Learn how Farmer Phil from Hopewell Farms scaled an on-Farm poultry processing facility to eliminate bottlenecks, cut harvest costs, and maximize Farm profit margins.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
-
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 into today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to The Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. Barn2Door helps Independent Farmers get a system in place to easily manage orders, payments, deliveries, and marketing so they can skip the middleman and sell local food directly. Serving thousands of Farmers across all [00:01:00] 50 states, our goal is to give Farmers the tools, information, and opportunities to maximize profits at any stage, whether you are a hobby Farmer transitioning to full-time Farming or are already a seven-figure Farm.
In today's conversation, we're digging into poultry processing. I'm happy to welcome Phil from Hopewell Farms, who is part of our Farm advisor network and has worked with us for a number of years. In fact, he helps teach our Grassroots Marketing Academy for Farmers that are using Barn2Door. He hosts office hours for other Farmers helps us test various initiatives and beta projects, and gives us feedback to help guide what to build next.
I'm excited to talk about how Phil scaled from on-Farm processing with only a few birds to third-party processing of more birds to a fully operational on-Farm facility at scale. We'll also touch on harvest day prep, looking at costs and profit margins, and his top must-haves for a smooth processing day. Welcome, Phil.
Phil Bonelli: Thank you so much. Must-haves for [00:02:00] a smooth processing day are so key because, as we got the plant, I know we'll get into it. I don't wanna jump ahead, but there have been days where, like, I really had a sense of dread going into processing day because I was afraid we were gonna miss a crucial element or whatnot. And that dread is gone, and two weeks ago, I had to be out of town, and it was the first time that the plant ever ran completely without me there, which was really cool.
Janelle Maiocco: That is a win.
Phil Bonelli: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: That is a win, and that is not something you get day one. That's practice, failure, learning, improving, process improvements, delegation, all the things.
But boy, that is such an accomplishment. It's really neat because we talk from Farmers who literally are just getting started; ironically, you and I were saying when you were getting started, you started with Barn2Door, so that was at the very beginning. And also, Farmers that are now of your size were, you're essentially at, a very large scale, if that's fair for me to say.
But, like, you have to be scrappy and learn at the beginning. [00:03:00] You kinda can't circumvent the, like, go beat your head against the wall a little bit to figure it out. But just neat to be part of that process through and through, which is why I'm excited about today's conversation, because at some point you had no birds.
Phil Bonelli: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: So what did it look like at the beginning?
Phil Bonelli: Yeah. Well, I was just looking back at some pictures, and I saw a picture of, in September of 2020, I went to a workshop at White Oak Pastures, Regenerating Land Through Livestock, and at that point I'd had cows for six months, and, uh, that's all I had, and it really got me jazzed up about going multi-species, not even from a business standpoint, although that's the primary reason now, but just to regenerate the soil faster because nature's diverse and so, a diversity of species to mimic nature helps you build up soil faster.
So I guess it was probably in 2021 we got the first broilers. I don't know, I might have done 100, 150. I processed them in, [00:04:00] like- a astoundingly long, awful sessions on like a plastic folding table with family and friends helping. I mean, I look back now, and now we do like 150 birds an hour. And, boy, it took to do 75 birds; I mean, oof, an awful, awful day.
So many learnings. So I just processed them here. And the laws they're more clear now. But for a while it was like if you did 1,000 or less on your Farm, you could just do it with no oversight. I think that is gone. But anyway, we just did it, and we sold I don't know how many- a handful.
So this is our third season doing up to 900 birds a day in the plant in a similar amount of time that I did, like, 100 before with a way better result.
And there's been lots of bumps and bruises along the way. 'Cause if you think about it, I mean, running a poultry processing plant is in no way, shape, or form Farming. It is much more akin to manufacturing. I mean, it's really, it's reverse manufacturing. It's taking one product and breaking it down into [00:05:00] components.
But phew, lots of learning. But I'm so thankful we've done it. I would not go backwards. I just spoke with another Farm in my state about a month ago, and they're doing a similar amount of birds, and they spent, I think, $60,000 this year in processing costs, whereas I will spend a quarter of that, and just a little bit more, maybe 22, 23% of that if you factor in my debt service on building the plant.
So, very thankful that we did it.
Janelle Maiocco: Holy smokes. And learnings every step of the way. It's interesting because I'm sure you appreciate you learned how to fabricate chickens, right? Like, that will stay with you forever. And then you appreciate how far you've come, but every step of the way, like, it sounds like you did some third-party processing for a while, which was very costly, and then you have your own facility.
Each of those endeavors for growth was also a net new experience for you to then have to relearn from scratch. And we often talk to Farmers who are like, "I wanna go to the next level," and you're like, "Okay, you [00:06:00] have to invest upfront and then grin and bear it a little bit," right?
Like, you're gonna have to learn. You just can't magically get to scale or growth or where you wanna be. You have to figure it out and run it by the numbers, as you always love to say, and just figure each piece out. The tipping point is a little bit of what I'm curious about.
And by the way, I know we didn't really go through the beginning. You have a Farm in Georgia. It's not really fair of me to not point out the context you're speaking from.
Phil Bonelli: Yes. Well, I'll share the background and I'll, I'll say two things first which play into what you were saying. One is I have a shirt with a quote on it that says, "Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first."
And you absolutely must embrace, like, I'm gonna go in, and I'm gonna stink at something. Like, I'm gonna do my best to put myself in a position to succeed, but I don't know how to run a plant. So I'm gonna research; I'm gonna figure things out. But then I'll try to get good.
But at first I will not be good, and that is how it is. But then Something that dawned on me a couple months ago is that succeeding is just the [00:07:00] opportunity to take on bigger challenges. And sometimes you think, "Oh, if I get to this, or if I do this, or once we get our plant built, golly, everything's gonna be great, 'cause these problems are gonna be gone."
But it just opens up bigger problems. But Lord willing, we're doing two things. One, we're, like, adding in systems and team along the way to make us in a better position to take on challenges. But two, like, we should be growing as individual leaders through what we're doing to put us in a position to take on bigger and bigger and/or harder, you know? 'Cause it's just more problems, but you get better at solving them. And I'm thankful I'm the one who gets to solve the problems on my Farm.
Janelle Maiocco: You get a lot of practice solving problems when you grow a business, so you get better at solving problems.
Phil Bonelli: And that is, you mentioned my, my background.
I was a business banker, so I was a banker that worked with first businesses from, like, 5 to 25 million in revenue, and then 25 million in revenue up, and I did that for, like, 17 [00:08:00] years. And when I started the Farm and when I was processing those first chickens, and when I started building the plant, I was still working an off-Farm job at a bank.
And then it was in April of '24 that I left, and really I spent the first couple months- I mean, a big part of my focus was getting the plant completed. Not just built, but approved, because that took a whole lot of going back and forth with EPD and all sorts of different governing bodies.
Many of which, you know, don't always have a huge sense of urgency, whereas I did because I had birds that were gonna be getting harvested.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, and your friends and family probably weren't ready to ante up on that one. You had too many.
Phil Bonelli: I am glad, like, on poultry processing day we have a crew of, like, 10 or 12 people, and the majority of which, well, I'd say half work at poultry plants Monday through Friday, and then I got my Farmhands, and then myself and, like, my older kiddos.
But it's nice to have, like, a talented labor pool.
Janelle Maiocco: That's incredible. You said you were doing, what, 900 a day? How often are you [00:09:00] doing those days, and are you doing them consecutively, or what does that look like?
Phil Bonelli: Great question.
Janelle Maiocco: I'm asking for a friend, a Farmer friend.
Phil Bonelli: Yeah. Well, it all comes down to raising a broiler, you know; I have several choke points.
So processing was one. I solved processing. I could do A lot of birds in a day. I mean, uh, 900 to 1,000 is plenty, so that's a choke point. So then to fill the plant, I had to get more chicks, so I had to build a bigger brooder so I get more chicks at a time, and then I had to build more chicken tractors.
So anyway, I like to get batches of 1,000 chicks every three weeks because that's how long I keep them in the brooder. So I could house 2,000 or 3,000 chicks in my brooder, but I like to have a little excess capacity in case they bleed over, and the batches have to get together 'cause there's like a storm on the day I want to take them out to pasture or something.
So every three weeks I get a batch; I keep them in there ideally two and a half weeks, get the brooder ready for the next batch. So every three [00:10:00] Saturdays we are harvesting birds.
Janelle Maiocco: Every third Saturday, or every three, like two off, one on?
Phil Bonelli: Uh, two off, one on, just because I get birds every three weeks. So when I get a batch, eight weeks later, first harvest, and then I'll just continue.
We have our last batch of 1,000 in the brooder. They're going out, hopefully on Saturday if it's not raining, and then they'll get harvested later than I would normally do it. But I'm gonna sell out of chicken over the winter, so I had to get another batch in; they'll be harvested right before Thanksgiving.
Janelle Maiocco: How many months off then before you buy your next batch in the spring?
Phil Bonelli: Since I have this brooder, as soon as these chicks go out and the last of the turkey poults go out, then I will get a batch of 1,000 pullet chicks that will live in there over the winter until they get kicked out in March, 'cause they'll be ready to lay, and I'll get my first batch of 1,000 broiler chicks in March.
Janelle Maiocco: Amazing. I know there's a number of Farms I've talked to recently who, like you mentioned, this last batch that you [00:11:00] got, that you do store some in freezers so that you can supply subscriptions year-round, so those customers are always your customers, and you never let them go and want them to come back later somehow.
Phil Bonelli: 100%. Like, this year, I mean, I ran out of chicken basically the week I harvested chicken again, which is ideal for me. And I mean, that is tough. On one hand, like, I have a lot of money tied up in freezers, but I want to serve my customers.
I don't really want to be seasonal. One solution to that is if I... Like, we're trying to do more Farmers markets, more bigger, and the Farmers market seasons coincide with my pastured poultry season. So if it's like, I know as I have more and more and more chicken, I'm going to be selling it at markets, and then I'm still just going to build up a base to serve my Farm store and my subscription customers.
Janelle Maiocco: That makes perfect sense.
You said you started in 2020, and now we're just in the tail end of 2026, and you have grown exponentially over those years in a [00:12:00] relatively short timeframe in terms of scale.
Phil Bonelli: Yeah. And I tell you, I mean, I enjoy growing. I certainly at times have grown, almost too fast because, like this year, we really scaled up broilers, and I noticed that it came at the cost of excellence, and so actually scaled down for about 45 days to change some things in our systems because we weren't optimal and, uh, it's not fun to not be optimal.
So we shrunk it back, and then as I shrank things down, our sales hopped up even more because we were on a TV show, A Fork in the Road, which is on, like, PBS. So it was really great 'cause we cut costs and we got more sales, and then we were able to scale back up in a better spot.
Janelle Maiocco: There's, like you said, always solving problems, always adjusting, always tweaking, always learning, and hopefully trying to embrace that as much as possible and, you know, drink a lot of coffee,
Phil Bonelli: Yes, I do enjoy the coffee.
Janelle Maiocco: That's great. Okay. So help us understand, um, from when you started and [00:13:00] were, just learning how to fabricate birds with friends and family on Farm, what was the tipping point then where from a size, like number of birds perspective where, and demand, customer demand perspective, where you, used then a third party processor which you referenced earlier, compared to at, like at scale where somebody else was paying a lot of money for third party processing, but now you have your on-Farm unit and it's, you know, only a quarter of the price, which is great.
So we'll get into that. But like what actually had you moved from, "I'm doing it myself" to "There's enough birds and demand for it to make sense for me to now use a third-party processor," and what was that like?
Phil Bonelli: Well, a couple different things. One- I was doing 1 or 2,000 chickens, which actually may not quite have made sense for me to build my plant, but I thought it was gonna cost way less than it did.
The initial quote I got was way less, so it's like, "Oh, let's do this thing." A tipping point also was that I had just ordered all my turkey poults [00:14:00] for the year, and I called that third-party processor to go ahead and book my processing dates for when they'd be ready, and they informed me they were not going to do turkeys that year.
So I did not have an option if I wanted to do turkeys. I mean, the closest other place was, like, four or five hours away, and turkeys are big. I mean, I can't put them in my chicken crates. I would've had to have, like, a semi truck or something. It would've been ugly. So it was like, man, if I want to do turkeys, A...
And again, I thought it was gonna be at a lower price point significantly to build it, but it's still fine at what it cost. But then also I wanted the control because, I mean, it's like two hours away, which, cry me a river, some people have to drive further. But it's just very inconvenient to not be able to harvest them on an exact schedule.
Which you don't control the schedule; it's not your plant. So one thing that I noticed was that I need to have, like, a very consistent [00:15:00] size. You know, like, if you can't control the timing, then man, you have some breasts that are three pounds, some that are .7 pounds. So, like, you really wanna be scheduled with your production.
You want to have chicks the exact same age on the same ration, et cetera. And with third-party processing, you really just can't do that, and that's no good. It was a lot of tipping points. But then also, like, now that I have it, I have, like, such a great sense of control because not only can I harvest them exactly when I want to, I can do exactly what I want with them without paying an extra charge, and I can do cool stuff.
Like, I have a grinder, so I make ground chicken. Of all my-- I got, like, 500 turkeys. If I don't pre-sell all of them, we're gonna harvest them the week of Thanksgiving for people to pick up fresh, not frozen. So before, I would've been like, "Ooh, golly, I hope I sell all the turkeys," and maybe I'd have 10 left to sell for Christmas.
But now, I don't even care if I sell them all or not. I'd like to sell, [00:16:00] you know, 300 or 400, but anything left, I'm gonna grind up and make ground turkey, which will be a poultry option for my customers when I ultimately sell out of chicken in the winter. So it just gives you a lot of flexibility, and whatever you think of, you can do.
I mean, I take all the organs and heads and feet, and I dehydrate them into dog treats. I got a grant to build a big composting facility, so we make all of our compost for next year's garden with the blood, feathers, and intestines mixed with wood chips. So anyway, you can just do whatever the heck you wanna do when it's right there on your Farm
Janelle Maiocco: That is such great information.
I was kind of chuckling because I literally made myself chicken chili and had it for lunch like an hour ago from one of our Farmers with the, with ground chicken. I appreciate that you have options for your customers. You actually went from on-Farm processing yourself to not using a third-party processor, and you built your own instead.
Phil Bonelli: Well, I did use a third party probably for like two years. I think it was two years I [00:17:00] used them, and then I might have even done a little bit of doing it myself and doing them. But I did determine, like, if I really want to grow, which I did, I have to do something because, you know, then the like the laws change, and I was doing over 1,000 also.
So it's like, you know, obviously I don't want to sell things that aren't legal. So I did use them for a couple of years, which was really good because when I started looking at... I mean, I was taking notes.
I was like, "Hey, okay, here's what I need to do. Here's how I need to think about things," and I would say there are still some things we're trying to perfect with, like vacuum sealing, that they have us beat on. That we're trying to figure out.
Janelle Maiocco: So help me, like, and I understand 'cause you did a great job explaining, like, why you're like, "I'm gonna build my own," and there's a million good reasons why.
But the two years that you did use a third-party processor, like you shifted pretty quickly through that stage. What was the situation just, like, from a cost perspective? I understand that, like, there's logistics issues among other things, right? I mean, that [00:18:00] counts in, that counts.
But, from a cost perspective, again, I'm just curious 'cause you had mentioned some big variances if I have a lot of birds and I'm- I have my own facility, although your facility's not free either, so you have to pay that off, right? So what's the balance there?
Phil Bonelli: Here's all the numbers, Janelle.
So I think the last year I was using a third party was $10 or
$12 a bird, something like that, to get it all cut up. Maybe it was $6 for a whole bird. But now it costs 15 to get it all cut up. On average, I run the per-bird cost every time we process, which I just take my cost of labor, which I pay pretty good, and then the cost of lunch, 'cause we eat burritos after we harvest all the birds before we piece them out.
Then my cost of ice and packaging. I haven't broken down, like, any ancillary increase to my power bill or my propane bill. That's not gonna be that much. So my all-in cost per bird is, like, $3.50, versus $15. So I'm, I'm [00:19:00] saving $11.50. I pay all in, 1,800 a month, for the loan on my facility and equipment.
And so that would add, if I did 5,000 birds- we'll just not even count the turkeys- that would add $4.32 per bird. So I'm looking at $7.82. So still, you're looking at right around half the cost. And of course I get to depreciate that, and I do other stuff in it.
Janelle Maiocco: I was gonna say, for how long are you paying the $4.32?
Phil Bonelli: Yeah. That's for 10 years. Actually, part of it is five years, part of it's 10 years. But then I use it for other stuff. I mean, golly, I cure bacon in there. Man, Lord willing, I'll shoot a couple deer this year. You can bet I'm gonna make some deer sausage and jerky in that thing.
I mean, it's an awesome, it's an awesome plant. It's, like, fun to use, really.
Janelle Maiocco: That's great. I grew up; my father would bow and arrow deer, and my mother would can it. So we had a lot of venison meatballs growing up, a ton of them. I appreciate that. That's great. [00:20:00] It's neat that it's dual-purpose.
That's like a whole separate conversation.
Phil Bonelli: I will share some things for anyone out there. I mean, I would think a primary interested party is somebody who is like, "Should I build my own plant or not?" Number one, let's say you have some resources where you could do that, but you're really just getting started.
You should 100% not build a plant, 'cause you need to see: do you like raising and selling chickens? I don't just love processing chickens. I wanna raise chickens and sell them, and they have to be processed, and this is the best way. So you need to go a season or two and see if you have the market to do it, see if you like doing it, number one.
Then if you do and you want to continue to scale, I would factor in two things. One, like if there is a great poultry processor near you, and they might cost less than $15 a bird. I mean, I think some certainly do. You need to fully run the numbers, like, look at what you can do.
You could build your own plant, and you could do a better job of getting quotes than I did. You could get [00:21:00] a Plant in a Box, which is a sister company of Featherman, and that is a tremendous option, a Plant in a Box. Check it out. It just comes with everything you need in, like, you know, a shipping container basically.
So look at all those things and then run the numbers and decide. But as I know, like there's a couple other people in my state that have a plant that, again, you can just use for yourself, but it sounds like the numbers they're doing are so small. I don't know if they used a pencil 'cause, like, I mean, you have to be doing a certain scale for it to make sense.
And then it'd probably be great; I know APPPA, A-P-P-P-A, American Pasture Poultry Producers Association, they have sometimes, like, field days where you can go to a small poultry plant and see how it is. 'Cause you need to decide: would I at all care for processing chickens? I mean, again, it's totally different than Farming.
It is a totally different thing. So, like, I looked early on at going in with other guys and building a beef plant, and I determined it would not be worth it because I would rather be the [00:22:00] best customer of my local beef and pork plants and have some clout so I get slots when I want them, and that'd be way better for me.
So, like, look at all your options and run the numbers and decide what's best. So yeah, just look, but you're gonna need to wanna do a heck of a lot of birds and be on the path to doing a lot of birds for it to at all make sense.
Janelle Maiocco: Is it fair to ask what's the minimum number of birds to consider a plant?
Phil Bonelli: Yeah, I mean several thousand. I would, again, I'd just, I would really look at, like, get really dig deep and make sure you factor in all the costs and run that against what would cost you to do it elsewhere. Like, if you're driving three hours and you want to do any meaningful amount, you should really consider it, because, I mean, you have to go there with live birds and crates, then you got to come back.
You got to pick up those manure-covered crates and your clean finished product. I mean, you'd need like a big huge van pulling a trailer. If you're gonna scale up, there's gonna be costs. And then [00:23:00] also, like, what are your business goals? Because my plant only allows me to sell chickens within my state.
If I go above 20,000 birds a year or if I want to sell in another state, I'd have to have a USDA plant. But I don't want to sell outside of my state, and I'm quite a ways from 20,000. And if I'm doing over 20,000 birds a year, that's a problem I'll happily take on.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. Some very good points.
I think it doesn't get said often enough: make sure you like what you're growing. I have talked to numerous Farms where it's like, "I kept growing this thing, and I don't even like to eat it. I don't like to grow it." And that's just, that's kind of miserable. Like, don't do that to yourself. If you're an Independent Farmer, you can choose.
This is the beauty of it, and we're all here to help and support, but like make sure you really love the beef operation or the pork or the poultry, or apiary or produce or dairy. Like, you know, we've had dairy Farmers that we've worked with that turned into beef Farmers over time. Like, choose something you enjoy the [00:24:00] most, right, versus something that you like the least, in terms of the various, hopefully, variety of categories of what you're selling.
I loved your point at the beginning that you diversified for the soil, and I love that that's also really good for business. So just a little separate plug there, but really good point again: to make sure that you really enjoy it and those challenges that come along with it. Well, two things. I wanna mention, make sure that we talk about law, 'cause you're like, "We gotta talk about law." So let's just do that really quick, and then I'll move on to my next set of questions.
Phil Bonelli: So the current law, as I understand it, is, any, animals that are gonna be harvested for human consumption they've gotta be done under USDA oversight at a USDA plant with a USDA inspector there, unless the USDA has given their authority over to the state, in which case a state inspector would need to be there at the USDA plant.
But if you do less than 20,000 birds a year from your own Farm to be sold in your own state, you are USDA exempt, and your state's Department of Ag, you fall [00:25:00] under their guidelines. So the Georgia Department of Ag, they have guidelines, and I mean, they're basically, I have to meet all the requirements a USDA plant would do, as far as my facility.
I basically have like metal roofing as my walls so that everything can be sprayed down. Concrete floors with drains, special ways to handle the water. You know, three-bay sink, plus this and that, all this stuff. And so you work with them, and you get your license renewed every year, so you get kind of like rechecked out.
So different states are different, and some might be easier. I don't picture any being harder. My state is a big poultry state, and my town is the like poultry capital of the world. So I would think my state would actually be harder because they're talking like industrial poultry guys. None of the, like, the boards who are making the state rules, none of them, interestingly, are like talking to people like me.
They're, they're not talking to small Farmers. So you work with your department of [00:26:00] ag, and you really have to, like, get after it because it might not be very clear and apparent what the rules in your state are.
I mean, sometimes you're wading through this morass to figure it out.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I feel like every time you and I do a podcast together, we always do a plug for the Farmer to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, like almost every time. But that is a great resource for Farmers to just ask a bunch of questions, for little to no money of like legal brains in terms of, federal versus state laws around everything from raw milk to poultry to pet food versus treats, et cetera, et cetera.
So, a really great resource: Farmer to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. We've actually done some prior podcasts with them and will again, but they're just, again, a fabulous resource. But dig in. And things do keep changing in the States too, so you do have to keep your thumb on that pulse. Great stories from folks who have also helped improve the situation in their [00:27:00] states.
Phil Bonelli: I had a fun experience where, when I built my plant, I was, I think, the second guy in Georgia to do it, so I knew the regulations better than them because they didn't really deal with them very much. So, I mean, I had this three-page PDF. I highlighted things. I walked through things with them.
And then apparently they changed the regulations like while I was in that process. But the inspectors didn't know, so I got my license. So then, like a couple months in, then they were like, "Oh, hey, we changed things. You need to make this change," which was a major structural change to the building. Like, it was really not cool.
Like, I mean, the building wasn't built to do what I then had to do, and there was no option of grandfathering in. They just did not give a hoot, and my license is up every year, so I had to do it, and it was quite unpleasant. But it is what it is, and you have to walk a fine line of like, "Hey, I'm going to [00:28:00] appropriately push back," but, obviously, you wanna be polite, and you don't wanna be a jerkwad for any reason.
But it's not gonna help your business if you were a jerkwad, that's for sure.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep. But politely pushing back is not always a bad idea either because if you don't, that might not be good for business. There's a, there is a fine line. I appreciate that. In addition to Farmer-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, interestingly, we have at Barn2Door, essentially, Phil, one of about a dozen Farms currently that host office hours for other Farmers to literally show up and ask questions.
We're talking about, at the very beginning, like you can talk: am I a hobby Farmer trying to become a full-time Farmer? Am I like hitting my stride, or am I really pushing to scale? Each of those is such a different series of questions and problems and ideas, and things to do and not do and everything else.
So talking directly to someone like Phil or many of the other successful Farms that we have, talking to those people is just super helpful. 'Cause there's also so many things to [00:29:00] consider, and no Farm business is exactly the same. You're all in different states. There's just different things, you know, to think through, et cetera.
But there are some common best practices. There are truly things to keep in mind for all Farms everywhere as well. So there's some comfort in that, in things that absolutely work for all Farms, and can be great resources. So just wanted to throw that out there: when I'm talking to you too, Phil, I'm thinking about some of the other conversations that I have with Farmers, even around pricing and packaging, and do you putting wings together and drums together and selling the breast separately, or do you do whole birds, and when do you decide what, and et cetera.
There's just a lot to think through. You know, we get really passionate at Barn2Door because our goal is to help every Farmer that is independent selling direct to have the tools and resources and opportunity at every stage. And so we have Farms, to your point, Phil, like if they are using a third-party processor, and they have birds that are three pounds and birds that are six and a half pounds, you can sell [00:30:00] by weight, right?
Or you can price that out exactly, you know, using the Barn2Door. You can literally sell everything by weight if you want. But there's also a time where you decide, you know what? I'm gonna sell every bird for X dollars, a set price. or I'm going to do subscription, which is a whole 'nother level. There's a lot of really neat options, and we've been talking about this more and more at Barn2Door: how do you maximize your profit, right? And how do you keep doing things that you love and make good decisions and try different things, but at a small scale before you go big, and different things like that. So, not trying to jump all around here, I'm it's just really neat to hear the options and the opportunities and, you know, giving Farmers the information to make good choices all along the way to just make sure you've got a viable, lovely business with recurring revenue and profits that are livable and lovely and can grow, right?
Okay, I promised to ask about processing day. You're talking, and I can just picture Farmers in the background going, "Ask him this. Ask him this." So I wanna make [00:31:00] sure to ask: processing day- how did you get to the point where you weren't there this last time and it went smooth as butter?
Phil Bonelli: Yeah. Well, I guess three years of the same crew has helped,
So the key to processing day start the day before. So I have, like, a week before, day before, and day of list in my head. So the week of, I do need to tell the Georgia Department of Ag that I'm gonna harvest birds, 'cause they could show up whenever they want. So I tell them that, and then I do, you know, a confirmation that I have the packaging that I need and the labels.
There's some some very specific rules of labels which do not make any sense, and so I gotta have the right labels. I gotta have the right packaging 'cause thighs and whole birds do not go in the same packaging. And I need to confirm with my labor. I'm like, "Hey, you guys gonna...
You know, just confirming, we're gonna be here this morning." on Saturday. Then the day before, really a couple of days before, I start filling [00:32:00] up these food-safe drums with ice 'cause I have a 400-pound ice maker. That is not enough ice for processing day, so I start filling things up with ice and covering it ahead of time to build up ice.
Then the day before, so Friday morning, we don't feed the birds, and then Friday afternoon we put all the birds in crates. They gotta be in the shade. They gotta be under a fan, and we stack them up at the plant that afternoon. Saturday morning, we get down there at, like, 5:00, light up the scalders, number one.
Your critical things are really at the front and the in the end. It's, " Is my scalder the perfect temp?" Because if it is too hot, it's gonna tear up your birds, and if it's not hot enough, you're gonna be hand plucking. And we have a saying to live by, which is, "Hand plucking is for losers," Janelle.
If you're hand plucking, you have failed. That's a huge waste. So you gotta have your [00:33:00] scholar just right, so your pluckers are just right, and then you got to have some Mac Daddy vacuum sealers and a scale that you can just set a bird on or set an item on, and it knows the price per pound or price per unit, and it is, like, slinging out.
You put it on, take it off, put it on, take it off, and it's slinging out labels. So every single point from killing a bird, sculling it, plucking it, eviscerating it, cutting it up, putting it in packages, packaging, vacuum sealing the packaging, putting a label on, putting it in the freezer. All of these are choke points, and you could be world-class NASCAR speed at 10 out of 11, but if you're slow at 11, then you're slow at all of them.
So you always have to attack your slowest point. Every day you process, you have to get better, and you gotta take notes and say, "Ooh, last time, boy, we [00:34:00] were, we were harvesting birds so fast, but then a bunch of them built up because we were sculling and plucking slow." And you just always, what is the bottleneck?
Attack the bottleneck relentlessly.
Janelle Maiocco: That's beautiful. That's a drop a mic.
Phil Bonelli: I will say one more critical thing if you're gonna harvest your own birds, is that you cannot, just take it from Farmer Phil and experience, you need to have organized freezers. But I do not have a walk-in. I really need to get a walk-in, but I have a ton of chest freezers, which is not efficient.
If you build a plant, build a walk-in freezer with it. But you cannot just stack boxes full of packages of chicken breasts, or they will not freeze. Only the outside will freeze, so you can't go more than three layers deep. So we gotta just spread out these thin layers of chicken across all of our freezers and organize it. The next day, you can't just stack them deep. They're not gonna freeze.
Janelle Maiocco: That sounds like a lesson to learn the hard way otherwise.
Phil Bonelli: Yes. For sure.
Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. And then any [00:35:00] tips on packaging?
Phil Bonelli: Definitely. Like, invest in a vacuum sealer. Invest in a vacuum sealer. You need one that is fast. You need one that works.
'Cause, like, on process, and if you harvest a lot of birds, and you need redundant things. I mean, I have, like, three total vacuum sealers, and if one goes down, I'll be okay, but if you have one vacuum sealer and it goes down, you are up the creek. You're in big trouble. So have redundancies; get great vacuum sealers.
And then I would definitely say, invest in solid labels. The difference between a world-class label and a just ho-hum label is probably $15 a chicken.
Janelle Maiocco: Wow.
Phil Bonelli: So, you get, you know, like, a very beautiful label. Like, why not? It's your plant. Make it look great.
Janelle Maiocco: it sounds like you're doing whole birds, and you're also doing cuts.
Phil Bonelli: Yes. I generally do cuts 'cause I just sell more of that. But I did do whole birds when I [00:36:00] went out of town because it's so much easier and faster 'cause there's less to package. So, like, it just removes some variables.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I appreciate that. Do you have a percent of birds pre-sold at any given time?
Phil Bonelli: I don't have anything pre-sold. That's really cool and everything, but since I am in the business of building repeat customers all year, all during the poultry season, I'm, like, amassing inventory so that I can go as long as possible after the season.
Now, we just found some thighs. We were out of thighs for, like, a week. So I mean, again, I'm gonna sell out
Janelle Maiocco: I love that. What I love about that is it's a good cliffhanger for another podcast on building repeat customers, honestly, which can be done through subscriptions and everything else, but there is an art and a science to it.
So I really appreciate that. Do you have one or two final tips before we peel off?
Phil Bonelli: People love the chicken, baby. And, if you wanna do it in a meaningful amount, unless you have a poultry processor, a USDA processor [00:37:00] within 30 minutes of your Farm that you can get it for $7 cut up or less, I would seriously explore the option of building your own plant if you're gonna scale.
Now, there's guys out there that they've scaled to the point they have to have a USDA processor 'cause they're over 20,000 birds a year. But it's gonna take you a long way to get there. Again, if I got to where I was doing 25,000 birds a year and I either had to convert my plant to USDA or just shutter it and go use a USDA plant, that's fine, you know, I'm getting a margin on 25,000 birds a year, so.
Janelle Maiocco: It's a good problem to have. Thank you for your time today. I want to say thank you to Phil for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more and follow Hopewell Farms on his Instagram @hopewellfarmsga. He showed on Instagram recently; I saw this, Phil, it was so cool. You showed your whole pet treat operation. Great margin product. We have a whole other podcast on pet treats, which is amazing. It's a wonderful way to extend your profit margin, which we're all big fans of.
Go look on his reel [00:38:00] and on his Instagram to get some great more tips from Phil. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, Phil. See you next time
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 time.