We had a business planning meeting right before New Years Eve and it sorta rocked our world. We started with a deep dive into all of the numbers…
We learned that in 2018, we sold over 70 pigs and scaled up our pig breeding program. We sold 1000 chickens/turkeys and we sold 1,864 dozen eggs. We increased enrollment for our chicken and egg CSA programs, had 51 total people sign-up and received 4.9/5 star customer reviews. We developed new ways of harvesting ginger and turmeric which saved us lots of time and we sold our Thanksgiving turkeys in record speed. We built a barn addition, another high tunnel, and a new egg laying house. We hosted 7 farm tours, showed up right here in our newsletter to connect with you almost every week and managed to never miss a single Brighton Market all year. Phew.
Next, came the many hours of soul searching and enterprise budgeting. Boy was that fun! As we were considering what we wanted to do more of in 2019 (as well as what we wanted to less of), we realized that the aspect of the farm that consistently brings us the most joy and fulfillment was our CSA programs. We just LOVE seeing our members every week and getting to know their families and providing them with the best of the best, week after week. For all of these reasons, we’ve decided to open the shares up to more people next year (sorry to all the folks who we’ve had to turn away in the past) and make the experience even more impactful with more bonuses which we will be sure to tell you about later this winter.
To say YES to more CSA members, we had to say NO to something else. So, we decided to say NO to adding another farmer’s market, NO to producing more eggs, and another NO to raising summer turkeys (don’t worry, we’re still doing T-giving turkeys). These are tough choices for us, since we know they are things that many of our customers enjoyed in the past or have asked us for . But they aren’t right for us, at this time in our lives, and there is peace for us in setting these boundaries.
Speaking of peace…remember when we shared that after 3 years of being in business, we hadn’t paid ourselves yet? Well, we spent a lot of time number-crunching during this 8+ hour planning session and are happy to report that this year we will finally start paying Greg for all the incredible work that he does. It won’t be tons of money (we’re aiming for a teacher’s salary) but it will be enough keep our passion going strong and the doors wide open so that we can continue to grow food for your family until we’re old and gray.
2019 is going to be another busy year on the farm, that is for sure. But now that we’re done mapping everything out, one thing is crystal clear. Our mission has always been “to produce exceptional organic food, to improve the health of our community and to educate our community about sustainable farming” and in ways both big and small, we are doing all of these things. We can’t wait to see what 2019 will bring!
Your Farmers,
Jenney and Greg