Need some input.... Meat CSA.

[Brunty_Farms]

New list...

2 steaks (either rib eye, t-bone or sirloin)
2 packs of baccon
2 pounds of sausage
1 pound breakfast links
2 packs of pork chops (2 per pk)
2 4 packs of hamburger patties
2 cut up chickens
1 whole chicken
1 select cut of chicken (breast, quarters, wings)
5 pounds ground beef
1 pound italian sausages
1 pork roast or 4 ham steaks
1 beef roast
3 dozen eggs
1 pound stew meat
1 Misc meat ( ribs, brisket, shank meat, ect)

 

[ourflockof4]

I think that that list looks a little better. I see where this could get really confusing when given too many choices, and for only a 6 month span. I do agree that the a la carte would be a good idea for the extra's. I think that the misc meats is a good idea. If someone may ask for something special, stew meat, ect, thats a good place to have it accounted for. It may not hurt to bounce your idea off of some potental customers to get there input also.

Are you going to try to do 2 groups a year, or just one? Another issue is making sure that you have a good source for the quantity, and quality of animals that you need. I mean you could freeze some extra's from the first month just in case you fell short in dressed weight another month, but I don't know if you customers would like that, frozen meat vs fresh.

As for price, I can't help you much there, even though we are only an hour away. We currently buy our meat from an area farmer and have it butchered locally, although we are going to start with pigs next year, and maybe a cow. Not many people in this area are willing to pay more for more natural meat.

 

[TimG]

2 quick comments:

- you might consider selling two packages, one that contains premium cuts and one that does not. It's quite possible that not everyone wants steaks. Two packages seems easier than preference lists.

- if you are doing this just six months per year, you should not worry about providing more per month than a family mght eat, they'll just freeze the excess and eat it the other six months of the year.

 

[Jared77]

TimG wrote:

- you might consider selling two packages, one that contains premium cuts and one that does not. It's quite possible that not everyone wants steaks. Two packages seems easier than preference lists.

I agree.

You might also want to see if someone might not want the extra misc. cuts. Maybe let them select that on their check list if they want them or not too. Might help ease some of your distribution issues.

Id float these ideas out to your customers now and see what kind of feedback you get and go from there so your ready go to come spring.​

 

[TimG]

Aren't CSAs usually along the lines of you-get-what-is-produced-this-week? I ask because I wonder if it is necessary to specify exact amounts (like 2 pounds of sausage). The list ought to be more along the lines of this-is-approximately-what-you-can-expect rather than an exact list.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Tim-

Well that's just it. These aren't exact quotes.... just for me to go from, so I know what to charge and what to distribute each week. I don't want to go into this blind and not know exactly what a whole cow will give me. So far it will take 144 chickens / month, 3 pigs, 1 cow, and 108 dozen eggs. So I have to adjust the cuts so everyone gets approximately the same thing. But nothing is guaranteed... and you get what you get.

I'm thinking of just taking at steaks all together and just offering them A la Carte and having the consumers buy steaks when they want.

I would like to bounce feedback off of customers but as of right now we do not have any. This will go into action next week at a farmers market, so we are making sure we have everything down first.

 

[Cargo]

I would love to do this if I could afford it.
I agree that having 2 packages is a good idea.
You could also tailor the packages for feeding 2 people. Then families could purchase 2 or more shares. This would keep the cost to a reasonable level for those of us who have no kids.

 

[cockadoodledean]

Quote:
I agree.

You might also want to see if someone might not want the extra misc. cuts. Maybe let them select that on their check list if they want them or not too. Might help ease some of your distribution issues.

Id float these ideas out to your customers now and see what kind of feedback you get and go from there so your ready go to come spring.

Two packages sounds great. We split a cow with my parents each year and we get a ton of it ground. We go through so much of it & always end up with steaks left at the end. My personal faves are ground, roasts and round steaks (and the whold tenderloin for holidays). Now, I have friends who think we're insane for not getting all of the steaks. I agree on the sausage too, that's a lot of it! What about ground pork and some other cuts? Otherwise, the amount looks great for a month. Good luck

 

[ourflockof4]

I was also debating if it would be better to have 2 different package selections, either high or low quality, or 2 or 4 people. TimG brought up a good point in being that it may be easier for you to provide 2 different packages and make a list that is just a rough idea of what they will contain.

Another thing that I wondered about is are you going to set a fixed package price per month, or a per pound price so the total would vary? If you set your price at $xx/lb and gave them a range of meat weight from 30-45lbs, or whatever, then you counld just divide up the additional so you didn't have a lot of meat that you were sitting on, storing, and trying to sell. As mentioned earlier, costumers could just keep the "extra" from each month to use for the month that they are not in the CSA.

There are tons of different ways that you could approach this, for the first year at least I would think that the simpler you can make it on yourself the better.

 

[ShadyHoller]

That's an ambitious project, and I hope you are rewarded for it.

I've got a question though. I'm sorry if it sounds nit-picky. If you end up doing ala carte steaks (which would make sense to me) how do you get around USDA regs? Or are you going to have your cows butchered in a USDA inspected facility?

I know some CSAs deal with this by structuring it so that when the CSA members pay at the beginning of the season, they are theoretically prepaying for their share of the cow. That way, when it goes to custom slaughter, that 1/8 share of the cow (or whatever portion) already belongs to them, which means the cut-and-wrapped meat isn't going through commerce, so it doesn't have to be processed under USDA supervision. But if you are selling cuts of meat on an individual basis, don't you run afoul of that rule?

One answer, I guess, would be to have the cow slaughtered at a USDA inspected facility, but, at least here in Oregon, there aren't many facilities that will handle small batches from little producers.

I'm not trying to be a pest, just curious for my own sake and maybe pointing something out before it becomes a pain in your side.

Good luck!