The Ranch resilerator for meat-to-market Operations
A Cohort Accelerator to Transform Your Farm into a Thriving Niche Meat Business.
WHO
Livestock producers in Siskiyou and surrounding counties who are selling or thinking about selling direct to consumers or wholesale (grocery stores, food service, etc).
WHAT
A cohort business accelerator to learn how to structure and navigate the essentials of selling and marketing high-quality meat into a variety of markets. This accelerator covers a variety of topics to establish long-term resiliency and increase profitability. Producers entire production team is encouraged to participate in the cohort.
WHEN
*Current Cohort Occurring* We will update when the next cohort occurs, if interested please register.
Following the course, you will have the opportunity to access significant benefits and incentives to support you over the next year as you work through your customized roadmap to make your operation ready for managing meat inventory.
COST
Free to livestock producers in Siskiyou, Trinity, Shasta counties and producers in business less than 10 years from Rouge Valley or Shasta Cascade region. This is provided by CalOSBA and USDA, valued at $1,497.
After signing up, farmers and ranchers will have access to more resources that are offered through the SEDC. This includes online courses such as Five Mary’s Academy Ranch-to-Retail Online Course, valued at $899.00, at no charge.
Additional Post-course Offerings! Upon completion of the course, you will be eligible for one-on-one support from the instructors to help you create a customized roadmap for implementing new practices, and additional one-on-one support from a variety of professionals to assist you with legal, bookkeeping, pricing and logistical issues, and facilitated monthly peer-to-peer accountability sessions.
Topics Covered:
Business structure
Limiting owner’s liability
Managing inventory for income tax compliance and profitability
Managing inventory logistics
Financial risk-management strategies
Labeling regulations
Market channels
Sales contracts
Pricing and product specifications
Assessing profitability
Strategies for carcass utilization and product aggregation
Instructors:
Poppy Davis teaches legal and accounting aspects of farm and ranch business through various programs across the country. Formerly she was a California CPA and later the National Program Leader for Small Farms and Beginning Farmers and Ranchers at the United States Department of Agriculture. She holds a Juris Doctor from Drake University Law School, and a BS in Agricultural Economics from the University of California at Davis.
Kathryn Quanbeck is the Research Manager for the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network (NMPAN) and a meat industry consultant. Her work focuses on supporting the growth and development of local and regional meat supply chains. She has 10+ years of meat industry experience, working in sales and operations for branded meat companies and supporting the development of meat processing businesses. She started her career as a Livestock Economist for the US Department of Agriculture and has a masters degree in Agricultural Economics from UC - Davis.
The RANCH RESILERATOR TOPICS
Session 1, February, Structuring Your Business and Your Accounting
Provides an overview of the critical business infrastructure needs of a direct-to-market meat business. This is the introduction to legal and accounting structures and self-evaluation of current capacities.
Session 2, February-April, Direct-to-Consumer and Wholesale Sales and Marketing
This is a comprehensive overview of inventory management and marketing tools needed to support a profitable direct-to-market meat business. At the end of this session, you will know if you want to work on developing this business infrastructure.
Class 1: Market Channels: overview of the primary wholesale market channels for meat.
Class 2: Prospecting and Discovery
Class 3: Promotions and Sales, Orders and Fulfillment, Inventory Management
Class 4: Selling the Whole Animal, Regional Aggregation
Class 5: Product Development
Class 6: Risk Management, Cash Flow and Inventory Management
Session 3, April-November, Implementation Roadmap and Milestone
This will focus on implementation; it is designed for people who currently have a meat to market business or who plan to start work immediately to develop a new meat business. This session will introduce a detailed roadmap for developing a meat business. After the roadmap, participants will be eligible for one-on-one meetings with instructors.
By the end of these sessions, the goal is that participants can answer the following questions for their operation:
Is wholesale right for me and my operation (farm, ranch, processing business)?
Which wholesale channel will be my primary target?
What is my market position and sales strategy?
Am I in a cash position to enter this sales channel? How will these types of sales likely impact cash flow?
Do I have a plan for how to sell the whole animal?
What is my goal for wholesale sales, how much of my total revenue each year (percentage) would I like to see come from wholesale sales?
What resources do I have to get started? What do I need?
Who are my target accounts in Year 1?
Do I have all the information I need to set pricing? Do I know my breakeven price for wholesale?
Do I have a fulfillment plan? Do I know how to determine packaging requirements and specifications, set order timing and cadence, arrange transportation and create invoices?
Do I have a plan for slaughter, fabrication, further processing, cold storage, and transportation? Do I have these relationships in place? Do I know pricing? Do I know the volume minimums for each service provider to get started?
Do I have a game plan for what to do when things go wrong (spoiled or damaged product, mispicks, etc.)?
Am I going to sell product just from my farm or ranch? How do I aggregate supply and work with other producers?
Do I have everything I need to work with my processor? What are their requirements of me?
Do I have a plan in place to manage risk? Both from an inventory perspective and a product liability perspective?
What systems or software will I use to keep track of inventory?
The Ranch Resilerator is presented through a partnership with California FarmLink, Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) serving farmers, ranchers and fishers with business education and access to fair financing. The Resilerator is a trademark and a program of California FarmLink.