2020 made a difference in everyone's lives. What started out as an exciting year for us (plans of moving to the farm and getting to spend time together as a family) changed quickly. March hit - stores were closing, shortages were happening, and people were scared. Joey and I were getting approached left and right to sell our beef. We met with someone to look into starting our own locker, but couldn't decide what the right path was for our growing family. After a lot of late night discussions, and hours beyond hours of research we made the decision to begin to sell out meat to locals in our area.
While we've always sold custom beef (people purchasing a quarter or more of a steer) we were diving in to something we were unfamiliar with. First came the licensing. Which, to me was the most intimidating part. Lots and lots of paperwork and phone calls later we moved the tiniest bit to our goal. After purchasing the trailer that we would use as our "mobile unit" for markets, things started to move a little quicker. We had our first inspection and it went great. You always hear these horror stories of inspectors coming in to businesses, but I was very grateful we had someone who wanted us to succeed just as much as we did.
The last, and most important thing, that needed to be done was pick up our meat from the locker. Trying to do inventory of frozen meat and organize freezers is very stressful. Especially when it's your first time doing all of it. Joey started grabbing the cuts of meat and rattling them off and I wrote everything down. It wasn't how I imagined it would go, but it worked!
Fast forward to the present. We have gained so many new customers/friends, collaborated with businesses, and now we're shipping along with offering delivery! It's wild to look back and see how far we've come in just the year we've been doing this. Picturing 5 years down the road I can see big goals and dreams that I can't wait to share with you along the way!