Thursday, July 14, 2011

New Enterprises for Next Year

We are starting the process of evaluating possible enterprise additions to Omache Farm for next year.  We'd love to hear some feedback from all of our lovely customers, newsletter recipients, and possible future customers!  This way, we'll know that we are setting out in the right direction with our existing clientele rather than taking a shot in the dark, so to speak.  Keep your eye out for paper survey copies at the markets later this season to help us assess our options in these new endeavours.

Laying Hens

We have heard hundreds of times from people that they want to buy local, pastured eggs.  Current egg vendors appear to sell out every market and we know that there is certainly room for another producer in the market.  We'd like to hear from you as far as what you'd like available for eggs.  Dozens? half- dozens?  Egg shares done CSA style?  White? Brown? is fertilization important to any of our customers?  Are there any restraunts out there who would be interested in purchasing eggs?  What kinds of price points are families and businesses willing to purchase at?  All of these questions have a large potential impact on how we go about this business and whether or not we can rovide a sustainable business model while still finding ourselves capable of serving folks that may not have a large food budget available.

Pigs

We;ve noticed a very short supply of publicly available pastured pork available in the area.  We're positive there are plenty of backyard herds out there that are providing a few porks for friends and family and such, but we've also heard desires from our farmer's market customers for more pork.  We think that pigs could play a great role in the diversity of our farm but we would like to hear from our potential customers, familys and restaraunts alike, as to what they might be looking for.  We know availability of cuts is always a popular request. Tell us more about your timing desires, if you'd like whole carcasses or just halves available, prices you might be willing to pay, and any other things that you might consider when deciding what pork products you purchase for your family.

As I noted above, we'll be doing some paper surveys later this summer as we have some more solid info of our own to ask about but any comments left here will be greatly appreciated!  We have a lot of work to do in determining exactly how we'd like to market our products to you, our customers, while also creating a profitable and sustainable business model for our farm.  Please, let us know what you think and we'll be sure to take it into account!