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The Brownlee Family uses
direct marketing techniques to make more money from fewer hogs. |
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BROWNLEE FAMILY
For eight years, Bill and Denise Brownlee watched feed prices rise
and pork prices fall, wondering all the while how they could make
their Wil-Den Family Farms in Pennsylvania more profit-able. In
2002, they decided to exploit what they saw as a market advantage
– for years they have perfected an outdoor production system
where their hogs farrow and finish on pasture without growth stimulants
and minimal antibiotic use. The Brownlees withdrew their pork from
conventional sales and began trying to market their product directly
to customers.
Given the time commitment involved in direct marketing, they scaled
back their operation from 170 sows to 60 and began focusing on selling
900 to 1,000 animals per year, this time at a premium. Their broad
efforts include developing a meat-oriented community agriculture
project, running a subscription service, partnering with CSA farmers,
selling at farmers markets and grocery stores, selling to institutions,
and establishing an on-farm store.
With help from a grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education (SARE) program to a local non-profit organization
that wanted to test the concept of a community-supported agriculture
project focused on meat, the Brownlees began hosting meat sampling
events. They hoped to capture 100 families interested in buying
annual “shares” of their farm product. For between $400
and $800, depending on their choices, each member would receive
a mix: bone-in center-cut chops, bacon, ground pork, breakfast sausage,
Italian sausage and semi-boneless ham, throughout the year. The
concept, however, failed to take hold.
“We tried to pattern it after how people are used to buying
from vegetable farmers: paying up-front,” Denise said. “For
whatever reason, they were hesitant to commit.” They changed
their strategy to encourage people to buy a month’s supply
of meat in a subscription service and hope their happy customers
will begin buying for a full year. About 40 customers have subscribed
for monthly meat deliveries.
Denise and Bill host meat sampling at a variety of venues. Denise’s
first presentation at a local business gained a handful of customers,
who are still receiving meat deliveries.
A local restaurant featured the Brownlees, a beef producer and
a poultry farmer in a pastured meat tasting. And at a nearby conservatory,
they took part in a “Green Eats” event, distributing
tastes of pork to a well-heeled crowd.
Early successes include selling whole hogs, an inexpensive way
to move the entire animal, to institutions such as a convent and
ground pork to Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa.
Selling lower-end cuts remains one of their biggest challenges.
“We’ve doubled the pigs we slaughter under our label,
but it’s not enough,” Denise said. “We have just
60 sows paying the bills and we need to make more money from those
animals.”
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