As a consumer, I’ve purchased pasture, raised beef, pork, and poultry, direct from farmers for many years. I’ve always felt comfortable filling out my own cut sheets since I’m a nose to tail purchaser. However, my pork has almost always come in packages. I don’t get the fat or the bones. I’m closing on my first farm next week, so in this video is salient. 😉
Wow! Just found your channel. So helpful for our family farm just about to launch direct customer beef and lamb sales from our farm in South Australia! Thank you for your insights.
Just do both. Your 1/8th of a beef package pertains to convenient, city customers. But you can't sell a 6k whole cow to a country person. We sell customs based on surplus live animal inventory in the fall because we don't want to over-winter them. The price discount is made up with less feed and labor costs in the winter. It's a good trade. Sometimes retail sales are good and we don't have a lot available, sometimes we have a bunch available. Custom beef buyers buy other products retail too.
Hey! Seven Sons does very little processing, so this keeps us out of a lot of license and inspections. All of the product is processed by a USDA facility, which enables us to sell interstate. Eventually the USDA asked us to register as wholesale food establishment which does not have super strict requirements. Inspector comes out once every 6mo to check temps of our coolers and freezers.
