Farmer Spotlight: Sasquatch Family Farms
What happens when you have 2 Independent Farmers --- one from each coast --- talk shop? In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres (SC) chats w/ Shauna of Sasquatch Family Farms (WA) about growing a business from scratch, community support in clutch moments, and why and how Farmers can attract local Buyers to ensure ongoing sales.
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Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.
Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
Alex Russell: Hi, and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. My name is Alex Russell. I'm the owner of Chucktown Acres in South Carolina. Once upon a time I was a intern at Joel Salatin's Farm, Polyface [00:01:00] Farms in Virginia, and I had the honor of working under him for about three years. And after about three years in 2019, my wife and I decided to start our own farm.
We moved to South Carolina and we started Chucktown Acres five years ago. We raise our own, cattle, pastured poultry and forest raised hogs, and we offer subscriptions to all of our customers. We do home delivery, farmer's markets, you name it, we do it. We've leased a lot of land and built a brand and we've started our own farm store, partnered with a lot of other local farms, and it's been an amazing journey over the last five years.
And I love getting to share my story with farmers across the country, especially farmers that are really interested in switching to selling direct to their [00:02:00] consumers farmers that wanna switch to regenerative agriculture and sustainable agriculture. So, it's a real honor for me to be able to host the podcast today and get to have this amazing conversation with Shauna.
And, I am also a member of the Farm Advisory Network for Barn2Door. So, what that means is I get to give Barn2Door feedback as a farmer, someone using their software, and I get to tell them, Hey, this is working out really good. This needs to be tweaked a little bit. And so, I, I can feed them my preferences and the more of us farm advisors that they have, the more common feedback they get so they can improve the software.
It's a really fun feature. It's really fun to be a part of. And, I'm honored to do that. I also get to teach the Grassroots Marketing Academy every month. So, I take a new group of about 20 to 30 farmers through a marketing [00:03:00] academy. We do three sessions together that are all an hour long and we get to go through a bunch of new marketing ideas, helping new farmers get into selling direct to consumer, figuring out who their best customers are and how to get in front of them and how to sell to them.
So, that's what I do and I'm honored to be a part of Barn2Door and be someone who uses their software every single day. And I've used their software for the last five years every single day. As a reminder, Barn2Door offers a all in one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business and selling under their own brand, online and in person. I love getting to have conversations with farmers. You know, when you go to like a farm conference, you end up spending more time in the hallway talking with other farmers and getting to [00:04:00] swap stories about all the crazy things that are happening in your world. You end up spending more time in the hallways than you do in the actual sessions where you're supposed to be learning stuff.
So, for me, whenever I get to have a conversation with another farmer, it kind of feels like that, that conference comradery that you have. And so, I'm really excited to be talking with Shauna from Sasquatch Family Farms today, all the way out in Washington State. So excited to dig in with you today, Shauna.
She recently started her farm and has built a successful direct to consumer pork operation and is expanding their operation. I'm excited to talk to her about her farm story, their success in selling pork to their community, and learning a little bit about what kind of advice that she has for other farms.
Shauna, how'd I do?
Shauna Perez: You did awesome.
Alex Russell: All right.
Shauna Perez: I'm so excited to chat with you today and get to share our journey out with everyone.
Alex Russell: Yeah, it's gonna be so [00:05:00] fun. I'm honored to be here, so it's gonna be a good time. Can you just, we've never talked before, so I wanna know about you and about your operation.
How the heck did you get into farming? Did you grow up farming? Let's hear the story of Shauna and how you got to 2025.
Shauna Perez: I'll give you the unedited story and, you just let me know what you want. So, I was an elementary school principal, had been in education for 20 years and absolutely love helping kids and changing systems and cultures, and just loved my job more than anything I could tell you about such a cool career and path to be on.
And, we kind of had a whirlwind of things that happened and I came out of a surgery, not able to walk or talk or take a shower or anything, and they kept saying, oh, you'll get better next week. And, I couldn't get better and I was needing really frequent naps and it really became apparent to us that I wasn't gonna be able to go back to working [00:06:00] full-time in a traditional like educator setting again.
And my kids are just amazing. And they were like, they're such great motivational coaches and they see the cans in life and not the can'ts. And they said, mom, we're gonna drive you and we're gonna go pick blueberries today.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: And I said, I don't know if I can do that. That's like a really big thing. And they said, you know, if you can't do it, you can take a nap in the car.
It's outside, it'll be great. Come with us to go blueberry picking you love it. It'll be just a good adventure. And I said, okay. So they loaded me up in the car and they drove us to the blueberry farm and we got there and there's a for sale sign at the blueberry farm. And I was like, oh. And so the kids and I you picking, and it was the best day I'd had in like three months. And I came home and I was. I said to my husband, Justin, I said, I had the best day. I love it. Can we go back? They have another up pick open Saturday, will you go with me? So our whole family went to the U pick and we had this great outing and I said, it's for sale, can we talk about it?
And he [00:07:00] said, uh...
Alex Russell: Oh boy. What?
Shauna Perez: You're really on the struggle bus. I'm not sure. Like we're just trying to figure out how we make, how we're gonna make the ends meet without your educator salary. And at that point, my daughter's still braiding my hair when I get out of the shower, 'cause I can't like even like do those basic life things.
And the kids and my husband were like, you know what? This would like give us a new beginning.
Alex Russell: Wow. What year? What year are you in at this point? When you go, you pick.
Shauna Perez: It's like 2022, 21, 22.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. Three years ago.
Shauna Perez: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. Okay. So fresh.
Shauna Perez: So fresh. So an amazing family who's selling this blueberry farm and they share everything about it and everything about being farmers.
And I think probably one of the things that I love about farming in general, Alex, is just that sense of collaborations, and willingness to share. We hadn't been farming, my son's in high school and does FFA, but farming's not our, [00:08:00] like, we don't have any experience. And every bank said no.
Alex Russell: Yeah. You guys were suburban. Suburbanite or...
Shauna Perez: Suburbanites. We had this great porch box delivery from another farm that we got our pigs and our pork, and they came every week and dropped it off.
Alex Russell: That's amazing.
Shauna Perez: Anyway, so we're going down this road and that farm's Makarios Acres. They also use Barn2Door.
Alex Russell: Sweet.
Shauna Perez: And so we just started doing all this research and we took a class called Cultivating Success from WSU. And every week you get to meet different farmers. So one of the farms was, in Washington, but quite a distance from us. It's called Alluvial Farms. And they laid out their whole pork operation and they were also new to farming.
And I said, Justin, let's farm pigs. And he said, hard no. I said, well, look, they have an open house. It's like three, it's like three hours from us. But let's go to the open house and learn how they're doing this aerating composting, and check it out and talk to them. And we went to their open house [00:09:00] about aerating compost and at their aerated compost facility.
And their farm was gorgeous. And we did the numbers and Justin's a finance guy and he was like, well, if you really think you can do this, let's try it. And so, we talked to our friend who's a real estate agent, and he was like, okay, what do I have to find you? Like, let's figure out the house. What can we find?
So, we said we need a farm that has 20 acres. Ideally, I'd like it to be someplace I could do a agritourism and draw a 80 mile circle around our current house.
Alex Russell: Oh, nice. Okay.
Shauna Perez: Okay. So those are the parameters. So...
Alex Russell: So, you're gonna be an hour and a half from...
Shauna Perez: Max. Like, I don't want. Max. I, I, I want an hour and a half.
Like I'm comfortable with that commute distance. Find me something within that radius for me.
Alex Russell: Can we talk about this for a second? When you decide to leave city life or suburban life and you're like, I'm gonna go to the country. Usually the, the land [00:10:00] around the city is in like insanely expensive and usually very, very wealthy people can buy it, but they don't even do anything with it.
And so, then you get to these outer layers of land that are much more affordable, but you gotta move an hour and a half away and you have to decide, like you've got friends, schools, churches, like you have all this stuff, and you have to decide, am I gonna be willing to give up, or at least hinder these relationships somewhat because I'm gonna now be 90 minutes.
How hard of a decision was that for you guys to make?
Shauna Perez: Okay, well this piece of property is like everything we wanted and then some. When we first got here, I couldn't even walk from the main house to the barn, like...
Alex Russell: You're in a wheelchair, or crutches?
Not
Shauna Perez: in a wheelchair, just, not crutches.
Just really still struggling. And we looked at it and it's 76 acres.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh.
Shauna Perez: And it was an estate sale and overgrown and we just saw nothing but [00:11:00] potential.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Did it have a house on it?
Shauna Perez: Has a house.
Alex Russell: Sweet.
Shauna Perez: Had 200 feral cats.
Alex Russell: Oh God.
Good luck getting rid of those.
Shauna Perez: You know what, the real estate agent did a great job. They left us with about a dozen and....
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: They control our rodent population.
Alex Russell: Yeah. You probably don't have any rats at all for miles.
Shauna Perez: Yeah, like I have to say, they're like, it's fantastic. Like they're a fantastic rodent abatement.
Alex Russell: We have one cat and I wish that she would work a little harder.
Shauna Perez: Okay. I feed them every morning like a small amount and I'm like, good morning cat. And they, they've yet to warm up to us. Every morning I feed 'em, we make sure they're taken care of. I'm grateful they take care of our rodents.
Alex Russell: Yeah. So you were looking for 20 acres and you ended up with 76.
Shauna Perez: 76. And we bought it and it had been freshly hayed and it was just, it's [00:12:00] gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's everything we would ever want. It borders at a private airstrip, public airstrip, the Toledo field, and it was my son's first flight a million years ago.
It feels like he's...
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh.
Shauna Perez: He just got his private pilot's license. But his dad's a pilot. Justin's a private pilot and it was his first, the first place we flew in for Mother's Day when he was a newborn baby was here to visit my parents.
Alex Russell: No way.
Shauna Perez: There's skydive Toledo is our neighbor, so we have skydivers all day long.
Skydiving over the farm. It is just like there's all these general aviation small aircraft that circle all day long.
Alex Russell: Has anyone ever landed in the pigs?
Shauna Perez: We had a sky diver who came real close and sort of freaked us out, but... right?
Alex Russell: Man, that could have been on the news.
Shauna Perez: Right?
Alex Russell: It would've been so exciting.
Yeah. Some guy fell out of an airplane and landed in the pigs today. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Okay, so what [00:13:00] year do you end up buying? Did you end up getting the loan for this farm? Like, how did that end up shaking out?
Shauna Perez: Our real estate agent was amazing. His name is also Alex, Alex Hong, he's an amazing guy. And he walked alongside me and went to like a bunch of banks and a bunch of business banks and he said, let's figure out how we package this up. I'll walk alongside you. We believe in you guys. And we figured out that we could buy a residence, but it needed to just be a residence.
It couldn't have anything else. So, we bought a second home.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. No way.
Shauna Perez: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Wow. That's fancy. But it's zoned agricultural. Was that an issue at all?
Shauna Perez: It's zoned residential.
Alex Russell: Ah. Nice.
Shauna Perez: But it fits in the agriculture. The county would really like us to flip the zoning over to agriculture.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And the farm is so cool, Alex, like, it has so much. We worked really closely with farm services and NRCS and all we've had, we have people out all the time and we've learned, we have eight rare and [00:14:00] endangered species. We have a cultural waypoint tree that if you were part of the Chehalis tribe, it would've been where you were wrapped.
And, like we have so many significant cultural artifacts. We had this really cool pole barn that I was like, when we toured the farm, it was locked. We couldn't get in it. I was like, that barn's amazing. I wonder what's in it. And we got the keys and we opened it up and there's this community event called the Threshing Bee down here. Every year after everyone hays, they bring their tractors and they do these tractor pulls. Well, that's the farm we bought.
Alex Russell: Whoa. No way.
Shauna Perez: And the whole barn was an event venue with a bar inside, ready to serve.
Alex Russell: And you didn't even get to open the doors until you bought it?
Shauna Perez: No.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. That must've been the craziest surprise.
Shauna Perez: And you opened these doors and all of a sudden you're like, we bought a legit event venue. Like that was our bucket list, but it was never, and then we have an RC airfield for little tiny [00:15:00] airports. And so, they had previously been here and it's our nonprofit work, so they use, we don't charge them. And they've just been here forever and people come out and fly their RC airplanes if they're part of the club.
And...
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh, you guys are very generous.
Shauna Perez: I think I'm telling you way too more about this. Like...
Alex Russell: I love this. No, it, because, you are giving us all the details of like what it means to be a farmer. If we were to just talk about like selling bacon to people, we would not be even scratching the surface of like, what actually happens on a farm for real is a lot of crazy random stuff.
Like, someone's gonna show up to your farm and you're gonna be really busy and they're gonna eat up 45 minutes of your time. And that is not in the schedule, but that's what happens on a farm. Like really wild random stuff happens on farms, especially when they're really aesthetically pleasing to people.
It's really attractive. We were very [00:16:00] lucky to be leasing this farm. That's just very, it's just a really beautiful, it's rustic, but it's beautiful. And there's a big lake right in the middle, and people wanna do their senior photos and stuff here and it's, you just get a bunch of random people that end up coming down your driveway asking you, can I buy your chickens?
Or like, what kind of tractor is that? Or like, how long you been here? And you start the longer you stick around, the more country kind of questions you get from random people. So, you're giving us a taste of like, there's a lot of things you can do with a property like this and it's like an endless list.
Shauna Perez: We're hoping to put it into conservation, so it never becomes a housing development.
Alex Russell: Love it.
Shauna Perez: So like that's one of those back burner. It's one of those projects that you just kind of slowly work on. And we've learned there's so much of cultural significance here that that's our bucket list goal is to get it put into conservation so that it can be used by the community long term and never be [00:17:00] houses.
So...
Alex Russell: Yeah. Yeah. The one we're on is under conservation easement right now. So we don't ever, like, developers don't even bother knocking on our door. It's a really nice, really nice situation. So, okay. I wanna bring us back. Did you end up buying this place in 2023 or 2022?
Shauna Perez: We bought it at the end of August of 23, and September 1st we bought our first bred sow, so like less than two weeks later.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh.
Shauna Perez: And then our, our business strategy was buy a bred sow a month for the next year.
Alex Russell: Oh.
Shauna Perez: And then the farms that kind of lifted us up along the way, Alluvial and Makarios Acres, they had said, Hey, you're gonna need some income, buy some feeders initially from us and you can grow those out.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And so they did a great job helping us get some feeder pigs, initially from their farms to kind of be our business starter. And then we bought 12 bred sows...
Alex Russell: Over the course of a year. Did you stick with the one per month?
Shauna Perez: Over the course of a year. One per month.
Alex Russell: And how many, about how many feeder pigs did you start?[00:18:00]
Did you get like 10 or?
Shauna Perez: We got 15, we got 15 littles that were just weaned and then we got five that were ready to harvest in November.
Alex Russell: Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, they were mostly grown.
Shauna Perez: Yep.
Alex Russell: Okay. That's great.
Shauna Perez: We had had three more months to go, but they were like, Hey, you're gonna need some product, like, I think that we really appreciate the farm community.
Makarios was like, Hey, you're gonna need some product to hit the door so that people understand you have good quality local pork.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: We'll sell you the baby feeders, but let's give you some to get you started.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right.
Shauna Perez: So...
Alex Russell: Were you able to handle getting kill dates and processing dates for everything?
Or was that kind of a disaster?
Shauna Perez: We had harvest dates actually back in July. We made a reservation before we even bought the farm, because we had been a part of this farm community asking, okay, what's the biggest struggles? And everybody was like, Hey, it's like more than getting your kid into a prestigious preschool or daycare, you better call nine months ahead of time before those piglets pop.
Right?
Alex Russell: You gotta know somebody who knows somebody [00:19:00] to get your pigs in here.
Shauna Perez: So we, we wanted to be animal welfare certified. So, in December of 23, we became animal welfare certified.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: And then that really narrowed our harvest places down a lot because, there are just a few. And then we also process USDA, so then our circle just got smaller because we needed an animal welfare certified USDA.
Then we are working on our organic certification. So then...
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: That just became even harder to say. Okay, if we're gonna line this up...
Alex Russell: Is there a single organic processor?
Shauna Perez: There is only one in Washington state and they're working on it. And what happened was we got this harvest date for November.
The processing plant is about 30 minutes from the farm. We had to haul there. So Alex, not a farm family. We have no budget. We own...
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: No trailer to put these pigs in.
Alex Russell: You have, I was gonna ask you probably don't even have a livestock trailer at this time.
Shauna Perez: You're right. And uh, Barn2Door had said like, you guys were great with [00:20:00] us at the Barn2Door Connects, 'cause you were like the worst thing you could do is take on a bunch of debt for equipment, figure out how to scrap it by without anything.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Borrow.
Shauna Perez: Beg, borrow, rent. So, we rented a livestock trailer. We put these five pigs in the back and they cancel our processing date.
Alex Russell: Oh.
Shauna Perez: And I'm sweating it, right?
We've pre-sold some pigs. We're counting on the income I wanted to do.
Alex Russell: Had you already loaded the pigs or did they cancel before you loaded?
Shauna Perez: They, they canceled before and ...
Alex Russell: Thank God.
Shauna Perez: Right. And these pigs, by the way though, are escaping constantly.
Alex Russell: Oh, yeah. I want to ask about that next. Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Okay. So no, but our harvesting date got pushed back twice.
And then they, eventually get them harvested for us, in January. And we get our cuts and we're super thrilled. Like it all comes back. It feels like the biggest success, right? Like I didn't realize, I think when we started this journey that the hardest part of it, literally, I thought it would be the baby piglets dying [00:21:00] or chasing the pigs or any of the million other things.
The hardest part for us of being a farm to this day is getting the pigs from the time we drop them off back, like the processing, getting the bacon back, right? So we end up, those 15 feeders we bought, that processing date ends up getting canceled. And by this point I'm panicking because with five hogs it wasn't much of a feed bill.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: But by the time we get down for this next processing date, I've got 15 on the ground. They're eating us out of house and home.
Alex Russell: Yeah. I mean, we're talking, 150 to 200 pounds a day.
Shauna Perez: 200 pounds a day. And I'm like, we can't hold them. We can't hold 'em. What am I gonna do? So I start making phone calls.
Alex Russell: They're like, yeah, you can pay 60 more dollars every day, no problem. Right? Every day.
Shauna Perez: Every day.
Alex Russell: Sunday's included. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Shauna Perez: Right.
Alex Russell: Uhhuh. Mm-hmm.
Shauna Perez: So, we start calling around and Eastern Washington is about a three hour drive from us. There had been this small farm that was on a Farm Talk podcast that we listened [00:22:00] to from WSDA, and they were called Windy N Ranch, and they were this small family operation and they talked about how in covid they couldn't get processing dates, so they'd gone through the process to become A-U-S-D-A processor.
So, I called them and I tell them my sob story and I'm like, Greg and Bradley, is there any way you can help us? We're this new farm, this is gonna bankrupt us.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: And I said, and we're renting a trailer. And I like, it's so super hard. And they said, bring 'em Ellensburg. We'll take care of it for you.
Alex Russell: Oh, thank God for those guys.
Shauna Perez: It's turned into this, Bradley and Greg, Windy N Ranch I'd like to give, they're also a Barn2Door customer.
Alex Russell: Oh, props.
Shauna Perez: Props to Barn2Door.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And they have this amazing, animal welfare certified, but they have a USDA cut and wrap shop because I think that's the other...
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: You have a have to have a harvest facility. And you have to have a cut and wrap.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: So they have a cut and wrap shop on site.
Alex Russell: Good.
Shauna Perez: And they let us drop the hogs off and then they transport them on to the harvest facility. [00:23:00]
Alex Russell: Love it. Okay. And they're animal welfare certified?
Shauna Perez: Yeah. And organic.
Alex Russell: Oh, and they're organic.
Shauna Perez: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Wow. And they're the only ones in the state.
Shauna Perez: And yeah. And fingers crossed. I mean, more people are coming online. I think they've just really helped us out. Like, I didn't know we're new. Like, okay. What do you order for cuts?
Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If anybody's listening to this and they've been through my grassroots marketing class, they know if I start talking about cut sheets, it's gonna be 30 minutes later that I'm done.
'cause I am very passionate about cut sheets.
Shauna Perez: Yeah, but Bradley's like this amazing butcher.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And he does things like, we have some restaurant clients and they said, can we get a Norwegian Ribbe? And I was like, what's a Norwegian Ribbe?
Alex Russell: Never heard of that.
Shauna Perez: And he was like, I'll cut it for you. No problem.
Alex Russell: Sweet.
Shauna Perez: Or we have another restaurant who said, Hey, we want double cut pork chops. And I was like, I get one shot at this. And if we get it right, I get to be the featured farm to Mountain restaurant. [00:24:00] Like in our first year, I get to be the featured farm at Crystal Mountain, which is like this incredible resort.
And they're gonna have us as their featured farm for pork chops, for summer mountain to farm dinners. And Bradley's like, Hey, do you want me to, I could have the butcher, the chef come zoom in with me and the rest the shop to make sure I get your meat cut right.
Alex Russell: Wow. That's crazy.
I've never heard of a butcher doing that before. That is so rare.
Shauna Perez: Their level of attention to detail and like the packaging that they turn out of their shop is just incredible. And to have them partner with us has been like one of the greatest gifts.
Alex Russell: Yeah. That's amazing. So, you're talking about restaurants a lot.
If you had to put a percentage on this, how much of your, let's just take pork for now, how much of your pork are you moving to restaurants versus, whatever home delivery or farmer's markets or whatever else you do?
Shauna Perez: Uh, well I think it's fluctuated in our journey and I think it fluctuates too, a bit by season.
So, we try to say we have [00:25:00] three buckets of pork sales. We have the retail who buy direct from our website. And there's just a really great group of people who've been really loyal and they find us and their kids come out and do farm tours. Clark's four, is one of my favorite stories, and Clark was his family was like, we wanna show Clark where his bacon comes from.
And we're like, we'll have Clark, come visit us.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: So, they came and Clark's four, and we feed the pigs traditional hog food. They could eat as much as they want.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: But then we have a partnership with Cascadia Produce, and we bring in the produce from Cascadia Produce every week that isn't good enough to go to hunger relief or to get sold out in a traditional sales channel.
Alex Russell: Nice. Yeah.
Shauna Perez: So like, Costco rejects bananas.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: Nothing wrong with the bananas, but they're not at the right temp. So, we have a ton of produce. So Clark came and he fed out the pigs, their cantaloupe, and their papayas and their watermelons. And then Clark went to the freezer and he helped pick out what do I want for my whole pig order?[00:26:00]
And he loaded up their coolers. He gets home and sends us this incredible picture of 4-year-old Clark chewing on his sausage, his breakfast sausage. And Clark's a really picky eater. And he is like, no, the pigs eat fruit just like me and I love the pigs. And mom, get me some more breakfast sausage.
Alex Russell: Man.
That's so awesome. I thought Clark was like a 20-year-old guy. Makes He's four years old.
Shauna Perez: Four. And Clark is probably like our biggest farm promoter. Clark tells all of his preschool friends, kindergarten friends about how they've gotta get their pork from us.
Alex Russell: Man, let's get Clark a medal.
Shauna Perez: Right. And then, so like Clark, he's an example of great retail customers.
And then we have wholesale, we sell, I think Barn2Door. Your marketing 1 0 1 class. You really helped me with that.
Alex Russell: Oh, thank you. That's very sweet of you.
Shauna Perez: You said, call and get into food hubs.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: So we have a great relationship with the Southwest Washington Food Hub, and they currently are a very big distributor for us, but they distribute out to schools and restaurants.
And, what I [00:27:00] love about the food hub, Alex, is like, they call, they pre-order and say, here's what we need, and I drop it off to one place and they do all the delivery driving for me.
Alex Russell: Oh yeah, how far is that food hub from your farm?
Shauna Perez: 15 minutes.
Alex Russell: Oh, that's awesome.
Shauna Perez: And they have cold storage.
Alex Russell: All right.
Keeps getting better. And they, I'm guessing they put in pretty big orders?
Shauna Perez: They do put in really big orders. In fact, they're the reason we're currently sold out of pork because we're a small farm.
Yeah.
I also misjudged Alex. I misjudged, the actual supply chain from the time we breed a sow until I have bacon ready to sell to our customer is 13 months.
Alex Russell: Yeah, I was gonna say it's over a year. You're crossing a year.
Shauna Perez: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And you're raising Berks, right?
Shauna Perez: We bought our breeding stock from Shipley Swine and Genetics trucked them in from Ohio.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: We researched it and said, we want progeny tested, like the best you can find for us.
And...
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Randy and his [00:28:00] team at Shipley were amazing. We had a hard time figuring out where do you source really good Berkshire pigs from? And I can't even begin to tell you how much we love the pork they produce.
Alex Russell: I, I don't wanna mansplain to any of our listeners, but if you don't know about Berkshire Hogs, they're my favorite as well.
Like some of the best pork chops you'll ever have. Some of the best demeanor out of a pig that you can have. And great mothers. They're my favorite pig of all time. I just really love raising Berkshires and harvesting them, and they do so good outdoors. They're tough as nails and then the product that you get off of Berkshire is just incredible.
Shauna Perez: We started with the good Berkshire base and then our hogs are eating out about 10,000 pounds of produce a week, 10 to 20,000 pounds of produce a week.
Alex Russell: What?
Shauna Perez: So, Cascadia Produce is shipping us. Del Monte is a frequent, like they rejected banana. We got 20,000 pounds of bananas last [00:29:00] week.
They were too cold. So, but right after Christmas we got, that shipment was, that was 20,000 pounds of pink rose gold pineapple.
Alex Russell: What? Pink roast gold pineapples. Wow.
Shauna Perez: Gotta Google that. So the pigs ate pink rose gold pineapples for a month. I didn't realize a month. A month worth. And all they're eating, I'm like, okay.
Alex Russell: They never wanna see a pineapple again for the rest of their life.
Shauna Perez: They love pineapple. I mean, they love, I didn't realize they're a natural dewormer.
Alex Russell: I didn't know that either. I've only heard of, you know, you always hear about pumpkins.
Shauna Perez: Yeah. Our pigs eat a lot of fruit.
Alex Russell: Yeah. That's amazing. So. On a logistical side, are they dropping off bags? Like it's gotta be a really good way, efficient way to load that. This has kept us from like taking restaurant scraps and stuff because I've never been able to figure out the logistics of like how to make spent produce work [00:30:00] for your operation.
So, please educate us.
Shauna Perez: Yeah, I think I wanna give a huge shout out to Jeremy at Cascadia Produce and say like, follow along. He's been a real huge farm supporter for us all along. And he has this huge commercial warehouse and he sets aside for us every week things that have been rejected that can't go on.
And I would tell you that the produce he sends me is better than what I can actually buy in the grocery store in my rural grocery store.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: Like the pigs, the kids tease me every day that...
Alex Russell: You're like, I might take a couple of these, bananas in the house.
Shauna Perez: So, he works really hard to make sure that food's not wasted.
And he's just this amazing guy who, and I think just like the food he sends us is top shelf quality. So there's not, it's not, in general, it's not molded. It's been rejected for being outside of temperature.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Yep. Got it.
Shauna Perez: It's really high quality produce and for like the bananas. I learned like, I I could go on like a [00:31:00] tangent about the things I've learned about produce, I think.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Another like podcast we gotta talk about that I really want other farmers to know is Jeremy taught me about PACA law, and I didn't know about PACA before Jeremy told me about it. And he was really insistent with me as a farmer that I needed to put the PACA blurb from the 1930s on every invoice.
And it guarantees me the PACA law, it guarantees me that I, you're giving me this quizzical look that I get paid before it gets resold.
Alex Russell: You get paid before it gets resold.
Shauna Perez: And they have to pay me within 10 days. And as you scale your business and you start working with a lot of restaurants and grocery stores.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Billables become sort of an issue in cash flow.
Alex Russell: Yes. Yep. You're like, all right guys, you could go ahead and pay up now. That would be nice. Can you spell PACA for us?
Shauna Perez: You know, I should just read it right off my invoice, shouldn't I?
Alex Russell: That's wild. I never knew this, but I don't work with a lot of [00:32:00] restaurants, so anytime I do send something to a restaurant, I do COD and I'm like, I'm not leaving here without a check.
I'm sorry. I know it's annoying, but I rarely do this so you guys can, and I just make them, I just stand there until they write me a check.
Shauna Perez: I think that's probably one of the things about Barn2Door that I didn't appreciate on the front end, 'cause we're new to business, we're new to farming.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: And all of my Barn2Door people like our customers from there, they pay on Barn2Door.
And I actually get paid before I deliver in most cases.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Yep. I love that.
Shauna Perez: I think I, that was like, that wasn't such a big deal until we bought our second farm, that's produce. So.
Alex Russell: Oh, you have a second farm now?
Shauna Perez: So, we bought a second farm.
Alex Russell: Oh my God. You've been farming for a year and a half.
Already onto number two.
Shauna Perez: We're on number two. Well, okay, so we got the pigs right, and they're eating all this great produce and.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And we're part of the farm bureau and we go on the Farm Bureau, the Lewis County Farm Bureau down here is [00:33:00] incredible, and once a year they host a tour of the five Best Farms in Lewis County.
We have not made the list yet.
Alex Russell: Oh, come on. They're missing out.
Shauna Perez: We go on the tour in August of this last year. We go on the tour and we toured five exceptional farms that I cannot stop talking about. One of them was a microgreen farm, and I was like.
Man, that's so cool. And we're birthing a lot of piglets here.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And that's really intense.
Alex Russell: Yes, it is.
Shauna Perez: And as much as I love the pigs, my friend from Cohen Family Farm said they're gonna reach a teenage point stage and you're gonna know they're ready to go to processing because they start tearing everything apart.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Not only are they eating you out of house and home, like worse than a teenage boy, but they start destroying stuff and they start running and you're doing the pig fit.
Alex Russell: Oh, yeah. Nope. I've chased way too many pigs in my day.
Shauna Perez: Right? You know, you know, you missed the harvest date.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh yeah. They know. They're like, man, I think I'm a week out.
I better get outta here.
Shauna Perez: Right, right. You know, [00:34:00] they know.
Alex Russell: Shauna keeps looking at me funny when she comes out to feed me.
Shauna Perez: Right? You're giving extra mangoes, extra papayas that week. Like the fruit bowls increasing. 'cause I want 'em to be extra good when they hang and anyway.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I bet your, I bet your pork tastes different than anything like anyone's ever eaten before with all that fruit in their diet.
Shauna Perez: We had a school who buys our breakfast links and they called and said, are the breakfast links precooked? And I was like, no.
Alex Russell: No.
Shauna Perez: And they were like, they gotta be precooked. We're not getting any fat back.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And I was like, what do you mean? And so, I put 'em in the oven and I was like, oh, you're right.
There's no fat back on our breakfast links. That's kind of weird.
Alex Russell: Okay. Go on.
Shauna Perez: So our pork, I think taste has a different flavor profile because like people tell me they pay a lot for pork that's Apple and Acorn finished in the fall, right?
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right.
Shauna Perez: Except our pigs are eating that quantity of produce from the time they're born.
Like at day two, I'm making them [00:35:00] their little chef bowl of hand cut.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Like every mama sow gets her own little bowl. Like the pictures of it are online, but like they all get their own bowl and from, I mean, they have the commercial hogs.
Alex Russell: You've gotta make an Instagram. You could be sending, you could do an Instagram about this like once a week.
Shauna Perez: Okay, I gotta get better at that.
Alex Russell: Here's Susie's smoothie in a bowl today.
Shauna Perez: We should.
Alex Russell: Do a video of you chopping it all up, giving it to her. They would love it. People would eat that up. Absolutely.
Shauna Perez: Right, because now we own the microgreen business. So after the microgreen, like they get all the microgreen mats.
Alex Russell: Wow. That's like after you cut the microgreens off the top.
Shauna Perez: After we cut the microgreens off the top, then there's these mats left, and we do 50 acres of traditional seed in a month at mom's micro garden. I'll give a like shameless plug there.
Alex Russell: Mom's Micro garden.
Shauna Perez: Micro garden, and there's 50 [00:36:00] acres of seed.
We plant a month there.
Alex Russell: 50 acres.
Shauna Perez: 50 acres of traditional seed.
Alex Russell: Now are you in a container or are you literally out there? I mean, how are you doing it?
Shauna Perez: How are we doing the microgreens?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Well we bought the microgreens and partnered with this really cool farm called DeGoede Farms, and they have a hydroponic lettuce grow and they're in the Puyallup Valley.
And they're renting us a cold frame to grow our microgreens in. But we wanted to rent from this cool farm because they have a cold storage facility and they have a loading day for cross docking and all the things.
Alex Russell: Oh yeah. All the conveniences.
Shauna Perez: Right.
Alex Russell: That's awesome. And you're selling microgreens to who? Restaurants and like grocery stores and?
Shauna Perez: Yeah. That's like a whole nother podcast, but yes. That's a whole nother like, I'm gonna run out of time.
Alex Russell: That's crazy.
Shauna Perez: And that, that farm had a different way. And I think what I wanna tell you is Barn2Door. I love my connection with Barn2Door.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And before [00:37:00] we bought the microgreens farm, we signed on with Barn2Door for the second farm, three months ahead of actually closing the deal because our experience with Barn2Door had been so great. They've really like between the personalized farm accountant that meets with me once to twice a week and make sure I stay on tack.
We took the marketing 1 0 1 class, we've taken the finance class, we go to the Barn2Door Connect.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Twice a week to meet farmers all over the nation who are doing like the best in farm. Like we didn't have time to learn how to scale. We had to learn from the best.
Alex Russell: Yeah, right. Oh, that's a huge, I want, I desperately want other farms to hear that. You can skip ahead of a lot of mistakes by listening to other farmers who have recently gone through what you're gonna attempt to do now. And the podcasts and the books and the eBooks, and I mean, all of [00:38:00] that is gonna help you leap across years of frustration. Like I still have friends that are in the farming world that are taking orders over text.
Shauna Perez: No.
Alex Russell: And I'm just like, guys, you've gotta stop doing this. Like, there is such a better way and you're limiting yourself to the amount of business you can do because you're only one person and you're trying to do this archaic version of taking in sales where I'm getting sales in my sleep.
I'm like literally woke up this morning to like orders that came in overnight. Because we have Barn2Door.
Shauna Perez: It, it's because we have Barn2Door. But it's more than just like, someone was like, oh. Barn2Door is such a complete package. It's the farm account manager who says, Shauna, let me help you do your MailChimp.
And every time I send a MailChimp, we get seven more orders that night while I'm sleeping at night.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Right?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: I get seven more orders because the farm manager, 'cause I said, oh, I don't have time to do it. No, I'm gonna walk you through it. I'm gonna call you at two o'clock on Tuesday and we're [00:39:00] gonna walk through your MailChimp.
Alex Russell: That's so awesome.
Shauna Perez: It's like a built-in accountability partner for me and somebody who doesn't let me forget about my business side of things.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. So, I have two questions about MailChimp. One, how often have you chosen to send your emails? And two, no judgment. No judgment. We're all on a journey.
I just wanna know what's working for you.
Shauna Perez: What would be working for me, Alex was if I was staying on the plan.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Staying on the plan is a email a week.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: Because when I send the email a week, we get consistent sales. People consistently show up to the farm and email a week and three to four posts a week are the goal.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. The goals don't always happen, but, if you don't have any goals at all, you're just gonna not do anything.
Shauna Perez: I think the Farm account manager from Barn2Door, was what's important about that. 'Cause like there's no shame or blame that I didn't make the goal, but [00:40:00] they're always there.
Like, hey, okay, minimum, what's the monthly email? Recently they've like, convinced me that it would be okay to buy the marketing toolkit that comes out every month.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Since I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Alex Russell: Just do it.
Shauna Perez: And that was also like the best add-on I've ever bought.
Alex Russell: Yes. Oh yeah.
They're pre packing all this stuff to make your MailChimp look really awesome.
Shauna Perez: Yeah.
Alex Russell: I want to encourage you, because we started doing weekly emails like three years ago, and I've taken, first of all, it's worked a million times better than once a month emails. Like, it's not even close, but I've taken a lot of pressure off of myself and given myself a lot of grace to not have the most professional, extraordinary emails you've ever seen.
I try to keep them very simple. I still try to make sure they look good. And I have other people read them for me before I send them out. So, it's [00:41:00] usually my wife, I also have my mom does admin for me, so I'll send her stuff too, and we just keep them very simple. Not a lot of complex stuff because I know as soon as I try to start writing a bunch, posting, like putting up a ton of pictures on this thing, making elaborate emails. I get really overwhelmed and I'm just like, screw this. I'm going back on the tractor. I'm can't do this computer thing anymore. I'm outta here. And I get overwhelmed. So, if I can just do a simple one section on my email and then I can have like a second section that's just gonna have, like, stuff that we have for sale and making sure that they have stuff to click on.
And then my third section is literally like, Hey, don't forget we have a farm store. And that thing just stays on there pretty consistently. So, I'm really only adjusting a little bit of that section, that second one. And then the first one, I'm either gonna write something about [00:42:00] regenerative, I'm gonna write something about what's going on in food today.
Or I might just say like, Hey, don't forget the farmer's markets this week. I'll just put a little blurb on there. Keep it really sweet and simple, because most of the time your customers just need to be reminded that you're here and you have the product for them that they love. We just all are of the understanding that they are really busy and they've got a lot of stuff going on.
They've got soccer practice and ballet and school pickups and drop offs and carpools and all this stuff, and they gotta cook dinner and all this stuff. If we can just simply tap them on the shoulder once a week with like a, woo-hoo, we're still here. Here's some easy stuff for you to click on to order, then that seems to go way longer than like a once a month elaborate ordeal. You know?
Shauna Perez: Right. We went to this Good Eat Seattle conference and they said, don't you think like we're [00:43:00] competitors? And I said, I don't see it that way. Like my biggest competitor is a grocery store chain. Another farmer is only gonna lift me up.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: My biggest competitor is the next housing development that's buying out the farm down the road.
And my biggest competitor is a grocery store chain where it's super easy to roll into the Kroger's and get everything you need. And it's a little bit hard to buy from the independent farmer.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Right? Like it takes an extra step for our customers and I appreciate that. They take that extra step for us.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: But it's harder for them and they do need that gentle nudge.
Alex Russell: Yep. So, we have grace for ourselves to understand that farming is a very, very difficult profession to sustain. And like only the strong survive. But if we are of among the strong that do survive, we're gonna make it because we can get through the difficulties of farming, the difficulties of the marketing to get to those people.
And we can just find out [00:44:00] rhythms that work for us. And for me, this rhythm of like an email every Thursday, I'm like, I can do it. I can do an email every Thursday. I can do two or three posts per week on social media. I'm never going to feel like it, but I can do it. And if I've got all my eggs in this basket of farming and regenerative agriculture, I gotta make this work.
So, I'm gonna find out what works best for my customers and what works best for me. And I'm gonna do that together. And that's been working for us for every, like literally that popped into my head three years ago when I decided it was all about weekly emails for some reason, for me. It was like, okay, I get it.
My customers usually shop once a week, so I should remind them once a week that we're here. And that's really got us going in a really nice groove with like with most of our customers.
Shauna Perez: So, we work with Good Roots [00:45:00] Northwest, who does a lot of really great things about learning about what do customers do and how often do people shop.
And their recent research says that people are going to the grocery store. The average American household in Washington state needs groceries every three days.
Alex Russell: Yeah, that's so crazy. As a farmer that like doesn't make any sense to us because we're like, we have a year's worth of food.
Shauna Perez: I think that Marketing 1 0 1 class though it was important, like our customers aren't primarily in the county that we are farming in.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: They're three counties away where people pay more.
Alex Russell: Yep, yep. Because the people in your county, they, a lot of 'em grow their own food too.
Shauna Perez: They do. And they know how to can.
Alex Russell: You know, so it's like they don't need you.
The people in the neighborhoods need you. And that's one of the best things about, are you guys doing home deliveries?
Shauna Perez: We are.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Well, I have teenage kids. You know what, it's great teenage drivers, they love to go for a drive.
Alex Russell: Oh yeah.
Shauna Perez: So they do all of our [00:46:00] home porch box delivery and they snap the picture and send it to our customers so that they know their delivery's there.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: Barn2Door's been great with that, 'cause the pick sheet comes out and it has all the information they need.
Alex Russell: Amazing. That's one of the very first things I tell people when they're on the fence about signing up with Barn2Door. I end up getting a lot of calls from, people are like, Hey, I'm thinking about Barn2Door.
What do you think? And I'm like. Dude, just for the pick and pack sheet alone, I would do, let alone they designed my entire website. They can make logos for you. They can do one-on-one calls and coaching with you and they're gonna build you. I mean, just the pick and pack sheet alone saves me so much time and keeps me, I'm a very unorganized caveman when it comes to these things and they keep me organized and on track and I just, the ability to just print off a pick sheet that has everything that was ordered that week and is going out on Wednesday, I was just like, ah, I feel a weight coming off [00:47:00] my shoulders every time I print that thing off, 'cause I'm like, thank God I don't have to go through every order and add it all up and figure it all out. It's a huge time saver, that's for sure.
Shauna Perez: It's a giant time saver.
Alex Russell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. What about subscriptions? Have you guys got any subscriptions going on?
Shauna Perez: Yeah. Shout out to Barn2Door on that again. Can we talk about how much I love my farm account manager.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Again, didn't quite know what to put together and they said, Shauna, you gotta put up a bundle box and subscriptions. Versus selling whole or half or quarter, or eighth of a hog, right?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: We process USDA and they said, you need to do a Farmer's Choice bundle box. And I said...
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: Okay. You need to do a farmer's choice. They said, you need 10 things in your store. I want you to think about what are the 10 things you're gonna put. And of those 10 things you need a breakfast bundle, a farmer's choice bundle.
Those are like non-negotiables. And I was like, uh, I'm not sure anybody's gonna buy that. You know what, everybody buys?
Alex Russell: The breakfast bundle or the Farmer's Choice.
Shauna Perez: The [00:48:00] Farmer's Choice bundle or a breakfast bundle. They don't buy any of my other choices. I should have just gone with bundles.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: And we have a ranch CSA subscription box that's coming out because a couple of other farms have been doing that with really great success.
And so...
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: We're now doing the quarterly ranch bundle box, which I'm super excited about launching.
Alex Russell: What's in that?
Shauna Perez: Well, everybody that has come to the farm to pick up, I always like if we order those double cut pork chops, for example, right? I needed 400 of those, but you don't just get 400 when you go to the butcher shop, you get a few extras.
And so, those top end chef cuts in the farmer's choice bundle box. That's always what I'm throwing in. And they were like, no, you need to do that in a subscription like, we would just buy those all the time. Those pork chops are like the best we've ever had.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And I was like, well the double cut pork chop is the baby back rib and a pork chop.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: They were like, yeah, but I want [00:49:00] the foodie cut. Like you need a foodie box.
Alex Russell: Yeah, right.
Shauna Perez: It's not extra and surplus. It's the foodie box. So.
Alex Russell: Yeah. So, the breakfast bundle and the farmer's choice bundle, are those subscriptions as well or one time?
Shauna Perez: You can do them as subscriptions, if you do as a subscription, we give you a little bonus.
We take some money off 'cause that helps us know that you're gonna be consistently buying.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: So, if you're buying it for just one time, 'cause you wanna know what are all the breakfast choices. I mean, who knew there were so many breakfast choices? Let me like load your bag up with 10 pounds of delicious bacon and chorizo and breakfast links and all the things, right?
Alex Russell: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Shauna Perez: I think we've also seen consumers have that consumer fatigue.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Right? Like they don't scroll past page one of my Barn2Door store.
Alex Russell: No.
Shauna Perez: I could have 10 breakfast choices, but they're never gonna.
Alex Russell: They would much rather say like, gimme 10 of variety.
Shauna Perez: Yes.
Alex Russell: Of these things. There's a small portion of them that [00:50:00] will, they won't like sage or they won't like, whatever. Those people aside, the vast majority of people are just gonna be like, I just love all breakfast things. Please gimme a box full of breakfast stuff.
Shauna Perez: Right. And my kids love jalapeno bacon breakfast sausages.
Like, that's the thing they order every, they're like, mom, we'll load hogs for you if you promise when we go pick up the meat for you that the jalapeno bacon breakfast sausages come back.
Alex Russell: Jalapeno bacon break... Is this a link or a...
Shauna Perez: It's a link. It's a link.
Alex Russell: Wow. I bet that's amazing. I have never, we have jalapeno cheddar, but we've never done jalapeno bacon.
Shauna Perez: Right, okay. I would just say like, but that's probably our most popular thing that you didn't know that you wanted it until you got the breakfast bundle.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. So it takes 'em a little while to try it and then they try it and they're like addicted to it.
Shauna Perez: Right. Okay. And I'm also Alex, I'm not a big fan of breakfast sausage.
I'll just.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Right? But the jalapeno bacon breakfast [00:51:00] sausage, I'm like, I'm gonna cook that up while everyone's gone.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. Technical question there. Is your butcher actually putting cured bacon in there? Or is it just pork belly, like extra pork belly into that? Do you know? Because when we get our bacon cut, we get all these bacon ends on the side and I'm like.
Shauna Perez: Yes.
Alex Russell: Desperate to find something to do with the bacon ends, you know? 'Cause nobody wants to buy 'em.
Shauna Perez: Yes, that's what we do.
Alex Russell: Oh, that's it.
Shauna Perez: That's it. Yes. That's what we do with the bacon scraps that Bradley, so along my journey, I don't have a lot of expertise in this and I think that's where finding experts to help you is so important.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Bradley's an expert at packaging high-end cuts and Bradley was like, Hey, don't waste your bacon scraps. Make it into these bacon breakfast sausages.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And hey, let me throw some jalapeno in. People will love it.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh man. That's a brilliant, I would eat those for breakfast every day. Okay, but I have one question that's been burning in [00:52:00] my mind basically since we started that.
I have to ask you. If you can tell us why you wanna do organic pork, because, that's something you mentioned early on, right? Am I remembering that correctly?
Shauna Perez: You are.
Alex Russell: Sell us on the idea, 'cause a lot of pork farmers are like, I'm not doing organic. Get outta here.
Shauna Perez: Okay.
Well, so far we are following organic practices.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: So we, we're all the way to the point we're ready to certify organic. And the reason why we are following those organic grow practices is our family has some allergies. And when my son was little, his grandparents were super sweet.
They fed him some Costco grapes that weren't organic and he ended up in the hospital.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: He has this huge allergies. So we're really committed to having nothing on the farm that would make our family sick.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And so for us, organic is really because things that aren't organic make my family really sick.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right.
Shauna Perez: And so we don't feed the pigs anything that [00:53:00] I wouldn't eat.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: But I can't certify organic unless I give up their 10 to 20,000 pounds of produce a week.
Alex Russell: Yeah, that was my next question. I mean like.
Shauna Perez: That's the only thing holding us back from certifying the pigs organic is this produce connection.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: And so part of our wonder is, we're hopeful that our microgreens are certified organic. Like we started growing cantaloupe last week in the compost pile because the microgreens we grow cantaloupe for and they sprout it out of the compost heap. And so our wonder is if we get a hoop house going for the compost from the microgreens, am I able to grow enough fresh fruit and veg for the pigs?
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. That's a lot of veg to replace.
Shauna Perez: It's a lot of veg to replace.
Alex Russell: Yes. Okay. Awesome. Thank you for explaining that to us. I was so, so curious, 'cause you know, organic pork is so rare to find, but people will pay extraordinary amounts of money for an organic pork [00:54:00] product because it's like next impossible to find.
Shauna Perez: It's also like double the cost to produce, right?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: The difference between the regular hog food and the organic, I'm paying like double the cost on that.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh yeah, I know, I know, 'cause we've done, we've gone through a journey on our farm of organic feed, non GMO, corn free, soy free, and we've landed at non GMO, corn free, soy free for the egg layers and we can charge a premium for that.
But when we would try the organic feed, the cost became to where I would have to charge like $18 to $20 a dozen for eggs. I'm at $13 right now on corn free, soy free, non GMO. And they're willing to do it.
Shauna Perez: I think this is where I'm gonna have to shout out to you have to stay connected to your network of farmers. Again, Windy N Ranch in Ellensburg keeps pushing on us, right, about [00:55:00] let us help you cut costs.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And you need that supportive farmer friend that's been doing it a while, who can help you. So they, for example, gave us a giant silo so that we can start grinding our own food, and at economy of scale, if I can truck in my own organic and we grind it here.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: The double, the cost difference kind of comes down a little bit.
Alex Russell: Yes. I've seen a lot of farms switching to grinding their own, even if they just, just buying the whole grains and the minerals and everything on the side and mixing it their own, they can make some pretty significant benefits to their margins.
And I haven't made that leap yet, but I've seen a lot of farms doing it, and they seem to really, really enjoy it too. The feed seems like way fresher and the animals seem to be that much more excited about it when you feed it out too.
Shauna Perez: Yeah. I think that there's a definite benefit for us.
I just appreciate that Windy N Ranch is mentoring us through that journey because to be animal welfare certified, we have to have a certified nutritionist sign off on what the hog [00:56:00] fuel the food is for the animals.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And they're helping us with, Hey, here's our certified nutritionist formula.
And then the Southwest Washington Food hub is also a grain hub. And so, we're gonna be able to source everything within the state for the food, which I think for us is like we're farrow to harvest already.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: But being able to source our food from the state as well.
Alex Russell: That's amazing. That's next level.
I love that.
Shauna Perez: That's our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint, right? Like.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: Source everything as hyper-local as we can.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. I know I've said last question like four times, but I really do have one last question. Farmer's markets, yay or nay.
Shauna Perez: I love the idea of the farmer's market. We are pro farmer's market.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: So we have the four of us running the farm, and we have I would say the most incredible network, my parents volunteer to help. We have no paid employees. We haven't [00:57:00] paid ourselves yet from the farm. We've collected zero paycheck.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: And to commit to go to a farmer's market, I think it would be amazing public relations for us.
It'd be a great marketing.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: I think it'd be a great next sales channel, but we...
Alex Russell: You can only do so much.
Shauna Perez: We have put that on my next things list.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And for folks listening, and hearing Shauna say she hasn't paid herself yet. If you are shocked, just realize I didn't pay myself for the first three years.
So, that's very normal and that's one of the things that makes farming the most difficult is that getting into the game of direct to consumer farming is very intense the first couple years and it's like a gauntlet. It's going to knock off the people who were not meant to do it, but thought it'd be a fun thing to try and you will see at the end of 3, 4, [00:58:00] 5 years who's really dedicated to this, but can also survive without taking a paycheck for a couple years.
It's really hard.
Shauna Perez: Like the farm pays all of its bills, which is exciting. Right? But.
Alex Russell: Yes. Wonderful.
Shauna Perez: Yeah, I think I came to Barn2Door and listened to a podcast and when we were first doing this and they said, you'll know you're there when the farm bills far exceeds your home bills.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And they, the kids go to pick up feed for us every Saturday at the feed store.
And they pay the bill for me every week. And they said, mom, dude.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Do you know how much the feed bill was today? They also have to go do all the grocery shopping.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: Because mom doesn't have time to leave the farm.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: So they, the kids also do all the grocery shopping, and they said, mom, that was like the whole month of grocery budget that we just spent in a week of hog food.
And I said, I know.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: And they said, those pigs eat so good.
Alex Russell: Yes. I know. And that was a really hard roadblock for me, when my feed [00:59:00] bills would get so high and buying cattle, it is so... I mean, you're looking at, you know $15,000 for like six to eight cows and your brain just starts to melt.
Shauna Perez: We will have spent more in processing than I spent in an entire year making as an educator.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And I think what's hard, we have the two businesses, right? Microgreens takes me seven days to correct a problem and we get paid on day eight.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Love it.
Shauna Perez: Hogs take 13 months and we get paid on month 14.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Hopefully.
Shauna Perez: And I think the two businesses like strike contrast there.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And it's a hard go and I think it's a hard season of farming right now because we had a pork contract through the hub we were really excited about in January that started for us. And we shifted and we told our customers, we are sold out as we make the shift, we're scaling. So it came at a perfect time for us.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: Right? Because we [01:00:00] bought the hogs at one a month. Now they're having two litters a year. We're scaling at the right time to say yes to it, but we put all of our pork in this contract for January and the cuts for it were very specific and cut in a way that I can't sell 'em out anywhere else.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh.
Shauna Perez: But it's a three year contract for us. It gives us a lot of stability.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: And then, with the change in the federal government, the grant money got frozen. And I think another piece of the puzzle was Barn2Door said, you're not a cold storage facility.
Because I said it's expensive to go buy a chest freezer. Right?
Alex Russell: Yep.
Shauna Perez: It's exp... and Barn2Door, my farm consultant said, Shauna, you're not a cold storage facility. Your problem is in distribution. You need to figure out how to get your hogs through the distribution channel and the day they're done needs to be the day you deliver.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Wow. Love that.
Shauna Perez: And so we have this great relationship, worked out with Windy N Ranch, and they have just enough cold storage to get it all processed and ready to go for me, for this [01:01:00] court contract we took. And it's sitting in their freezer and the contract gets shut down and I've put my entire month, until I get paid for that pork in January, we can't make a mortgage.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: We can't buy hog food.
Alex Russell: Feed bill.
Shauna Perez: I can't pay the cut and wrap bill. It backs up because then I can't pay the USDA harvest facility. And until you pay your harvest facility bill, you can't schedule your next harvest date. Right? So, all of a sudden my world comes to a screeching halt because we gave up, like you said earlier in the podcast, you said, who are your customers?
And I would tell you we had a, a really like, nice.
Alex Russell: Now I understand why that was such a complicated question to answer.
Shauna Perez: We had this nice setup, like my retail customers pay us before they pick up, so I can pay my, like, their bill for them, right?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Their bill pays my processing fee. Well, we took a gamble and said, you know, a three year contract would be great.
And it wasn't because we couldn't pay any bill in January. And we are way overextended as a first year farmer and [01:02:00] I've had to say thank you to everybody this month who has like gotten us through because the USDA facility said, you've never been late. If your issue is this grant, we're gonna go ahead and say, okay, we'll extend you credit for 15 days.
Alex Russell: Wow. Wow.
Shauna Perez: But like, I think it's made us really think about farming and like, do you say yes to that contract?
Alex Russell: Right? Tough. Tough because that's a very tantalizing offer. To have a three year contract and you kind of just have, all you gotta do is grow the food now.
Shauna Perez: Well, we grow the food and then we still worry.
Like I said earlier to you, like, if I'm doing 200 cuts, I know I'm gonna have a little bit extra. And the little bit extra allowed us to keep our loyal customers, right?
Alex Russell: Yes. Right, right.
Shauna Perez: But it didn't allow us to keep, like we had to give up some things. Like we gave up, we have a retail co-op that we were doing some really great business through, or we have a farm stand store that we were doing great business through.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Through another farm. And we had to give some of that up [01:03:00] to say yes. And we'll see how it pans out.
Alex Russell: So, you're still in the middle of it right now?
Shauna Perez: We're recovering from it.
Yeah.
Because it delayed everything. So, it got us behind for the first time in 25 years of marriage that we've ever been behind on a bill.
Alex Russell: Yep. Right. Yes.
Shauna Perez: And because we're behind. Then that takes you a bit. And we also qualify for no farm help.
Like we don't qualify for a farm loan.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: We've maxed out all of our personal loans... Like any personal way I had, it's all max.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: And thank goodness our kids are teenagers who are like super understanding and.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Shauna Perez: We have a network of great people, but farming's hard and.
Alex Russell: Absolutely, absolutely.
Shauna Perez: Farming's hard.
Alex Russell: You're in the testing grounds right now in the thick of it.
Shauna Perez: I mean, farming's so hard that my mom, who's 70 is driving 600 miles for me today to make deliveries so that.
Alex Russell: Wow.
Shauna Perez: We don't have to pay somebody. But she's dropping off pork, she's picking up [01:04:00] pork. She's going to the walk-in cooler tonight that we've rented because we don't have any of that here 'cause of the regulations.
So we rent a walk-in when we need one.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Right.
Shauna Perez: But my 70-year-old mom's helping us out 'cause we literally can't afford to hire anybody yet.
Alex Russell: What a saint. Yeah.
Shauna Perez: Like, bless her, like it's her third trip this month.
Alex Russell: Wow. What a savior. That's amazing.
Shauna Perez: Without our network of people who've stepped up that I wouldn't have asked to step up, we wouldn't be successful today.
Alex Russell: Yeah, absolutely. So you're still waiting for this contract to go through? Or have you given it up and you're gonna try to sell the pork somewhere else?
Shauna Perez: They've said, whatever the grant comes and goes, we're gonna go ahead and fund it.
There's 35 other farmers in the same boat with me.
Alex Russell: Wow. Yeah.
Shauna Perez: From the hub. And props to the organization that's buying from us as farmers and they've just said, we're not gonna make you ride this rollercoaster. We're gonna just make sure we fund it.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Shauna Perez: And we actually don't drop off pork for 10 more days. And they called today to say, go ahead and invoice us. We'll make sure you get paid. We know you're in a [01:05:00] tight spot.
Alex Russell: Wow. Oh, that's amazing. Wow.
Shauna Perez: So, I didn't realize when I was at the bank, like trying to deposit the check from the last time that they were there.
Like hearing my farmer, like, because we were late, the bank put a 15 day hold on my deposit.
Alex Russell: Thank you for your honesty and your openness and giving people a view into real farm life, real farm experience, being an entrepreneur, going out on your own, taking the risk.
This is the kind of stuff that we've all run into. Not exactly your case and my situations are different than yours. You have no idea what kind of curve balls farming is gonna throw at you, but it will throw curve balls that you can be sure of. And there will be challenges. I mean, my cows were out this morning, like they were all over the place.
Wherever they weren't supposed to be, they all decided to scatter in different directions and go there. And [01:06:00] that's farm life. Like, this is what's gonna happen. You can prepare as best as possible, but crazy stuff is gonna happen. And, I think your sharing your story is gonna give a lot of courage to other people who are like, feel like they're trudging through the mud right now because farming is a challenge, but the reward of getting to live this life and getting to grow, that's what we have to think of, right?
When we're in the thick of it. It's like I always have this view, I have a pretend friend and I pretend that, let's call him Steve. Steve is in a cubicle right now working for a marketing agency that he doesn't care about. And that could be me, or I could be here doing what I love, connecting with the passion, connecting with my calling. And even though today sucks, I'm still happy that I'm [01:07:00] here and not there.
Shauna Perez: I completely agree with you. I would not trade the life we had before we bought the farm for the farm life we have now.
Alex Russell: Yeah, that's beautiful.
Shauna Perez: Even given anything, any struggle we have, this life is the probably the most incredible gift I could ever be given.
Alex Russell: Yep. Absolutely. It's, it is a lifestyle worth fighting for. Even in its worst days and its toughest days, you'll have some days that you just are like euphoric. I had such a fun time talking with you and it was so great to meet you and I just really appreciate the time that you took to do this podcast with me today.
Shauna Perez: I am humbled that you took the time to have a Farm moment and connect. Thanks.
Alex Russell: Yeah, you're welcome. I love it. I wanna extend my thanks to Shauna for joining me on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of what she's doing on her farm at Sasquatch Family Farms on [01:08:00] Instagram. Barn2Door is humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country to help them access more customers, increase their sales, and save time on their business.
Sasquatch Family Farms in Washington and my farm, Chucktown Acres in South Carolina both benefit from partnering with Barn2Door, not only from the software and not only being able to cut out the middleman, but also making it very, very easy for our customers to shop with us. It Barn2Door takes the friction out of the relationship with shopping for your customers, being able to offer home delivery and pickup locations within like a click or two on their computer or their phone makes a huge difference. And also, Barn2Door offers one-on-one coaching with your account manager. And so, if you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or you are transitioning to [01:09:00] selling direct, or you simply wanna streamline your business management, you can check out Barn2Door today.
Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to seeing you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [01:10:00] time.