from Milwaukee, Okay, well, obviously do Milwaukee put a big circle around that, but then your whole trip from your farm to Milwaukee, you need to add the zip codes all along that route too. So that can be one zone. We go weekly to most of our closer places. As far as like Chicago, they go every couple of weeks just because we let those orders build up a little bit longer. The deliveries on the delivery fees. We do have a delivery fee just to discourage people from buying one package of bacon a week, that's the intent of the delivery fee is to discourage small orders like one or two dozen eggs, because who's going to buy a pack of bacon for eight bucks if the delivery or the delivery fee's $6, so.
Zoe: 25:21
I'm not going to say I haven't done it, but
Tom: 25:24
I've done it before too, just to test out other company's delivery process. Like, oh, let me get some lamb bacon just to see how this comes. But yeah, so charge a delivery fee. And those delivery fees will pay for your entire route drivers salary that day I've, you know, pretty much covering your cost of delivery. And we do have a threshold where they hit $75. That's what we set it at. You can design anything you want, but after $75, it's free, delivery is. So except I think to Chicago, we still have a delivery fee for them, no matter how much they order, because Chicago is not fun.
Zoe: 25:58
Right Yeah. Do you feel like you know, now that you've implemented things like door to door delivery and You know, the convenience of having the online store, kind of all of these different levels of convenience. Are you getting a lot closer to the point of selling out on a really regular basis? Or are you there already?
Tom: 26:15
We were last year. So last year, and because we've increased is why we're not now. So last year we grew faster than we expected, and we were selling more than we ever thought we would before. That year we anticipated it and moved bit off of lot. It never gets easy. Like you might think, oh, you know, if you're doing a half million a year in sales, that's when it'll be easy. Like I want to, you know, a couple of years we'll be okay. Like no numbers, just get bigger. All your problems in the same, except for like 20 grand out of two grand, like, you know, Cashflow will become a headache for a lot of farmers once they scale to the size and a lot of people, you know, you don't have to have a business degree to raise a chicken. I tell people farmers that are asking, like you need to be a sales and marketing and business management guru, like stop reading about how to grow grass like the animals want to stay alive. Like they're going to figure it out, you know, with a little bit of help, but you to stay alive as a farm, no one can help you but you. So point of that being is we're always trying to overproduce, so that way we don't run out. But yeah, so we would be selling out because we've doubled sales again, but we knew that's what we were going to do.
Zoe: 27:27
right Yeah. And that kind of goes right in with the goal, too, of being able. to kind of continue to expand as you guys are like doubling just year after year after year. So
Tom: 27:36
Doubling is great, but like, I can't stress enough. If you're legit doubling you know, a hundred percent again, and your margins are 50% say on, animals just as an average number. Like that means all of your profit from the previous year has gotta be completely reinvested next year into production.
Zoe: 27:54
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, I want to go through just a quick recap too, in terms of kind of everything that we've gone over. I know there's been a lot, but really I think at the end of the day, we can tie it down to, the branding that you guys have done in terms of your storytelling, in terms of being an, all of these different places. Also heard you talk too about pricing and just making sure. You know, the products were all priced correctly, not trying to stay competitive, but rather making sure that you're pricing products for what they're actually worth. And then quality, obviously, in terms of just being sustainable in terms of having all of the practices and having the relaxed animals there on the farm and that final one in convenience.
Tom: 28:33
What allowed us to grow so much was an aggressive expansion plan. There's so many people to feed in this world and I can't do it by myself. I'm trying, but it'll never happen. So it's great to have all of these other local farms around us too, that can compliment us or do the exact same thing as us. I don't really look at them as the enemy or a competitor. Like we're all on the same team. The more people that buy food locally direct from a farmer that creates a normalcy to it, or the more people that are online, it makes it normal. It's not just that weird guy that buys his food next door from the farm down the street. So we're all on the same team. A lot of the markets we're at we're the only meat vendor. Not all of them, 60% our markets, we're the only meat vendors. So there's a huge hole out there for people doing what I do. That's why we can keep expanding. There's online. I mean, there's so much more potential there that I don't know when we'll stop growing. I mean, obviously I'm not trying to become a huge, but I mean, you have to get to a certain size to make it to where you can generate the same type of income you could, you know, work in an a good job, you know, I mean, and we create a lot of jobs. We got eight people. Sometimes I think of myself, you know, if we have a slow day at the market, it's like, all I did that day was create jobs for eight people, which is good too, you know?
Zoe: 29:45
A win-win.
Tom: 29:46
So we're just going to keep growing. Keep doing what we're doing. I do want to take a break from growing probably not next year, but the year after, just to kind of capture a lot of that profit for a year. So I'm going to take a break and catch our breath and just maybe add a couple of years back to my life in the end. So I would say to anybody out there, that's thinking about doing this, not everyone can do it. I don't want to say that anyone can do it. It takes a special type of person that has enough grit and fortitude to stick with something when times get hard, because there's been multiple times in this farm journey where a lot of people would have said, like, this is just way too hard. Like the stress, the there's a lot that comes with running a business, especially a farm. Like we're not just selling stuff. Like we're producing it from the beginning, having it processed or selling it. We're transporting it. I'm at every step in the entire supply chain and distribution. So. If you do get into it, you need to know that ahead of time that there's going to be hard days and you need to know yourself and know that you'll just push through those because there's always positive things on the other side and you'll just keep doubling every year.
Zoe: 30:56
Yeah that's well, it's, it's good advice. It's kinda good to, to take too as well. And as you kind of look forward, I guess, the, the last thing I really want to ask is like, what's next for Bennett farms? I mean, I think there's a lot, you guys done, obviously you want to continue to grow and where do you see yourselves going from here?
Tom: 31:13
So there's tons of room in the wholesale sector for us to expand. We, we haven't even bothered with it. We can sell it all we can produce right now, direct to consumer, but wholesale. So that's always an option. Smaller stuff that we're doing right now. We just started carrying a pre-marinated chicken breast, or we will this next week. I think those will be really popular. So there's like seven different vacuum packed marinades and the chicken
Zoe: 31:33
Awesome I love that.
Tom: 31:36
And jerky. So we just worked with a craft jerky guy that's local to us. He's doing some research and development on turning our pork butts into like some craft artisinal jerky. And that's really good. So hopefully we'll start carrying that soon. Cause we haven't carried that before.
Zoe: 31:53
This is cool. It sounds like you're, you're taking some time to even like take a step back and be creative and come up with kind of more niche products too, that will serve the community people that's already so excited about buying from you.
Tom: 32:04
You don't want your inventory, what you have available to get stale. Like, if it's the same stuff every week, when they look at your website or the market, like, and it has been for three years, they don't need to go there anymore because they know what's there, you know? So they're not going to go browse and maybe, you know, something will catch your eye if they need it. they'll go there, but.
Zoe: 32:20
Awesome. Cool, exciting stuff in the future then. Well, looking forward to seeing all the new products come out too on the website. Store and excited to hear how those go over at the markets as well. So just kind of wanted to wrap things here and thank Tom so much for joining us and for sharing a little bit of insight and really what's gone on in this past kind of crazy year and how he's been able to take that and really managed to grow so much over such a short period of time. So thank you again for joining us
Tom: 32:48
Thank you