Is this the new normal?

Things on the farm are progressing to be the new normal. From March till about July, it was like this on the farm.

400% + of normal volume. So many requests we couldn’t answer them all. Lines to get in the door every day. Being out of stock on just about everything almost instantly after restock. One year wait times to get an appointment at the processor. It was crazy.

Yesterday we didn’t break $500 in the store. That is after restocking a ton of chicken and our normal weekly restock of milk. Last week, I actually had a little bit of raw milk left over. We’ve been rationing raw milk for months. First time I’ve had any real amount left over probably in 2020.

I said back in mid June that I thought we’d jumped the shark. Looks like that was fairly accurate. Our beef processor has gone from a year out to actually having some short term spots on the schedule. But short term I mean within a few months.

Our normal pork processor burned down, so that is bad but not pandemic related. Fortunately for us, I already had appointments at another processor that is a similar distance away. Using a new processor is always a challenge. The first few times through the process is always a mess and product comes back late, wrong, or not at all. Communication with each processor is always unique and it takes a couple of trips to get things ironed out. For instance, the pigs I dropped off several weeks ago are STILL not ready. I don’t know why. I can get a couple of days turn around at the processor I normally use. Well, when they aren’t literally on fire that is. These folks are slower for some reason. We’ll figure that out and plan for it moving forward. Of course we haven’t even seen what the returned product looks like yet and I’m sure there will be issues there so that will have to get worked out with the hogs I’m dropping off next week. We’ll get it. The good news is I was already on the schedule with this other processor before our normal processor burned down so we aren’t scrambling like our brethren are trying to adjust to their new normal.

Our chicken farmer is still doing great. This is the heart of her production season, assuming a hurricane doesn’t drown another barn full of birds. She’s fulfilling our orders, which have slackened as she’s gotten birds into production meaning we are meeting at the middle and fulfilling nearly all of our orders each week. I don’t expect us to go short on chicken at least till sometime this winter, if at all.

Our manager of our dairy farm is going to be down for a surgery this winter, so all of our dairy animals are going to be dried off 1 November. That means no raw milk till about February. Since we already sell just about everything we get each week, there really isn’t much opportunity to stock up for folks, either customers or the farmer. In fact, we don’t even drink the raw milk anymore. Haven’t for several years. There is so much demand that we just use the Simply Natural milk and save all the raw milk for customers. When someone complains to me that they didn’t get all the milk they wanted, they pretty much get this reaction from me.

There is a reason Jeanettte keeps me out of the store.

We are still looking for a reliable sheep and/or goat farmer. We have some sheep coming this fall which will be coming from a much more reliable source so hopefully that will solve itself. If you know a goat farmer that is reasonably close to us, let us know.

So the summary is, product is back in stock and pretty much staying that way. We have a cow going to the processor this week, coming back next week. We don’t have the hordes pulling from a freezers like we did, meaning our normal inventory levels on beef, with the monthly ebb and flow, will be back to the good ol’ days. Pork and chicken will be there to backstop the beef supply, and dairy products and seafood should be able to compliment your choices.

All in all, if you come to the farm, you should be able to get mostly what you need and that is a good thing for everything except the bottom line. Coming off 400% of volume can be a shock to the profit and loss statement. Fortunately, we foresaw this coming and didn’t flex to try and meet an unsustainable demand. Our expense levels are pretty much exactly where they were in February. That means we didn’t capture an extra six figures in volume over a few months, and it means that our focus, our weekly and monthly regular customers, are as important to us now as they ever were. If you’ve been avoiding the store for the long lines and low inventory, now is the time to stop back by.