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Family Farm Beef Box

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00:00

You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Glade at Family Farm Beef Box in Nebraska. Good morning, Glade. How are you? Well, hello, Mary. I'm doing quite well. Thank you.  How is the weather in Nebraska this morning? You know, we are just starting to feel a little bit of that chill, like it's getting towards fall and...

00:29

I'm excited about a couple things  such as harvest  and football and a freeze that's gonna kill all these flies.

00:39

Yeah, us too here in Minnesota. was 41 degrees when I looked at 5 a.m. today. So it's definitely winding down on the heat and I'm so glad because it's been a hot, hot summer here in Minnesota. I don't know what Nebraska was like, but Minnesota was kind of not a fun summer.  Yeah,  we were pretty blessed in Nebraska.  It really was fairly nice and fairly,  we got some rains when we needed it.

01:08

So I can't complain too much  that much, I sure don't have any problem enjoying fall weather. Yeah. Fall is my favorite season, followed by spring, followed by winter, followed by summer, because I do not love high summer.  I hate it.  So,  okay. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.  My name is Glade Smith.  I'm a husband of  one wife. I'm a father of

01:38

seven children.  I am a multi-generational cattle producer  and I am a  leading marketer of breeding stock for right livestock and the owner and  founder of Family Farm Beef Box. Okay, awesome. How many generations back on  the cattle?  So my my grand, it'd be my grandfather three generations ago.

02:06

He moved to  this area just down the road from where I'm sitting. uh He was born in 1896 and moved to this area.  It seems interesting to be able to say he moved here with wagons pulled by mules  over to where our general area. My wife's family, uh her roots go a little bit deeper. She'd be the ninth generation farming on the same general.

02:34

close to the same area where she's from. I've got a ways to go to keep up with my wife. Okay. Tell me about the beef box. Very good. No problem. Yeah. A family farm beef box is a conveniently sized share of an entire beef. It's been dry aged and hand cut and raised right here in central Nebraska. Think of it as just a smaller version of a half a beef. It works well for, for say a couple that

03:01

used to buy a half a beef, but now their kids are grown and they just don't need that much anymore. So you get a nice sampling  of some steaks and ground beef  and roast, but still the dry age quality that you grew to love when you purchased a half a beef. And we do ship that beef across the country  every Monday and work with those customers as far  as allowing them to subscribe  and get a  box every one, two or three months,  or we let them try just a single box.

03:31

And we do offer a little options as far as a smaller package or a more bulk option.  So  that's  what we  strive for with our little beef business  and try to focus on getting to know the people that we're actually sending the beef to. That's  something that's important to us is trying to build relationships with these people. And a cute little story that  from when I started Family Farm Beef Box,

04:00

It's been about eight years ago now.  And honestly, goodness, what  spurred it was  I'd been  farming and ranching  and  we'd grown enough to be able to grow the balance sheet, to be able to borrow some more money, to grow the business, to borrow some more money.  I got  to be fortunate enough that I had quite a bit of money borrowed  and several bad things happened in the farming world.  And I couldn't pay the bank back and I was underwater and the bank told me.

04:27

I say I was fortunate enough because it forced me to grow and learn and be creative in other ways. The bank told me that all the money I made was going to go towards debt.  And so what I did was I told my banker, said, well, I know what better beef tastes like.  And I know how to make friends with people in real life. And if I could use this social media thing to figure out how to make friends with other people.

04:56

I could share some beef with them and if I could get a price that was similar to an ice grocery store, I'd be able to make a little money.  And so that was, that was my whole plan.  And I went from there and I,  didn't even use  social media. I had no use for it, but my wife did. And I knew there was other people on it who used it a lot. And so I thought, well, that's where the people is location, location, location. That's, that's the location that matters now. And so.

05:26

I got online with my wife's social media, her Facebook account, and she let me send out a survey to her thousand friends, which was pretty well received. I got a pretty good sampling. I asked questions like, you could buy source food from a farm for a price that was competitive with the grocery store, would you be interested? Well, shucks, 97 some percent of the people said yes. I also asked questions such as...

05:55

based on your monthly food budget, how  much could you pay for a bulk food purchase?  And at the time, eight years ago,  was 7 % of respondents said they could afford $600 or more. Now, of course, beef prices have gone up a lot, but even back then, $600 was barely, not even really a quarter beef. Right. And so that meant that there was some people out there that could do it, but not very many.  that's especially at the time,

06:24

That's the way anybody selling freezer beef, that's how you did it. You buy half a beef, a whole beef, or quarter beef. That was  just kind of the way you did it, and it still kind of is now.

06:36

But if I drop that number down to two to 300 bucks, I think the response is close to 70 % could afford two to 300 bucks for a bulk food purchase. I thought, aha, well, I got to figure out how to divide this beef up small enough that people could afford a share, but it didn't cost more than two or 300 bucks. So that's what we did. And we called it a family farm beef box. And where I live right here in central Nebraska,

07:03

Custer County, there's literally 30 times more cattle than people. the whole buy local thing does not work very well for the guys raised in beef in my County.  Um, but I knew if I go from where I live to Omaha, Nebraska, and I drive down the interstate, there's a million people in Nebraska from here to Omaha. Sure. And I could, I could meet people along the way and offer this, offer them this beef box. And so, so there I was.

07:32

Underwater with the bank no money left my wife reached into her sock drawer and she at the time she made little baby blankets and baby bow ties and had some little sewing things that she made and sold  She she saved money that she made from those  those little sales and she had a thousand dollars. Mm-hmm. And that was our last money and She loaned me her thousand dollars so I could butcher a beef  and I got on this Facebook thing

08:01

And I had a buddy help me design a website and  I built the website and he helped me make the logo.  And, uh, and I got on there and I tried to make friends with people and, I made my first Facebook post and it was a picture of my wife pulling a couple, like my little kids in a wagon. And I don't remember exactly what it said, but something cute along the lines of, who wants to go for a ride? You know,  we're going to be  running through, you know, like some beef, da da da.

08:31

real generic and my buddy that was helping me who was a, you know, some sort of business web guru fella from Lexington, Kentucky. He told me, he said, you can't post that. I said, why not? He said, well, that doesn't even look like an ad. I thought, brilliant. It doesn't look like an ad. I said, man, I ignore ads. Be honest, you ignore ads too. And so that...

09:00

From that moment, that became my marketing strategy was to create content that was  cute enough or engaging enough that people actually wanted to look at it. So I didn't have to pay them to try to convince them to look at an advertisement, which none of us want to do.  I can't compete with Omaha Stakes. They might spend millions of dollars a year on advertising.  I don't have any money.  So I got to create something that people want to look at.

09:28

So that's what I did. so  we butchered that beef. I spent my wife's money.  And I thought, you know, what could happen is I might have to drive to Omaha, 250 miles one way from my house, and deliver one of these boxes of beef.  Okay, well, let's go for it. Worst case scenario, I sell one box. I have a sister who lives in Omaha. I'll go visit my sister, say hi.

09:56

deliver the one box and then we eat the beef.  And that would be the end of my beef business. ah But that's not how it went.  No, it turned out I sold that whole beef that first try  and I went and I got it delivered. And once you know it, the very first order I ever got on our new website was Mrs. Conkey from Omaha, Nebraska.

10:24

today, eight years later, Mrs. Conkey still buys beef from me. Awesome. And some of those people, those first couple weeks and months, there's multiple of them that still are with me today, eight years later. And so that's the model that I went with. I call it relationship-based marketing. Let's get to know people and then let's serve them.

10:49

you let's do a good job. They've got a need. Let's, let's offer to serve them that need. People like to eat. People like to eat good food. Hey, I know how do that. You know, let's get together. So that, that was our, our start of family farm beef box and kind of,  and, what we, what we offer. then COVID happened. I had dabbled just a little bit with shipping beef prior to COVID.  actually,

11:16

had a guy from a British guy who lived in South Carolina.  And we ended up talking on the phone because we  just connect with people and stuff. And he was asking about this beef. I remember him saying, um you've been telling me all about this beef here and I've got to try some of this. You've got to figure out a way to send it to me. I said, I don't know. You're in South Carolina.  It's July.  But  I knew people did it.  I knew Omaha Steaks did it.

11:46

But at the time it wasn't a thing. There's different places that do it now, but this is before HelloFresh and ButcherBox and you know, like, and maybe ButcherBox was just getting rolling, you know?  But people didn't ship food. They didn't ship beef. And so I got online, how do you ship frozen beef? And I'm not kidding. It was like the one thing on Google that you couldn't find out how to do. oh UPS and FedEx was the only thing that would come up and I searched a lot and it was, you know,

12:14

Well, you do this, some cooler packs, a styrofoam cooler, and then you next day air it or two day air it. of course, UPS tells you to next day air it because if you put $300 worth of beef in the box, then they want $350 just to ship it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I would tell you to do that too if I was owning the shipping company. But I just knew Omaha Steaks didn't pay that much. And so I...

12:37

you know, what do use for packaging? And I started hunting around. I was looking at Omaha Steaks website and there's this picture of beef and in the background there was this cooler. I was looking at this company that made these coolers and I'm looking at their cooler and I go, uh-huh, huh? And I called up the company. said, do you make coolers from all steaks?  I said, yes, we do.  I said, want some.  Turned out there wasn't anything special about them.

13:06

And, uh, and I told that boy in South Carolina, I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you this beef and if it's good, when it lands, you send me a check. I had no idea if it'd be good or not. Yeah. And so I sent it to him five days to South Carolina in July. And I thought, well, I don't think it's going to work, but if it works, I can ship beef anywhere. Yep. It doesn't get worse than that.

13:35

five days in July to South Carolina. And it worked. And it was still good. And the guy sent me a check and he bought several more beef boxes over the years. uh And so  I had started dabbling with that a little bit and then COVID happened and nobody wanted to go anywhere. so the whole,  I had drop sites, I'd meet people and hand them out, but I was like, well, that's kind of off the table now. And so I just went to shipping everything  and uh it turned out it took.

14:03

It took away a little bit of the enjoyment of shaking people's hands and visiting and everything, but it also made it, I was taking two trips a month to go deliver this beef  and,  but it also limited me to Nebraska. Well, now I ship beef all over the country every Monday.  And, um, and so that, that was a little bit of a game changer as well. Yeah. That leads me to another question.  What kind of regulations are you?

14:30

having to deal with to ship your beef.  So there's a couple uh steps. um The main regulation falls on the butcher shop,  not the farmer.  so we do use a USDA inspected butcher shop. And then once it comes  from leaves the butcher shop to my place, it's all wrapped. I mean, I'm not cooking it. So

14:59

I do have a license from the state of Nebraska and I  put it on my wall  and it's not very complicated. If I remember right, it's called an itinerant food vendors license. uh I believe that's the name and  whichever state you're in, it might be a little different,  but they came out. They're supposed to come out once year. I don't think they even come out every year, but they come out on occasion  and they look at my freezers and

15:29

I mean, it's, it's,  I tell people come over to my, my place and prepare to be underwhelmed. You know, it's, it's not fancy,  but, uh, you know, it's, fine. And so we were approved. then once,  once in my history,  somebody from the federal USDA showed up a year ago, I think something like that. And, and I, it's not something that I asked for. He just saw me online and was.

15:59

If you're  kind of bio food terrorism, I don't know, but they,  they came out and turned out I'm supposed to be signed up with the federal government. I mean, there was no penalty for not being like, just said, well, here, let's fill out this form.  And I told them kind of what I did and stuff like that. asked a few questions and there wasn't even any cost to it. but they, so I have, I'm, I'm FDA  approved on some level.

16:27

you know, for, what we're doing.  So it wasn't a whole lot of, um, bells and whistles and hoops to jump through. Good. No, no, no. If you want to have a butcher shop, that's a different story. If you want to cut the meat, that's a different story.  Uh, if you want to take the meat from the, from the processing plant that has,  um, their ducks in a row, you know, then you're talking about following qualifications. Like you don't have.

16:56

chemicals  and stuff where you're storing the beef  and  like, okay,  that's all right.  And uh they wanted a thermometer in all the freezers, which wasn't something that I necessarily had. Yeah. But they're like, yeah, get a thermometer to make sure it's frozen. like, well, look in there, there's ice, you know,  okay.  But

17:21

You know, it's, it's, was, that was something they wanted, but yeah, nothing, nothing at all crazy. You know, didn't have to go build on stainless steel cupboards or anything  to qualify.  Awesome. I'm so glad that it was a fairly easy, simple  solution for you because  there's a lot of states where it's not an easy, simple solution a lot of the time.  I did, I did have my ducks in a row to begin with. When I started, I called

17:51

the state office, and this is an interesting little story. I hadn't thought about this in a while. Eight years ago, I called the state office and I told them exactly what I wanted to do. And I talked to the enforcer fellow for the state health and wellness department, whatever they were called, health department, the guy I would get in trouble with if I violated something. Like this would be the guy that would get me in trouble. This is what I want to do. So I made it very clear.

18:21

what the plan was, I want to take a beef, I'm going to pay for the processing, I'm going to bring it home, I'm going to divide it up, I'm going to send it out in boxes. And I think I told him, like, I didn't know how to ship then, but you know, I asked, know, could we could have the potential to ship across the country, you know, just because like, well, it's a possibility. And so he went through everything we were doing. And he told me, you know, need to follow this guideline.

18:52

Uh, as long as it's packed there,  um, you know, it's, it's okay if you do this, it's okay if you do that. It's okay if you do this. Okay. Very good. And I was golden.  And  I think for the most part, the way somebody gets in trouble with any of these regulations  is  if you make somebody upset  and they turn you in. so I had, there's actually a friend of mine who also sold beef.

19:21

who has come and gone since then, ah who was upset at me because I was selling beef.

19:29

And  I talked to him, I'm like, man, look how many people are in the world. Like you and I don't have enough beef for everybody. We're on the same team. We're not competing against each other.  There's way more beef eaters than we have beef.  But he didn't see it that way, which can happen. And so he was upset that I was also selling beef down the road from him. And so he turned me in.  so,  but I'd already had my ducks in a row. And so the people that I would have gotten in trouble with,

20:00

already knew those guys. And so I had a conversation with them. They talked to me. They literally asked me, Glade, are you doing anything different than what we talked about? No, this is the plan. That's exactly what I'm doing. I told him, you know, that person, he lives down the road from me. He also sells beef. And you know what they told me? And he's mad, yes. Yeah, I said, you know what they told me? They said, well,

20:30

I'm sorry you have neighbors like that. You won't be hearing from us again. Nice. But that only happened because  I made an effort to be transparent and talk to the people I needed to talk to and knew  what rules I had to abide by. And I was willing to do that.  Okay, cool. um So I have other questions and we've been talking for probably a little over 15 minutes. So  we have 15 minutes left.

21:00

When you're talking about your cattle, I don't want to know exactly how many cattle you have, but do you have a big herd or a small herd? Well, can tell you.  part of our  thought process of We Are Family Farm Beef Box  is  we wanted to make  beef available every week. And to do that with a cow herd  is pretty daunting task because usually you have one or two harvest per year. Right.

21:29

And so I knew from the get go, uh this wasn't going to work if I was going to do it on my own. I was going to have to have some help. And so I network with some basically some neighbors to be able to supply the butcher shop to keep  our goal is basically a thousand pounds a week, approximately is our, is our goal, which is basically two steers. So we're not a huge deal. ah You know, a hundred, a hundred ish.

21:58

head of cattle per year is kind of where we're at currently. Okay. And so that's, uh, now I've got about a hundred head of cows, but they, they, dynamics don't work to be able to, to have them ready to harvest every other way, you every week.  yeah. Yeah. And I'm assuming if you're just doing one or two at a time, it's more expensive than, than the big culling at the time of year when most people do it. uh

22:27

As far as processing charges or... Yeah. The processing charges are stable. Okay. As far as that goes. Yeah. So, know, in our little butcher shop, I think they'd be a normal size butcher shop. So they handle 15 to 20 head of cattle per week. So if we're at two, you know, we're a chunk of what they do. You know, they're a small business too. You know. Yeah, absolutely.

22:57

The one thing that I can vouch for or attest to here is if you find a good butcher shop,  support them because butchering is an art form. There are so many butcher shops that  are not as good as other butcher shops. That's the nicest way I can put it. If you find one that you like, stick with them and support them.  And  it's hard work  and  nobody gets rich being a butcher.  No.

23:27

I've been approached before like you should start your own, you should start your own butcher shop. You know, right now I,  so I'm paying this year in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars a year for butchering fees  for processing. And so if we would grow a little bit,  three or four head, you know, kind of trend the way we have been. Sure. Could, could at some point, could I look at running a butcher shop? Oh, if I wanted to,  you got to really.

23:57

want to cut stakes. know, that's it's a lot of work. And then, know, and then you have headaches of trying to keep help. And, and it just you got to love butchering is what it amounts to. And it's, it's really hard on your body too. I mean, just the, the knife work alone, your hands would hurt so much, you know? Yup. Yeah. I, I, I said, I don't particularly want to cut stakes.

24:26

You know, I'm happy to pay these guys $100,000 a year to cut my stakes and they do a good job.  Absolutely.  So,  um,  is, so do you, do you breed your cattle? Do you have baby cows on the ground? Yeah, we have, uh, we, we have a couple different times,  but, uh, we'll, we'll have some calves dropping here pretty soon. What they  is typically considered a fall calving herd.  So.

25:01

You know, as, for the most part, I've looked at family farm beef box, really, uh, you know, I started it as a way to buy groceries. Sure. And then I took what I learned over a couple of few years and, and you have to just have a lot of ambition and desire. And if your kids are hungry, that gives you ambition and desire. So I, I learned, I had, forced to learn things and how to, how to market the beef and how to get things sold. And basically I took that knowledge and.

25:31

And then  rolled it into,  I work for  a fella now that I market breeding stock of cattle. So we specialize in mama cows basically. And so I took that first year of business without any budget. You know, I guess I think it's an inspirational story for somebody just starting out. If you're hungry enough, this is what you can do.  We hit right at 200,000 hours worth of sales that first year.

26:00

Wow, okay is what we did  Which isn't doesn't doesn't make you a millionaire that was gross sales of all that beef and you know  Ten percent of that is 20 grand, you know, so if you've got some kids  You know, we I  I scratched around underneath the poverty level for quite a while You know trying to farm and do things and I'm not against that and I and I was I really enjoyed that time of life honestly uh As we learned and we built

26:29

Um, and we struggled and we didn't have any money and I never took a food stamp. You know, we just, we just did without, uh, I like to tell the story. One year it was  my, daughter's birthday. She was five or so six and I didn't have any money. so,  just cause you don't have money doesn't mean you can't do things. It means you have to be more creative. I did have some old boards and if I drove down the road, just a few miles, there's a gravel pit where they work on roads and everything and they'll give you sand for free.

26:58

And so I built her a sandbox, which was a pretty good gift. It didn't cost me anything,  but it had to be more creative.  so that really  helped develop our family life and structure and being grateful for things, which I think is so important. We're not grateful for things in this country.  Everything is expected and anticipated and I got to have it now and I deserve it now.  Well, we went through that and then I took that and we sell.

27:26

you know, 10 or 15 or more million dollars worth of breeding stock with right livestock across the country from, send cows up to your country, up to Minnesota and Michigan, and we deal in semi loads of cows. And so that's, that's my, that's what pays the bills now is cattle marketing. And so then I could start doing family farm beef box just, just for fun, because I like it. good. And then as I've found is you can, if you can do things,

27:54

run a business for fun and you don't have to have the money. know, boy, the story is about trying to, because I would have to coordinate with buddies that had cattle that were ready to slaughter to be able to get my next beef ready. You know, I would, I'd have a hundred bucks in my bank account and I would send two beef to the butcher shop. At one point I'd been going a little while there. sent four beef to the butcher shop. And so

28:20

And the way  they had it worked out at the butcher shop is when you picked up the beef, they  would  collect the money that actually went to my buddy, the farmer,  and you paid for the processing all at the same time. You couldn't pick up your beef until you paid for the beef and the processing. that way, had, you know, the guy who had the beef was my buddy,  he got paid before I got the beef. Yes. And so  I would pick up that beef  and that for beef was like $12,000.

28:50

$14,000. can't remember right now. $14,000. I got a hundred bucks in my bank account, but I pick it up on a Friday and I write the check every, every time I did it every other week. I'd write a check. got a hundred bucks in my bank account, but I had two weeks, you know, that, that beef hangs in that cooler for two weeks. I know I got to pick it up. I got to get it sold. And so I got to find customers. You can't just put up a sign and wait. You've got to find customers. I got to go get it delivered. So I would pick it up on Friday.

29:20

bring it home, pack it up the next morning.  I would go to Omaha on Saturday. I'd get it sold. I'm hustling on the way down because people wouldn't show up. And I'm making phone calls trying to like find what can I do with these two people didn't show up. That's that's $400. It's $500. Okay,  I got it. I got to sell those ones. And so then I get back on a Monday morning, I go back to the bank and I deposit money. And I deposit $12,600.

29:47

I needed $12,500 and I covered the check. never bounced a check. But then I got $100 in the bank account. haven't bought any groceries yet. I still got $400 worth of beef in the freezer. So got to hurry up and sell that beef because you can't pay your light bill with beef. I got to sell that beef so I can pay the light bill and buy a few groceries. I get the beef sold. There's four or 500 bucks. So I buy some groceries and I pay the light bill.

30:15

and I got $100 again, I gotta go pick up more beef. So we did that for a couple of years. uh that was just, it was a fun and exhausting period of life. That is defined as hustle, Glade. That is some hustle, man. Yeah, and I was telling that story to somebody the other day and  the kid said, well, that's just like what  you did, wasn't it, Mom? And said, well, no, we would have never wrote a check that we couldn't cover.

30:43

Like we survived being poor  and we were grateful and we were happy, but I never would have wrote a check that I couldn't cover. I said, and I'm looking back, said, yeah, I can't say that I would advise it,  but  you know, there's a lot of prayer involved. There's no way this could have happened if  God hadn't have blessed what we were trying to do. I just, I'm not that good.  Every  week  I would be within a few dozen dollars. Like you kidding me?

31:13

I didn't, I'm not that talented. I can't find the exact number of customers  to get that covered. ah Exactly. I'm not oversell.  I mean, I didn't oversell and I didn't undersell. It wasn't like I had 20 boxes of beef that I could sell and I didn't get 50 orders. I wish I did, but  I get 20 orders. Yep. And so that's what we did.  This is why I  love my podcast so much, Glade.

31:42

stories like that because you were busting your ever-loving ass to make this happen  and you still love it and you are helping people. So I have one last question.  I looked at your website and your beef is definitely reasonably priced. I'm going to actually talk to my husband about the next time we want to get some.  We might have to order some from you,  but uh what's the shipping cost like? Like if we were going to do that every other month.

32:10

subscription. 10-15 bucks or something. Most of the shipping costs is padded into that price. Okay. There's, depending on where you're at,  it'll add 5, 10, 15 bucks,  something like that.  It's pretty close to that price.  Oh, okay. That's fabulous. Great. Good to know.  And where can people find you? Tell me your website. Familyfarmbeefbox.com. Okay. Fantastic.

32:36

Thank you so much for your time.  always, people can find me at atinihomesteadpodcast.com.  Glade, I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Well, thank you kindly. All right. Bye.

 

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A Tiny HomesteadBy Mary E Lewis