Like most folks who raise livestock, Glen and Tammy Haag and her parents Dave and Kathy Rupprecht aren't strangers to risk. But last year they took a different kind of risk with their 500-head cattle operation in Lewiston, MN.
They bought a truck, a trailer, a walk-in freezer and a sign that reads "Chosen Acres Premium Beef." Then, they started asking people in their community to buy beef directly from them.
"It's a different kind of risk when you get more involved with the consumer and the farm-to-table process. It also requires different skills," says Peter Reese, a sales and marketing consultant who teaches a four-part seminar series for producers as part of Branding Your Beliefs (BYB), a program that helps livestock producers aggressively market their products directly to consumers.
"It requires that (producers) get busy and get in touch with the market rather than just get angry about... the disparity between stockyard prices and consumer prices," Reese adds.
Kathy Horgan, a senior project officer for Land O' Lakes International Development Division, one of four sponsors of the BYB program, agrees.