It's About Time

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December 19, 2020

In one form or another, we are asked the question a lot – “I want to buy my family’s food directly from farmers, what would a family budget look like?”. There are so many variables at play, it is nearly impossible to come up with an appropriate answer. It is a lot like asking – “how much is a car?”. Do you want the car to have heated leather seats, or are you fine with warming them up with your rear-end? Will your automobile auto-correct your driving if you veer into another lane, or are you willing to put down your phone and pay attention to the road?

How much we spend on food follows much of the same thought process. Am I going to put in the work, or will I pay for convenience? I can easily thaw out a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and whip up an easy dinner. If your family wishes to make the transition into ZOE Farms that way, plan on paying $13 per pound for that convenience for ONE MEAL. On the other hand, if you wish to extract maximum value from a WHOLE CHICKEN, then follow along.

A chicken has two breasts, two breast tenders, two wings, two legs, two thighs and a back that they are all attached to. If our chickens average five pounds and we sell them for $4.29 per pound, you get all that for about twenty-two bucks. Here is what that one whole chicken does for us: a family of four, full-size appetites.

Meal 1 – fajitas stir fry using breasts and tenders
Meal 2 – grilled legs and thighs with wings
Meal 3 – chicken veggie soup using the back and neck as a base stock

For twenty-two dollars, we fed our family three times. Compare this to thirteen dollars for one meal and it is easy to demonstrate the cost of convenience. If I want to text message while driving, I should probably pay for the technology to keep me safe. If I put my phone down and watch the road around me, I don’t need that safety feature on my car. If I want to do the work in the kitchen, then I spend the time to save the money.

Saving a ton of time, a family can hit the drive-thru to pickup four chicken sammies, four fries and four toxic sugar-fiz drinks (That should be the lawful name of them :-) for about twenty two bucks. On the flip-side, a family leaving our farm with a twenty-two dollar chicken will go home, cut it up and stretch it into three meals.

In both situations, nearly the same money is being spent. The difference is choosing how to spend TIME. If the line-ups at the chicken sandwich joints are any indication – there is plenty of MONEY available in food budgets. Similarly, our rapidly increasing group of farm patrons tells me that there is a growing number of folks dedicated to giving their families the most important resource they have when it comes to food – the TIME to prepare it.

A Subject in Regenerative Farming Not Discussed

There are two struggles in regenerative farming. One is visible. The other is hidden. The visible struggle is obvious. Small farms like ours compete against companies with enormous marketing budgets, national distribution, investor backing, and public relations teams. A company like Vital Farms has a market capitalization measured in billions of dollars. They buy placement in grocery stores across the country, dominate advertising channels, and repeat carefully crafted messages nationally until they become accepted as truth. For years, terms like "pasture-raised" have been used because chickens were actually being raised in green, abundant pastures. Corporations like Vital Farms practice something entirely different. These details matter. Definitions matter. Transparency matters. Yet large companies have enormous resources to shape public perception. That is the visible fight. It's the proverbial “David versus Goliath” story everyone recognizes. Vital farms packs 50,000 birds in a barn with some doors open on the sides. They call it "pasture raised". They are trading off of the good will created by farms like us who DO IT FOR REAL. The hidden struggle, however, is far more important. Farming is heavily dependent on debt. Equipment, land, livestock and operation loans. Production seasons are financed and insured. Interest and insurance payments become significant cost centers. These payment schedules create a difficult reality - many farms spend a significant portion of their energy servicing financial obligations. Farming becomes less and less about stewarding land and animals and more about generating enough cash flow to satisfy lenders. This pressure, without doubt, changes behavior. It changes the way decisions are made and what priorities are highest. When debt becomes large enough, nearly everything becomes secondary to the repayment schedule. Erin and I recognized this hard reality early on. We decided that if we were serious about building a truly regenerative farm, it needed to be a financially regenerative farm as well. That meant refusing to finance our operations. No investors. No shareholders. No operating loans. No one sits at a table across from us explaining why we should relax our standards to improve profitability or efficiency. It has taken us three years to finish this structure without debt. We planned to construct the bare necessities first, then we prioritized the biggest needs as money became available. It is now fully functioning with ZERO debt. If we have a slow season, we simply slow down rather than cutting corners to pay loans To be clear - this decision has never been easy. Every year, peak production season is May through October, and we barely scrape by. We’ve nearly lost everything – several times. In many obvious ways, it has made our journey significantly harder. Growth is slower when you don't borrow your way forward. Infrastructure takes longer to build. New projects take patience. Expansion happens only when the resources actually exist. But there is a tradeoff that we found to be worth everything. Freedom. Freedom to tell the truth. Freedom to make decisions that align with our mission rather than someone else's financial model. Freedom to reject shortcuts. Freedom to say no. Investing in soil biology, grazing systems, animal welfare, local processing, and employees in alignment with our mission takes years. We remain free to serve the people who matter most. Our patrons. That is our secret weapon. Not marketing. Not venture capital. Not investor funding. Our patrons. Our relationship with our patrons remains rock solid because they provide the financial freedom for us to pursue our mission without distraction. Every food dollar entrusted to our care directly funds the farm itself. Food money pays to keep our mission going and growing, not servicing debt. Our patrons have become our shareholders. They may not own a piece of the business, but they make the business possible. Their support allows us to remain financially independent. We realized a valuable truth early -- the relationship between our farm and our patrons forms the symbiotic financial backbone of truly regenerative farming. As we invest in better stewardship, our patrons receive better food. As our patrons continued supporting the farm, we can invest in the resources to become better stewards. We strengthen one another. The cycle continues. It’s regenerative finance serving regenerative farming. This relationship has created something highly resilient. A farm that answers to no investors. No shareholders. No bankers. We are free to serve our mission and the One who has called us forward into discovering the riches of a food production design centered on healing rather than exploitation. A special thank you to all of our patrons who make this possible. ❤️🙏 Dustin and Erin

Bigger Than Growth

We could make a living if the farm was a fraction of its current size. We are not chasing growth for growth’s sake. We are not trying to become a national brand. We are not looking for outside investors. We are not building this business so that one day....

The Foundation of Regenerative Farming

Every characteristic that makes food desirable—flavor, aroma, texture, color, and nutrition—begins with sunlight. Plants are nature’s solar collectors. Through photosynthesis, they convert solar energy into sugars, proteins, fats, antioxidants, and countless other compounds that ultimately become the building blocks of every grazing animal on earth.

It's About Time

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