Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Yes, we want to support local farms. We all want good food. We want stuff that isn't going to give us cancer someday.
And the hard part is just changing the paradigm for the shoppers because people are so used to just, well, where do you get your food from? Well, you go to go to a grocery store. How do we change that? We have to make it easy for them. And so the home delivery with the marketplace was really the answer to that.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: And I joke we're kind of like Amazon for local food.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: Who doesn't love the convenience of Instacart? What if I could told you that there was something even better? Imagine the freshest, locally sourced farmers market produce and products delivered directly to your door. This isn't just a story. It's a revolution about locally sourced food, starting right here in the Ozarks. Welcome to Duster Mud podcast.
[00:00:46] Speaker D: Today on Duster Mud, we're diving deep into the world of local, sustainable farming and direct to consumer sales with the visionaries behind the little farm store, Ryan and Renee. They're not just partners in business, but in a mission to redefine how we think of food freedom and farming. Stay tuned as we uncover the story of their journey, the challenges they faced along the way, and the community that they're building. One delivery at a time. So welcome, Ryan and Renee. We're really glad to have you.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Happy to be here.
[00:01:18] Speaker D: Ryan and Renee are not just partners in a business, but really in revolutionizing the way we all think about food freedom and farming, which we know are the main tenets of our podcast. So that's where we want to go today. So hang on, here we go. We'd like to start with just a brief introduction of who you are, what you do, sort of a little bit of your background, just to give everybody a chance to get to know you. So, if you don't mind, start with Brian.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: All right, well, I'm Ryan Goolsby. I moved here from Alaska about nine years ago now. Came down with a dream of farming and orcharding. Turns out you can't really grow fruit trees in Alaska. So I came to a place which you could bit off more than I could chew. My brother and I, we started our farm, about a hundred trees, having no experience in orcharding, and it turned out it's a lot more than I thought.
[00:02:16] Speaker D: It's not just planting trees.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: No.
But, yeah, we moved here with the purpose of getting kind of a local food motion going. And eight years later, we actually kind of got it off the ground. That's a thumbnail sketch. Of that, I suppose.
Cool. I don't know who I am. I'm not a farmer. I come from a background of construction, logistics, and that type of thing.
[00:02:45] Speaker D: What led you sort of, to the farm to consumer, this business model?
From a construction background, how do you get to farm to consumer?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Well, okay.
A lot of my motivations are philosophical, big, huge view type things. And when I look at the world, there's a lot of things wrong with it. And trying to find answers and sources to improve it leads me down different paths. And fresh food, local food economy, are all solutions to many of the issues which we have in our society. So from a macro level, that's kind of my motivations. How to actually implement it has been a journey of discovery.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:03:34] Speaker C: Okay, renee, let's turn to you for just a second. Background.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: How did you get here to Missouri?
I've only been here since 2018. Similar kinds of things. I was doing some hobby, trying to do some hobby farming on my land in Montana, and the wind in north central Montana, and the lack of water in north central Montana, and crappy dirt farming.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Fun, right?
[00:04:03] Speaker A: The 90 days, I thought, wow. I was watching all these Joel Salatin videos and all these people on YouTube who were doing things in Carolina, Virginia, and I thought, okay, it's not working.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: For me the same here.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: And I had started to do the fresh food and realizing that we really just needed to eat healthier and be healthier and had gotten involved with kind of the underground of fresh, local food in my area. And so came down here, and everything was green, and it was growing, and I fell in love and moved.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: And that's what I came down here to do, was to purchase more land and do that and get involved in the scene and found this wonderful person.
[00:04:56] Speaker D: So recently, you have changed your focus as far as occupation is concerned.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's actually happened a couple of times because I taught high school English for 17 years in Montana.
[00:05:08] Speaker D: Oh, wow.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: And was raising kids and teaching, and I got my master's degree, like the whole nine yards, and just got really burnt out with that. So I decided when I moved to Missouri that I was done. I was going to do something different. And I'd always been a farm girl. My parents raised horses. And so when I came here, I applied for all kinds of crazy jobs. Cabinetry making, construction management. I was like, throw it at me.
[00:05:33] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: Anything. Let's see what afloat, right?
[00:05:36] Speaker A: And it was a solar company that picked me up. Kind of a weird story there, because I started installing solar panels on a.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: Roof from high school english teacher to solar panel installer. Yeah.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: On a roof on a guy's half my age.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: That's one out.
That's one out. I love it.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: And just kind of worked my way up through the ranks there because I really was a grunt to start with, and too many people in the office figured out that I was smart.
So then, before you knew it, I was running all of the business negotiations and purchasing, and then on the job that I just currently left, I was director of operations for that company.
So really running the show.
So I've got a lot of leadership, and having that business moving from education into the business aspect has really been beneficial. It was one of those things where, like, I don't know if I can do it, but look at what I can.
[00:06:39] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Then with Ryan getting the farm store off the just, it was really in sync with what I came here to do, and it's just a beautiful vision. And I thought, yes, let's do this. And it got where I was trying to help him do stuff on the side, and it's gotten big enough now where our needs for what needs to happen in order to really make the business flow is not part time anymore.
[00:07:08] Speaker C: Sounds like you've got yourself a director.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Of operations and then some.
[00:07:13] Speaker C: That's so cool.
[00:07:16] Speaker D: So, Ryan, you're really good at spreadsheets and websites and those types of things.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: I'm really good at picking up random skills on the side.
So, yes, I've spent some decent amount of time on spreadsheets, and this whole business is operating on them right now.
[00:07:32] Speaker D: Yeah, I was going to ask, how does that lead to little Farm store and the business model and what you're trying to do there?
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Well, it's the method, how the information disseminates.
The whole challenge with collaborating with so many different vendors is there's so much data. There's so much data, how the food flows here and the money flows there, and just trying to consolidate it all without me needing to manually do it.
So it just takes many hours of staring at a screen, putting spreadsheet formulas and connecting it and whatnot.
Ideally, it'll be a custom software, which I am working with a couple of developers to get it rolling. But in the meantime, the business still needs to go.
[00:08:22] Speaker D: Okay, that's really cool.
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Can we touch just a little bit on.
You mentioned working with different farmers and all of this information going in and going out.
What is your business model and what is your vision towards that?
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Well, the essence of the little farm store is it's an online farmers market, and it's a marketplace where anybody who is a member can list their products and get access to the logistics to get it to consumers.
So it's an online ecommerce platform where people can check out like any other store. And it's from. Currently there's 45 different vendors on there.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Not all of them are active because it's off season right now, but it's a whole list of what everybody has for sale. And people can add it to their cart, they can check it out. And we do once a week deliveries to people's homes or to different drop points. Once a week, all those orders get disseminated to all the different farmers. And all that food comes together and we pack it and we deliver it.
[00:09:27] Speaker D: We really do love working with you, but we're looking at it from the vendor perspective. You mentioned 45 vendors. How many customers?
[00:09:39] Speaker B: We just this morning passed 500 sign ups.
[00:09:43] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:09:43] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Now, not all of them are active.
[00:09:46] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: So there's probably a regular group of 40 which order every week, and then, I don't know, 20 or so more, which are every other week or once a month or in other ways.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: What's an example of some of your products that your vendors grow and carry?
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you guys primarily do the pork. We've got beef, we've got bakers.
We're actually getting a candle manufacturer coming up. Soaps, lotions, coffee. Coffee.
I don't know, anything which you could find in a grocery store. Turns out there's someone making it locally.
[00:10:22] Speaker D: That's really cool.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Alpaca socks are coming up, too.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Alpaca socks. We had a lady contact us from by St. Louis. No, Jeff city, who wants to. She has alpacas, and that's one of the things she does. She wants to send us socks.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Send the socks.
How fun. Seriously, right?
[00:10:47] Speaker D: That's really cool.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: And just getting. There's so many people that make good stuff, and we know that the best stuff is always made at home, made with good ingredients, and it's just better for people. And I have kind of a passion for wellness and health, and I know Ryan does, too.
So part of this is philosophically driven by the wellness and health aspect, too, is that, yes, we want to support local farms. We all want good food. We want stuff that isn't going to give us cancer someday. And the hard part is just changing the paradigm for the shoppers because people are so used to just, well, where do you get your food from? Will you go to a grocery store? How do we change that? We have to make it easy for them. And so the home delivery with the marketplace was really the answer to that.
[00:11:34] Speaker D: It seems like now would be ripe with the rise of doordash and Instacart and all of the uber eats and everyone is really getting used to. I just order something, and it's delivered to the door. It feels like now's the time.
Do you think so?
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Completely.
People are adopting online shopping like crazy. I mean, I know Amazon has been instrumental in getting people used to that. And I joke we're kind of like Amazon for local food.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: And not to bring up the thing, but Covid did change a lot of things. I started shopping on Instacart because we lived in a place where we couldn't get food any other way for a little while, and so we shopped on Instacart. And I got to tell you, I liked it.
I kept shopping that way even after that.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: The two hour trip to the grocery store every weekend.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. I could even do it at Costco. Yeah. And when I knew that, I was like, we make Costco orders, and I would just watch them shopping because Costco would be, like, 45 minutes drive. And then you got to go in there and do all of this shopping, and they don't give you a bag and boxing the stuff. And getting at the house, and I'm sitting there watching my shopper. I'm just at the house doing my thing, watching my shopper shop. I am being so much more productive this way.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: And then they bring 500 and something dollars worth of Costco things to the door and leave it.
I don't even have nothing.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Just tip them.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: And it was amazing.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah, bring it in.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Just bring it in.
Now, we don't do that here.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: A little bit further.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Further out. It's not an option in nowhere. Still Missouri. Right.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: But even with people who want fresh food, like I said, in Montana, I was involved with some local people there, but there was no way to aggregate that. And so you'd have to go here for this or here for that, or you'd have to catch the farmers market, which is seasonal, generally, which is seasonal. And it's from eight to noon on Saturday morning when all other kinds of things are going.
You know, this idea of let's make it so people can shop online easy from their house. It's delivered to them, and it's shopping. And the problem with, like, a CSA is it's one farm. You get what you get, and that's just what it is. It's a surprise every week.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: Sure. We've done it right, which was great. It was good food, but it was a surprise. Yeah.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: So this way, it gives the consumer, the buyer, more control and more options, and so it makes it more like a grocery store.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: So if I remember correctly, you came up to us at the farmers market, and we came in for the very tail end of the farmers market. The first year we had a product to sell, which was in 22, and we were immediately sold. Talk to us about some experiences with getting different farmers on board. What are some of their hesitations? What are some of the things that really drive them to join with you?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, I haven't seen mint by way of hesitation. Most people seem to be embracing this fairly thoroughly.
The one thing which they may need to give up is some, for some reason, like farmers markets. I mean, I know that they like the interaction with the people, but farmers markets is a lot of work. It takes at least a day and a half out of your week to go and do that thing. And in an established way, once we get going enough where we can be an alternative to that, where people don't need to do that, they still can if they'd like.
But, yeah, it's been highly encouraged by many farmers, which I talk to. They're like, yes, let's get this going. Sign me up.
[00:15:47] Speaker D: And then we basically became partners with you. Right.
It feels like we're in this together right to the point where even we hosted a farm tour where you brought customers out to the farm. And I know we had a great time. We love doing farm tours, and they.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: All loved it, too.
[00:16:12] Speaker D: Yeah. I was wondering if you would share maybe your experience or any thoughts from the folks that came out.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Well, it seems like the folks which are interested in real fresh, healthy food, they want to know where it comes from. They want to see the operation. They want to know the farmers, they want to get involved as much as they can. They don't have space to grow their own, so they want to get involved in that community.
And bringing them out to the farm on tours and whatnot is an excellent way. I mean, it's educational for them and it's helpful for us. It spreads excitement and all those good things.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: One of our things is, if I'm going to grow your food, you should get to see where it comes from. And so what you're doing is you're allowing those farmers, even if it's on a one off thing, one time, a year or maybe two, to be able to bring their customers in show everybody all at one time. This is how your food is being grown. Right. And that is the transparency there is important, is very important.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Guaranteed you won't get that in a commercial operation.
[00:17:23] Speaker C: You're not allowed in.
[00:17:24] Speaker D: No.
[00:17:25] Speaker C: It's probably risk getting arrested.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: I listened to the guy who's down in Arkansas, sewing prosperity.
[00:17:33] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: And he had a doctor guy on who's also doing beef that way. And he was talking to something about that effect. He says, well, he says, if something goes wrong with my food, he goes, I can't go talk to the guy in China who shipped it over here. But if it's the guy down the road, we can go have a conversation southern style.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: That's right.
We're fixing to talk about this, y'all.
[00:17:59] Speaker D: I remember during the tour, we ended up having to walk because we had more people than what we could. We don't have a drive around.
We had just visited the pigs and talked through what they were doing, helping us regenerate the land and reclaim some of our forest to make pastures. And rounded the corner and found a new calf during our tour. Yeah. So the folks that were here visiting the farm got to see a calf standing up for the first time. Yeah.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: It was still wet. It was crazy.
[00:18:40] Speaker D: A really neat experience. I think.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: Cue the calf being born. Right.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Part of it is getting people that are in town out to the farm out to walk out in nature and do those things in addition to seeing where their food is growing.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: Yeah. And people don't often understand farms are out of town.
Wow, you all are really far out. Yes. Because to get a bit of acreage, in order to be able to grow cows or sheep or anything, really, even if it's large market garden, you've got to have some space, and you can't do it in the suburbs or even.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Specifically prohibited in suburbs.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: It is. They really frown upon it. Yeah.
[00:19:23] Speaker D: So with the business model of bringing the farmers market to someone's doorstep, go over some challenges or some successes that you found with that business model?
[00:19:37] Speaker B: I don't know. There's plenty of challenges.
There's plenty of successes, too.
I don't know. It's difficult right now because I'm in the thick of it. I'm inside that box of operating that. So it's hard to get outside of that box.
Freezer space is a challenge. Having 45. And granted, they're not all frozen products, but there's a lot of freezers at our facility. And keeping track of inventory is inventory. Inventory is a constant.
[00:20:06] Speaker D: I know we have a freezer there.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: With inventory and keeping track of what's in stock from 45 different vendors and having the time delay between the order and the fulfillment. Sometimes there's like five days between when someone orders, I mean, up to, what, ten days? If someone orders, like, at the beginning of the window before they actually get a delivery. In those ten days, blister beetles could come through and wipe out the chart, which happened last year.
So it's a lot of flux, a lot of figuring that out, but it.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: Requires some flexibility on the consumer's.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: So there's some education that has to go into that. This is what it really looks like.
[00:20:53] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: And it's educational for them, too. Showing what actually happens on farms. There are crop failures.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Yes, there are. Whether it's blister beetles or coyotes, what livestock thinks can happen, or somebody will.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Predict that they have x number of years of corn coming available. So we put that on the store, and then, oh, they didn't quite ripen in time.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: Now what?
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Right. So there's some of that, but building in, as we get bigger, building in redundancies between producers will help with that.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Then there'll be more sources for the chart. And whether some gets destroyed or not, there will be others.
I don't know. I think every vendor coming in is a success. Expanding the amount of available product is a success. Every customer who signs up is a success because it's validating the concept that people want this.
[00:21:58] Speaker D: How long have you been doing this?
Let's gauge this success. 500 customers.
How long?
[00:22:06] Speaker A: June of 22.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: So we officially started. We've been moving towards it. Before we opened the grocery, I operated a farm to table restaurant for a time and was doing a similar thing, drawing in from farms and doing a farm to table experience. That was challenging because restaurants are challenging, and I'm done doing restaurants. I've learned my lesson, but it was still satisfying working with the farmers.
But, yeah, it's been maybe a year and a half for what we've been doing.
[00:22:40] Speaker D: So we joined you.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: You were one of the first, right at the beginning.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: Oh, I remember. I called you, and you're like, wow, I've only been doing this for, like, this is my 16th week.
Let's be patient. Well, us too.
[00:22:53] Speaker D: Yeah, right.
[00:22:54] Speaker C: We've been doing this for about 20 minutes, so you be patient with us, and we'll all get there.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: That first summer, we went to a couple of different farmers markets and just hit up people, and this is what we're doing. Are you interested? And that was how we got some of our first people.
[00:23:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Gaining traction. Are there any models around the country that you're following?
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:16] Speaker C: What location are they in?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: They're mostly along the coast.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Where there's a high density of population, which is a much more ready market.
Yeah, it's mostly along the coasts, which are doing this type of thing. I mean, there are other online services.
So, I mean, there's the mail. Have all the produce shipped to you. I've not heard much positivity on those. Because of the shipping, things get beat up. There's a lot of material waste in the packaging.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Oh, there's so much.
We will and do ship frozen meats to customers around the country.
It is not easy. The logistics on shipping cold or frozen food is hard.
[00:24:05] Speaker D: I assume fresh would be even worse as difficult or more. And you're right, there's a lot of packaging materials.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: And it's expensive.
[00:24:16] Speaker D: Yeah, it's expensive. And it requires us to have cardboard containers and the insulative material and the frozen gel packs and, oh, we forgot to freeze gel packs.
[00:24:30] Speaker C: And then you worry, is it going.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: To get there okay?
[00:24:33] Speaker C: Is it going to get there okay? Is it too hot outside? You sent it two day air. How much did that cost in the two day air? Did they actually get it there in two days or was it two and a half?
[00:24:43] Speaker D: And was it four years?
[00:24:45] Speaker C: We've had failures.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: It gets expensive for you.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Yes, very expensive. And the problem in the world today in 2024, is Amazon has spoiled everyone to free shipping and free delivery.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: And it's not free.
[00:25:02] Speaker C: And it's not free.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: It's not free.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: And we don't have the ability and the negotiating with ups. We can get a discount through different third party sites, but we don't have the ability to negotiate super cheap shipping on ups. And so it makes it quite a challenge for all small farmers to get their products into the hands of the consumers who really want it. Yeah.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: And supporting small farms is another big reason why we do this.
Know, Ryan and his family started Pleasant Valley farm with that in mind, that they wanted to be part of that and quickly realized that the restaurant and the farmers markets and stuff was just a difficult way to get your products to the customers. And so trying to say, okay, well, what's the solution?
How do we compete with the grocery stores? How do we compete with all these other avenues and get the good stuff to the people and support the farmers so that they can make a living.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Without millions of dollars of investment.
[00:26:04] Speaker D: Right.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Because if you want to compete commercially, it's a go big or go home. But it's go very big or go home very.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:14] Speaker D: So now, in less than two years, you're about to make a shift in your business model, I think. Talk to us about your shift.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Well, we started as an LLC because that's the normal thing to do. That's what's advocated for. It's what. Commonplace.
[00:26:36] Speaker D: Right.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: And being ignorant of many options, I just kind of went with it because I wanted to do the thing rather than form the thing, if you know what I mean.
[00:26:44] Speaker D: I do. We did the exact same thing.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: So going down that route and learning about the legal restrictions on it and the regulations on food and the inspections and this and the that, it gets a lot. The larger you get, the more there is.
So we're shifting over to a private member association, which doesn't have a lot of the red tape over that, and it makes it more of a direct relationship between the consumers and the farmers.
It's a private organization which connects them.
[00:27:22] Speaker C: So let's dive into that.
Not too deep, but let's explain and talk about what a private membership association is.
What are some examples of some? Because until we kind of got into this world, I didn't know what that was.
I'd never considered it. And now our eyes are wide open to it, and I would love to educate people watching and listening as to what in the United States of America.
[00:27:51] Speaker D: Private membership associations, we're forming one as well.
[00:27:54] Speaker C: We are.
[00:27:54] Speaker D: As part of our business.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: And whether they know it or not, there's private member associations, which everybody knows of. NAACP is a private member association.
The bar association is a private member association. So, I mean, everyone is aware of those, but they're not aware that they're private member associations.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: I think the scouts are.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Are they? Yeah.
[00:28:17] Speaker D: One of the most famous legal trials regarding private membership associations, or you'll also hear them referred to as pmas, was during the civil rights movement, when the NAACP was able to hold private their membership roles. Although the government was trying to force them to hand over their roles, the courts held up that it was a private association and their membership roles could be held privately.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Privately.
[00:28:50] Speaker D: So there are some really important cases, even legal cases, for private membership associations, pmas. So what drove you to that here, and what benefits do you think you're going to see?
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Well, the straw broke the camel's back, so to speak. Was yogurt okay? Because yogurt is a product which is common. Everybody who makes dairy, everyone loves yogurt. Right. But it is actually a specifically prohibited product. You can't legally sell it to the public unless you go through all kinds of regulatory things. It's an adulterated milk product unless you meet all kinds of statutes and regulations.
So that was the straw there. With a private member association, it becomes a private contract between the producer and the consumer, and it takes out all of the oversight.
[00:29:51] Speaker C: So it would no longer be a retail sales. It is now a I am a private person citizen selling to you a private citizen. And nowhere in there is it offered outside to the general public, correct?
[00:30:07] Speaker B: No.
[00:30:07] Speaker C: And in order to be able to purchase said product, let's just say yogurt, the person must be a member and a consenting member as to what they're purchasing.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:19] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Because to be a member, it's basically a statement of, I am taking responsibility for my own food choices, and I'm not going to rely on public regulators and public statutes to keep me safe, which they do and they don't.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Considering commercial sword. Yeah. Considering the state of the commercial food production, it's kind of scary if you look behind that curtain, what they consider safe.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And ultimately, it opens up a lot more variety in products from local producers that we can offer people who are really interested in local food and doing that food system and having that regional autonomy in the supply chain and benefiting their health and wellness in that way, too, because we also bumped up against some of the gray area that we're operating in with just transporting stuff.
So cottage goods are legal. Right. That's why people can sell at the farmers market, because it's going from the maker to the consumer.
We had an inspector point out to us that if we were holding any of those cottage goods at our facility so that we could put them in orders easier, that we may be labeled.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Retail even though they're not, even though.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: They'Re not ours, because none of our stuff, we don't purchase it. It's all on consignment.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Right.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: But they pointed out that that may become a problem for us. So we knew at the rate that we were scaling and the amount of interest that we had that you needed to shift. We needed to shift in order to be able to continue to do business the way we wanted to do business and get more variety to people and support more farmers and people doing really great things in the Ozarks.
[00:32:06] Speaker D: So putting on a different hat on myself, this seems weird. This seems is how are you being able to circumvent or just ignore the rules and regulations? This country in the US doesn't even make sense. Like, how can you just say, I'm a private citizen and I can do what I want.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: Well, you said it, because I'm a private citizen, I can do what I want in a private relation, a private contract. Public statutes have no bearing. They don't apply to private situations.
Being a member of the public, you're subject to all kinds of regulations because you're a member of the public. But if you are transacting with the farmer as a private individual, they don't have any.
[00:33:00] Speaker D: So the contract, then your membership agreement form becomes a contract between a business or a supplier and a consumer, taking each of them out of the public realm and placing both of them legally into a private realm, allowing for private transactions and case precedence. Even says your membership forms are inaccessible to.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Well, the only document which is public is the membership application. All of the other documentation, all the records within a private member association is not accessible to public regulators. It is a private thing.
[00:33:49] Speaker C: You do, however, have to pay taxes.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: You're still bound by tax laws and such. You're not completely autonomous from the IRS, United States.
[00:34:01] Speaker D: Some of the things that you see online will try to lead you down that path, that you can become a completely autonomous.
In those conversations you'll see a lot of citizen and references to citizen. And I believe that a lot of those lead you down a path that is a little bit further than what is actually legal.
[00:34:29] Speaker C: Okay, got it.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a deep rabbit hole going down that direction and a lot of controversy about it.
[00:34:38] Speaker D: Yeah, but where you are not a deep rabbit hole. Not actually a lot of controversy, just not necessarily well known.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. And we're still going to protect people's safety. I think that's one of the concerns that people might have is without regulators. Right. How do we know it's safe?
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Well, we want good, healthy food.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: We want good, healthy food.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: You as a consumer can come to the farm.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: You can come to the farm. You can see how it's done.
Meat is still being butchered by a certified butcher in a clean shop.
And so how that transparency is really what's going to create the safety and take the place of the food regulators. And without going too far down that rabbit hole, if somebody were to pull back the curtain, as Ryan alluded to, with food safety, they would be shocked at the reality of that situation.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: I think you're right for sure.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: How commercial chicken is raised, for example, is disgusting, right? How commercial pigs are raised is disgusting.
[00:35:47] Speaker D: Right?
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Commercial slaughter facilities, I'm sure they're sanitary, but they're still disgusting.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: You used to work at commercial dairies I did as environmental, from the environmental.
[00:35:59] Speaker D: Side, I designed and installed waste treatment systems for large scale dairies, like 1200 cow dairies, where the cows spend their entire life on concrete. So I'm fairly familiar with the large animal operations. And that experience led me to say, we will not have a dairy cow on this farm, as you know, we do.
[00:36:25] Speaker C: It is not black and white, though.
[00:36:27] Speaker D: It is not black and white.
I did put my foot down there.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Well, there's no reason to have a black and white cow. The milk is not the same.
[00:36:39] Speaker C: No, it is not.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: They may produce almost twice as much as other breeds, but it is not the same thing. It's not the same, no.
[00:36:48] Speaker D: But yeah, definitely familiar with how those operations work.
The animal welfare is only a matter of what that allows for in production. There's really no concern about the animal itself. There's concern about production. So you take care of the animal as long as that leads to increased production, right? Yeah.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: And my land that I had in Montana, my water was polluted because of mono cropping and fertilizers and stuff like that. So I had a well that I was unable to really use for anything because the aquifer was so full of nitrates and stuff from runoff of these huge farms.
[00:37:30] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: And at that time, I was really getting into some of the regenerative trend was starting back in that day because that was several years ago. But starting to really think about that, how we care for the animals and how we care for the land impacts the quality of the food that we eat. And we as consumers, as buyers, we need to pay attention to where we're putting our dollars to send that message to the market itself in order to make that change really come about. And so that our society in general can be healthier.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: A lot of people might say, this is all great, this is all fantastic, but it's really expensive food.
Talk about the pricing on the really expensive food and what you guys are offering, because that's a premium service as well. And if I said to you, but I'm on a budget, okay, and it is really expensive, and how can we talk about the financial part on the long term even?
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Well, I guess I would start by speaking to my own experience with that, because when we first started this and I was buying food from little farm store, it was like, you gods, this is hard on the wallet. But over time, what I've noticed is I stopped buying stuff I don't need.
So I don't go to Walmart and buy boxes of granola and boxes of this and boxes of that. And so in reality, my cost for my groceries every week has actually shrunk because I'm buying good food and I'm cooking at home and I'm not getting a bunch of the snack stuff. But it's because I chose to put my money towards fresher whole foods, make that change more permanent in just my, you know, that's one of the ways that Walmart and some of these other places sucks you in, is they always talk about shop around the, well, you know, you go there and you're like, oh, well, what's in this aisle? Or your kid says, oh, well, that looks good. And so you throw it in the cart. Whereas when you're shopping this way, yeah, your pound of ground beef or your pork may cost more, but in reality, you look at the bottom line.
Your amount at the checkout may be less.
[00:39:53] Speaker C: So it's a really intentional, it's an.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Intentional habit for sure. And after raising my own hogs and doing some of that stuff, I was like, I will never go back to the grocery store for pork. And listening to some things about ground beef, I thought, I'm never going to buy grocery store ground beef again.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: So it's an intentional choice. And people might have to adjust their lifestyle a little bit to meet it.
But I think your podcast about the big farmers versus the little farmers really hit home on that. And we've done some education, too, to talk to people about what it actually costs to do the farming and to raise local food. But I think overall, the more people that are doing that, maybe we can gain back some of that market share.
[00:40:40] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Is what we hope.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: And another aspect of it is the price, which you get for the pork in the grocery store. That's a subsidized price. There's a lot of externalized cost in the raising of those pigs. A lot of the cost is absorbed by the taxpayer. And so you are getting, yeah, you're paying up front.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: You're paying in a different way. It's just invisible. You don't see it.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Yeah, we're all paying for it whether we want to eat that or not, and I don't.
[00:41:08] Speaker D: Yeah, but you're paying for it anyway.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: And I guess another aspect is the health. With a cleaner, healthier product, you're saving on medications, you're saving on your general welfare, less trips to the hospital.
So that's another savings.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: And it's just better.
It just tastes better.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: Can pork be porkier and bacon be baconier and beef be beefier? It can.
[00:41:35] Speaker B: Well, pork can definitely be pastier stuff, which you get at the stores.
It's not the same. It's not real.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: No. After the first year, I raised my own pigs at home and got those back from the bushcraft. Whoa.
[00:41:52] Speaker D: We had a customer that buys from us all the time, and we had run out of bacon, and it was about, I don't know, three or four weeks after we ran out of bacon, we got a text. What is the water in the store bought bacon?
[00:42:07] Speaker C: Store bought bacon. What is all this white.
[00:42:10] Speaker D: What is this film? White water stuff. And we actually did a little bit of research and found that, well, it's.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: Injected in order to create weight.
[00:42:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:20] Speaker D: With a filler.
[00:42:23] Speaker C: Our bacon is not injected.
[00:42:24] Speaker D: That's what it is.
[00:42:27] Speaker C: And it doesn't pop either. Isn't that interesting? Let's get off on the bacon.
[00:42:30] Speaker D: So, going back to the PMA, what has been the reaction or response to you sort of driving 45 vendors and 500 customers towards a different model, requiring them to become private thinking citizens?
[00:42:50] Speaker B: There's definitely been some education on there because we weren't familiar with it, and there's a lot of questions on how this actually works.
Everyone is supportive of the thought, but requiring more education, actually learning a little bit more about the legal difference between public and private and regulations versus self imposed quality controls and how the whole thing works. There's tax questions, all that kind of stuff, but by and large, everybody is all for it.
Not needing to submit to inspections is very appealing.
So, I mean, all the vendors are in favor of it.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Right. Well, and when we talked about the inspections and some of the things that people think that they're looking for versus what they're actually looking for is different. The size of your sink and the this and that and all the little things that go into the regulations sometimes is like 50% actual health concerns and 50% just compliance. Compliance with things.
But, yeah, education has been a major part of that and will continue to be.
[00:44:11] Speaker C: But good on you for doing that, because the public needs to be educated about what our options are. And for so many years, we're 50, and you don't know what a PMA is, really, why I taught this.
[00:44:29] Speaker D: There were things like, how can that club sell alcohol after hours?
[00:44:35] Speaker C: How can that club discriminate on who gets to be a part of, how.
[00:44:38] Speaker D: Can that club just sell alcohol in a dry county? There were things that would make me go, how is that happening? What's going on here? And so it's like there was always this little tickle back there. Of there is, and I'll use a word that we focus on here on the podcast. There is a level of freedom out there somewhere that I'm not experiencing.
Why not? How do I get that freedom that those people are enjoying by doing this thing that I can't do?
[00:45:18] Speaker C: Because we love freedom. We love it when the reins are kind of loosened or loosed.
[00:45:26] Speaker D: So do you find that being a draw, the ability to exercise more freedom?
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:45:38] Speaker C: Just from vendors or are you seeing it from consumers yet? Do you know yet?
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Both.
[00:45:43] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Yeah. We haven't talked personally with as many of our buyer members as we have to the producers.
You all were kind of like our guinea pigs, but good.
[00:45:58] Speaker C: We like being guinea pigs.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: We thought, well, they received that pretty well.
[00:46:03] Speaker C: This could float. Let's do know.
[00:46:07] Speaker D: The PMA, to be honest, this is something that we've been looking at for.
I mean, we've been doing the farm now we're going on three years. We've probably been looking at a PMA for going on two of those three years. So it's been something that's been sort of back there in the back of our minds.
Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what we gain or know. So it's just been this sort of. It's been hanging out back there.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: And as we all know, you guys pointed out the yogurt thing.
We started looking at it a couple of years ago when we were venturing into the dairy side. That's where everyone's looking at it for. Because I can take a cow and go to my processor, have it USDA stamp inspected and sell it, that's easy. But if I want to sell raw milk, yes, it's legal in the state of Missouri, that's fine, but I can't do anything else to it.
All right. I can skim the cream, but if I shake the cream and turn it in butter and turn it into butter, now it's dol trade, and I'm not supposed to sell it. And that bothered us. It got us researching on the dairy side. Well, what can we and can we not do? Because we're running a business and we're rule followers, we're not going to step outside of what is. We don't want our livelihood jeopardized. Right. We don't want our farm jeopardized.
His military background.
We're going to follow the rules.
That being the case, if we're following the rules.
But what are all of the rules?
[00:47:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:54] Speaker C: Is there a realm out there to.
[00:47:57] Speaker D: Which, if I take one step to the right or left?
[00:48:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:48:00] Speaker D: Can I step into a new realm of freedom?
[00:48:03] Speaker A: And that's what Ryan found with the PMA, because I pushed back on him pretty hard at the initial part of this. It was like, oh, no, man, this sounds like. Because I'm kind of the rule follower, right. I don't want to do anything that's going to get us in trouble. I don't want somebody knocking on the door saying, hey, you guys have messed up. And we're the next.
[00:48:23] Speaker D: Amos Miller.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Yeah, Amos Miller. So we looked hard into making sure that if we set this up, we set it up correctly so that we don't have problems legally with stuff we're after.
[00:48:38] Speaker C: Less problems. Not always.
[00:48:41] Speaker D: Shelley asked earlier if there was a model you were following for bringing the farmers market to the door, and you said yes. Is there a model that you're following for a PMA?
[00:48:54] Speaker B: Well, I mean, yes and no. There are other organizations which do this, but it's primarily individual farms.
I'm not aware of many which are a marketplace for farms.
[00:49:09] Speaker D: So you could be clearing a path.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: Yeah, could be.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: But between running the business, developing the PMA, and operating the farm, I don't have a lot of time.
[00:49:23] Speaker D: You forgot developing your own website.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And some software development. Yeah, there's a few things which are keeping my attention.
[00:49:31] Speaker D: Yeah, I guess.
So, shifting gears a little bit, we have primarily sold pork through the little farm store and are going to start offering lamb and beef as well. So a bit of an expansion for us. Can you talk a little bit about any new products that might be coming?
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Have. I mean, this seems the most common one is bakers. Bakers. There's many bakers and a couple of french bakers. We have croissants from Chef Roland right now. And there's another french chef out in Mountain Grove, which is going to be starting to.
There's. I don't know, there's donuts. Sourdough donuts are amazing.
It's one of the benefits of this, by the way, is I get product samples.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:50:31] Speaker D: Is the PMA going to open that up?
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Well, it goes back to that gray area because cottage law, you can buy baked goods from even home bakers. But can it go through a different facility?
I'm not reselling it.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: You're a pass through or logistics.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: But there is a gray area there where regulators could translate it one way or the other.
[00:50:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: So it will affect it in that regard.
It will make it more secure. I'll feel safer facilitating these transfers without the possibility of just being shut down arbitrarily.
[00:51:09] Speaker D: Right.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And there are some things that they have. Stranger. I say stranger. More regulations for than others.
[00:51:20] Speaker C: Tighter.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
That I think we'll be able to offer.
We have some people that use our commercial kitchen at the little farm store, old restaurant building that make stuff that is good, like the fermented homestead. In order for her to take that into Springfield was this whole series of hoops, that. Expensive hoops. Very expensive.
And really, she said she went to one of the first classes and talked about how it didn't even pertain to her business model.
Again, it's that back to that scaled for the big people and not paying attention to the other 80% of the people who are actually doing the things. So I think we'll be able to actually offer a wider variety of things in terms. Know, maybe some sauces and things of that nature, and perhaps even alleviate some of the fees of having to get a USDA stamp on meat. Because you can go to a state butcher, but you can't retail sell that meat even though it's cut the same. It just is missing a sticker.
[00:52:32] Speaker C: Right. Guy wasn't standing there whenever it.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Right. So, I mean, that'll help the farmers in the long run.
Bring stuff down, maybe price down, potentially.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: And herbal products are another thing, which by and large don't have regulations, but do some.
So herbal products will be able to be available.
[00:52:53] Speaker D: Pick a proudest moment and share that from the little farm store perspective.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Well, the article which just came out in the rural Missouri magazine was awfully nice.
[00:53:01] Speaker C: Okay, talk about that.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: Seeing an article about our story spread statewide, it's been nice. And the phone has been ringing a lot.
[00:53:12] Speaker C: I was going to say, were you ready for it?
[00:53:14] Speaker B: Well, ready enough.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: Logistically, I just thought, I didn't realize that that little magazine put out by an electric company was something that so many people read. And I kind of was like, oh, yeah, that'll be great. And I thought, wow. So, yeah, that was cool to get that kind of exposure, for sure. I think we looked back at this past winter as a big milestone, because the first year, of course, we only had six months in it before winter hit the first time. And it was really skinny and it was like, wow, is it even really worth turning the car on?
And this winter we stayed steady.
[00:53:55] Speaker C: Yes, you did. All the way through. We noticed that that was one of your vendors that you guys, all the way through the winter, you kept. Every so often you needed more.
[00:54:05] Speaker D: One of the interesting things for me, though, was that how having different vendors on board kept everyone's sales ongoing. Right.
We had pork products last winter, and it sort of died off. Like what you described this winter, you had, I believe, some greenhouse growers.
[00:54:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:54:32] Speaker D: And having those on board meant that we were selling pork.
As more people come on on board, how it increases for everybody was really.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Cool to me because the buyers are looking for the same variety that they would get at the grocery store. So if we can provide that, then we're more likely to keep them, because.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: If they have to go to the grocery store anyways.
[00:54:56] Speaker D: Right.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: So having the variety is important for keeping everybody's sales going.
Yeah. And that's one of our focuses also. Luckily, we're going into the summer. We're going into the spring and summer. But this next year is really pushing on the year round production getting, because, I mean, people eat year round, so we need year round food production.
[00:55:17] Speaker D: Yeah, right. The podcast food freedom farming.
It feels like it fits right in line with the little farm store. Could you just give us a word or two about how you feel that our missions sort of align?
[00:55:37] Speaker B: People have the innate freedom to choose their own food. In the commercial system, they don't really have that freedom. You can buy what's presented to you. So there's freedom in being able to take ownership of your own food choices.
That's kind of central to all of this.
I'm less of a rule keeper, I'll admit, but it's something which I feel passionately when my freedom is restricted, when I'm forced to do things arbitrarily with no really good reason for it, I have a visceral reaction to it.
And as I get more into the food systems, more understanding of how food systems work, or arguably don't, I see more and more the restrictions on that, and that kind of makes me uncomfortable. I want freedom in what I can do. I want to choose my foods, and I want other farms to be able to have that same freedom.
[00:56:37] Speaker D: Yeah.
Any thoughts, renee?
[00:56:44] Speaker A: I think that it's about the buyer's choices as well as the farmers and the producers choices, too.
And recognizing that when you start getting deep into the health rabbit holes, that, like you said, you don't have the freedom to choose when you go to the grocery store and what's presented to you, and you have to have a degree in chemistry to read the labels sometimes that knowing that when you turn over a can of jelly that comes from Sweetwater gardens, that look, it's sugar and fruit, how novel.
So I think that that fits in, and then the regenerative and taking care of the land and creating quality of food through how it's grown is really substantial, is part of my passions.
[00:57:38] Speaker B: That'll bring freedom in the future, too. I mean, having a healthful land will bring freedom to future generations.
[00:57:46] Speaker D: That's cool.
[00:57:47] Speaker A: I think people are just a little disconnected from that. They forget.
[00:57:51] Speaker C: Very disconnected.
[00:57:52] Speaker D: How can folks find out more about the little farm store and what you're.
[00:57:58] Speaker B: Doing, go to our website, littlefarmstore.com. We also have Facebook and other social media presence, but the website would be the best place.
[00:58:07] Speaker D: Anything that we haven't talked about that you want to leave folks with or a burning desire? Oh, man, I wish we'd have.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Well, if you haven't tried really fresh food, highly recommend it. I mean, there's the classic example of buying a commercial egg and buying a farm fresh egg and just looking at what they look like and tasting what they taste like. That's totally valid. Same thing goes for any other fresh food type. There's just no comparison.
Well, it's not a good comparison. It's a very obvious comparison.
[00:58:45] Speaker A: And we hope that we get a lot of participation from people in coming out to farms and seeing where their food's growing and shake the hand that grows your food.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah. We have some big plans for farm tours this year.
[00:58:59] Speaker D: Cool. I hope we're on it again.
[00:59:02] Speaker B: For sure.
[00:59:02] Speaker D: Okay, good.
[00:59:03] Speaker C: So, as we've discovered today, the journey to bringing food to your doorstep is full of passion and innovation. And we thank Renee and Ryan for joining us today.
[00:59:15] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely.
The mission that is your life right now really aligns so closely with what is the mission of our life. And the idea of food freedom and farming coming together so perfectly in two different, really businesses is very interesting to me. So thank you very much for joining today on the Destroyment podcast.
[00:59:40] Speaker B: Thank you. We actually couldn't do it without you.
[00:59:45] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:59:46] Speaker C: All right, well, until next time.
[00:59:48] Speaker D: Bye bye.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: See ya.
