Capturing More of the Food Dollar

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

You may have seen the statistics about how little of the food dollar actually goes to the farmer. Producers can try to capture more of that value by differentiating their products and trying to sell them directly to buyers, but that requires developing a whole new skill set, says pig producer David Newman of Newman Farm.

Newman… “The thing that I tell everyone who asks about this business if they say it's all farming. I say first you better be passionate about it because it's not about getting rich, right. But it's a great market where you can be sustainable, and sustainable means staying in business to me. But the other thing is, is that our business is 100% foundationally built on relationships. And building those relationships with those shifts as they move from this restaurant to this restaurant. If you've given them a great product consistently, and you've given them great customer service, one becomes two and two becomes four, four becomes eight, and you start to build into something that you can actually grow your production side around, and you can start to scale things. And when you scale things, the economy of efficiency and production still plays a role there.”

Newman has built his differentiated pork business over several years. Learn more at NewmanFarm.com.