How I Built a Directory of Local Grassfed Beef Farms

The author needed to figure out how to market grassfed beef, which is how he came to make a directory to help customers.

Reader Contribution by Garth Brown
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by Garth Brown
Farmer Holding Farm To Table Box

Starting out in farming is daunting. The most obvious question is what the farm will produce. Meat? Eggs? Vegetables? Fiber? I chose livestock, and in the early years of my farm, I remember the challenges and endless experimentation it took to figure out how best to manage my cows and pigs.

There were plenty of resources I could look to for ideas: books, websites, other farmers. But over the years, I came to recognize a major blind spot I had at the beginning, one that I think almost all new farmers share: I had not really figured out who I was going to sell to.

I had the idea that simply setting up buyers’ club locations in reasonably populated areas would organically bring in all the business I could ever want. This sort of worked, but not well enough to put my farm on the sort of healthy growth trajectory needed to make it a viable business.

I needed to figure out how to market, which is how I came to make a directory to help customers find a local grassfed beef farm. But before I get to that, a little background.

Farm Marketing is a Necessity

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