Our Pricing Policy

A Revolution, A Margin, But Not A Marginal Revolution

(It’s an economics joke.)

We have a target margin that we try to make on each sale. We don't yet, usually, but we're working on it. At our target production capacity, above which we would need to invest in more land and infrastructure, this margin would provide our family with an income somewhere above the poverty line and well below the state median. At our current scale we make much, much less than minimum wage. We have extra capacity and are always looking to add new customers, but scaling up production is a multi-year process.

If there's no chance of making our margin, we won't make that sale. That’s why we don’t really focus on selling eggs, for example. We have some layer hens for other reasons and we charge supermarket prices for their pasture-raised eggs, even though theirs aren’t and ours are better. We would have to charge much more than that to make it worthwhile to make egg sales into an actual farm business. So we don’t.

Above our target margin, we would prefer instead to increase our production and the number of families we feed, rather than collect a slightly higher profit margin. Thus, we pay absolutely no attention to market supply and demand when setting our prices. We only pay attention to the supply of our product: ribs are more expensive because there are a limited number per animal; ground meat is less expensive because you can grind pretty much anything you want to. We would love to be able to increase quality and lower our prices. That doesn't seem likely in the near future, but if our costs do come down at some point in the future, we will happily pass that on to you. Our business model is a sustainable farm business, which means we prefer to cultivate long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with our customers. We don’t want customers who are looking for “a deal” and likewise we have no interest in taking advantage of our customers to make a quick extra few dollars. We want to make a fair living by charging a fair price for really good food, and we want your grandchildren to be buying really good food for a fair price from our grandchildren.

Fair Pricing

So what’s a fair price? We do not believe that locally-produced, real, good food needs to be or ought to be a luxury item. Unfortunately, the structure of the modern economy means that it is for a lot of people., and we can’t really do anything about half a century of collusion to produce artificially low working wages. At least, not by ourselves.

On the other hand, the reason why food is so bad and unhealthy and ecological destruction is so omnipresent is a collective unwillingness by people who could afford to do so to pay for anything better. So we do think prices are “fair” which truly are affordable for most people, even if they are substantially higher than what is found at the “super” market. According to historical data provided by the USDA ERS, 60 years ago Americans spent 17.5 percent of after-tax income on food. Today it is much, much lower, and much more of it is “take out”. Already at that time people were getting more and more processed food from a “super” market rather than real food from a real farmer, but it’s a good start at least.

It seems fair to expect that people who care about the food they eat and who want to eat good food affordably will spend 17.5 percent of income on food, and save money by cooking at home except for special occasions. Median household after-tax income in our county is about $50,000. The share of that spent on food, at 17.5 percent, would be about $8,750. If you care about getting the most for your food dollar, it’s reasonable to spend 60 percent or more of this on meat. See this post for a discussion of why spending more on meat is the best choice. That provides a budget of $5,250 to spend on meat. Perhaps a family of four eats 10 pounds of meat a week. That’s less than is “consumed” according to government data, but meat “consumption” includes a lot of waste, because people are more willing to throw out cheap food if they don’t feel like eating or cooking it. The family thus needs to buy 520 pounds of meat in a year. Therefore, their budget permits them to pay about $10.10 cents per pound for meat, on average.

That’s fair. Right? I am not saying that anyone ought to cut out streaming services, fancy vacations, new clothes, a new car, or anything else except essentials before spending less on food. I am, however, saying that if someone says they can’t afford good food but isn’t willing to forego any of those other luxuries, then their priorities are misguided and self-destructive.

If $10.10 is the cost of the meat/protein portion of a meal, probably serving two or more people since that is for a full pound of meat, and that is 60 percent of the meal cost, then the full cost would be something like $16.80. That is perhaps what you would pay for a single serving fast food meal, in which you get french fried potatoes (cheap), a cheap bread bun (cheap), a leaf of lettuce (garbage if not fresh from your garden or a real farmer), a slice of tomato (garbage if not fresh in season), a slice of pickle (easy and better to make at home), and a cup of diabetes or aspartame to drink, with ice. Oh, and about a quarter pound of “meat”. Seems like kind of a ripoff. You’re basically paying for the convenience of not having to cook, which most certainly is nice to have once in a while. Makes you wonder why fry cooks are so egregiously underpaid for what is clearly a service in very high demand.

We strive to keep our prices below that number. There is room to improve it: even in 1960, Americans were throwing out a lot of perfectly good livers, hearts, and so on. If you don’t throw out edible food, your budget goes farther. In addition, there are usually ways to save extra money, especially with pork. If you make your own bacon at home, or do without, you don’t have to pay the butcher for their work in curing bacon for you. You can make your own sausage as well. However, housing is much less affordable today, and that’s certainly as important a budget item as food to any family. Also, we don’t think you should have to make the median household income to eat good food, and while people ought to be willing to cut out a lot of extraneous expenses to save money before going without decent food, we do all have to pay bills and make ends meet. Therefore, we strive to keep the total cost (not just what you pay us) of our bulk orders below ten dollars. We always make sure that bulk orders are the most affordable way to purchase from us, because they require the most work from you (storage, planning in advance) and the least from us.

We (All) Get What We Pay For

On a macroeconomic scale, if more people pay a fair price for real food from real farms, this creates an opportunity for more people who enjoy the farming life to make a career out of it. Real farmers improve the productivity of their land, so over time yields will naturally increase and costs will go down. Coincidentally, if more people leave the general non-farm labor market to become farmers, that means more competition for non-farm workers which will incentivize increased wages and salaries.

In other words, we get, collectively, what we pay for. If people buy cheap, factory-farmed or -produced food, this means real farmers can’t afford to keep their farms. It means businesses you don’t like make more money, which means they have no reason to incentivize more productive employees with better pay. This puts downward pressure on wages and salaries which ultimately means you make less. If we pay a fair price to real farms producing real food, perhaps at the cost of limiting our consumption of some of the luxuries and comforts with which modern living is replete, then we will all end up making more real income while at the same time more real farm food is available to us at a lower cost.