Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Amie Herrera, owner of Franchesca's Dawn Farm, located in Halifax, VA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
My husband and I own and run Franchesca's Dawn Farm - well, I mostly run it as my husband works a full-time job off the farm. We raise grass-fed and finished beef and lamb, pasture-raised pork, and a little bit of goat. We sell everything direct to the consumer.
We source honey and pasture-raised chicken and turkey from other local farms and sell them online and in our on-farm store. We produce our own made from scratch sausages using our own meats and poultry from another local farm. We hope to be smoking our own bacon soon as well! Our customers come from a variety of backgrounds; most are very concerned about their health and are eating higher quality foods, including pasture-raised meats produced without any antibiotic use, growth hormones, or GMO feeds.
I love talking to customers and hearing about changes they've made to their diets and the resulting improvements in health. Other customers are concerned about the environment and choose to support farms that use regenerative practices and raise animals more humanely.
Then there's the group of customers who have fallen in love with our Scratch Made Sausages or our bacon. While they may have started buying because they wanted to try grass-fed beef or pasture-raised pork, they continue buying because they simply love our meats.
Tell us about yourself
I was a vegetarian for more than 20 years. A very unhealthy vegetarian. I eliminated wheat from my diet, which helped with some of my chronic digestive issues. Still, I continued to suffer from brittle hair and nails, acid reflux, and severe chronic bruising. About ten years ago, I added meat back to my diet. It took some time, but the bruising subsided.
I had become vegetarian because I was a serious animal lover as a teen. The idea of eating them was troubling to me. Then I researched how my meat got to my plate, and that was that. I became a vegetarian.
We purchased our first farm with the goal of renovating the old farmhouse that came with it for retirement. Then we were medically evacuated to care for a sick child while living overseas. The kids and I moved to the farm; I quit my job, we bought cows and pigs, and never looked back.
I'm motivated to continue working the farm every day, mostly because I absolutely love what I do. I love being my own boss.
But also, I continue because almost weekly, I receive comments from customers thanking me for what I do, or telling me that our meat tastes better than the meat of some of our top competitors, sometimes they tell me that meat from other sources makes them sick, but our meat does not!
How can I give this up when there is clearly such a need for clean meat?
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I feel like everything that I do here on the farm is an accomplishment. It's hard to pick just one thing and say that it is my biggest accomplishment! Everything from converting clear-cut land to pasture, building a fence to close in 22 paddocks, learning to manage and care for the livestock, building an on-farm store, building a website, and starting a shipping program - all of those things are big accomplishments. I'm proud of all of it!
My biggest accomplishment maybe not quitting - every day is a challenge. Selling direct to consumer, in addition to doing the actual farming, is the equivalent of adding another business enterprise.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Marketing! I do not have a talent for self-promotion. It's a difficult skill to master. I'm always looking for the next best method to market our products and grow our farm sales enough to pay employees and me.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Start your website and marketing even before you have products to sell - start collecting emails now!!!
- Collect email addresses so that you can always connect with current and potential buyers. Don't rely on social media to grow your business - Facebook and other platforms control who sees your content there. Your email list is where it's at.
- Price your products appropriately to be fair to yourself - don't worry too much about others selling the same product at lower prices. They are either huge companies with much lower costs or selling too low to support their own business and soon be gone.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
My husband's support and encouragement have been critical to the farm's success. He works his own off-farm (and out of town) job, and just about all of the farm work falls to myself and a couple of part-time employees (including our teenage kids). Strong support from others in the farming community has also been important. We mentor each other and answer each other's calls for help whenever we can! The farm wouldn't be where it is without this network, and I'm grateful for everyone who's a part of it!
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://franchescasdawnfarm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/franchescasdawnfarm
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/franchescasdawnfarm/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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