The first three years of our expanded processing and local food distribution business have flown by. On the weekend before Thanksgiving in 2009 we had our first farmer call out where we explained our thought on how to make local, high quality meat and produce products more available in Indiana. We had just closed on a processing facility outside of Colfax, Indiana which we knew to be at the center of a healthy food system. At that first call out we had roughly 30 farmers. Just 3 years later, once again on the weekend before Thanksgiving, we gathered with over 200 farmers and supporters alike. We looked back at the many successes of the first three years and looked ahead to where we are going from here. In three years we have managed to…………..
- build an alliance of over 75 farms allowing us to distribute both meat and produce to central Indiana
- provide 20 employees with jobs
- create many msg free sausage blends while getting rid of the chemical salt nitrates and nitrites from our ham and bacon
- rebuild after a fire loss creating an expanded retail space, office space, and value added kitchen
- become federally inspected so that all meats are inspected for regional sales
- complete organic certification so that we can help encourage certification on farms
- open the door to conversations with traditional farmers about planting and utilizing non GMO crops
- despite the fire, meet each financial benchmark set forward in our original business plans
- gain over 3400 customers
Wow, it has been a busy three years. As we look forward in this New Year at a new set of goals we are happy to know you stand behind us to make the next 3 years even more prosperous for Indiana grass based livestock farms and produce farms. Together we are making a difference!