Amy Hay
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
That algorithm that runs Meta, it works in your favor. So if you're posting things like, for example, save money on groceries, buy a quarter beef, then the algorithm is going to show you your post to people who are looking for things like groceries or vouchers or, you know, things like that. That's how the algorithm works. So what you post can actually find you customers.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So we don't feed any grain, but we do plant our pastures with a really diverse forage crop. So our fields are full of brassicas, so like radishes and turnips, alfalfas, clovers, different grasses, sunflowers, even peoats and barley that they forage on in the grass form. But we don't feed any additional grains.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's a forage crop. Yeah. We just don't feed, we don't strip it off and feed them anything, but they've got a very diverse.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
No, we put ours out on range and on range, they eat everything. Like they're eating leaves and shrubs and berries and bar. We've even caught them chewing on antlers for like the nutrients. Like they eat everything, but yeah. So we just try and emulate that when they're back at home as well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's an open-ended question, though. It's a hard question to answer. I get asked this a lot online, but it's like, well, what do you need to make a living? Do you need 50K a year? Do you need 100K a year? So it's really hard to answer. When we had the acreage at the coast, we were both working full-time. So it wasn't our sole income. It was supplemental.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
But it got to the point where that enabled us to move and make it our sole income. So we don't work... Selling beef is all we do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So if you want to do it full time, you have to know your numbers. Like you have to know, well, I need to make 50K clear, 50K a year to pay my mortgage, to buy groceries, have some fun money. So then you have to work it backwards. So are you going to make 50K a year on six acres? Probably not. Unless you're buying, selling, buying, selling, buying, selling, which you could do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
You could go to the auction, buy cattle, finish it, sell it. But that's hard work. you might only need 50 acres. But then the other variables are, are you growing your own feed? Are you harvesting your own feed? Or are you buying feed in? Because if you have 50 acres and you're growing your own feed, you might only be able to hold five pairs.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Whereas if it's all for grazing and you're bringing in your feed, you could have 50 pairs. So, I mean, there's so many variables there that... Whoever is wanting to start this needs to know the route they want to go and then plan accordingly.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Yes, very much so. And as I said before, I'm pretty much Finnish agnostic that you can do grain finish, you can have a feedlot, you can do grass-fed and finish, you can do whatever. You can do chicken, pork, lamb, bison. It works for anything, but the main thing is beef.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
I know. So that is where your customers are. So the first thing I teach is you've got to have a social media presence and it's not for posting pictures of your youngest at a dance recital. It's targeted. So your social media is that widest point of the funnel where you are going to find all your customers. That algorithm that runs Meta It works in your favor.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So if you're posting things like, for example, save money on groceries, buy a quarter beef, then the algorithm is going to show you your post to people who are looking for things like groceries or vouchers or, you know, things like that. That's how the algorithm works. So what you post can actually find you customers. It's not just to post buy my beef. It's to post your whole story.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So then we take you through those steps of social media is free and it is the most powerful funnel you have, regardless of if you want to pay for ads, you still need to test that first in social media. And then the next stage is pricing. And it literally is, we walk you through everything you need. So this would answer your previous question is,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
where you need your pricing to be and what you need to make to make this work for you. And it goes through everything. It goes through cash flow, revenue, gross profit, net profit, operation costs. The one thing that I find a lot of farmers fall into when they want to start this is that they don't look at that beef operation or that direct-to-consumer beef operation as an entity by itself.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So say, for example, they're a cow-calf and they take their calves to auction. They don't think that, well, I've kept 10% back. That 10% needs to carry 10% of my operating costs. Otherwise, it's never going to pencil out. You shouldn't subsidize one with the other, if that makes sense.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So it kind of really does teach them that if you're keeping 10% back, then that needs to carry 10% of your operating costs so that your true net is literally after dog food's being paid. And after 10% of the mortgage has been paid and you know, like it's, it has to carry that to be profitable. So it, it takes you through, um, all those cost codes, like you might have logging that you want to do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And that should, you know, that adds, adds, adds into. So it's a pretty in-depth pricing structure.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
No. I mean, there's like a coaching aspect where people ask all kinds of things. Like we get asked, what crop should I plant or how much fertilizer should I buy? And that's not what the course is designed for, but there's enough expertise inside that those kinds of things can get answered. But the sell beef direct motto, if you like, is empowering farmers.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So if you want to start selling direct, these are the tools that you need to make that successful for you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
As in buying it from the store or buying it from the sales bar?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
That happens all the time. And one of this might be super, I don't know, beaten to death. But one of the best examples is do you watch Yellowstone? And people go, yes. And it's like, well, all these people who live in a city and they're driving a commute and they're going in their car and they're driving for an hour, they're sitting in a cubicle, they're doing their stuff.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
They're getting back in a car and driving home. Your life as a rancher is so exciting to them that it may not be exciting to you because you do it every single day. But someone who lives in a high rise and goes to work, the thought of having a baby calf by the fire in the kitchen because it was born in a snowbank, they love that and they eat it up.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So it may not be interesting to you, but I can guarantee your story as a rancher is
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Back in 2017, we released finance, released equity in our little six acres because the property was booming to purchase this ranch that I'm at now. And it was like, you know, we need to make a go of this. is either go or stop complaining about life. So it was, we're going to do it. So we released equity. We moved here with our 23 heads, um, and we had cattle finance to build the herd.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Um, everything was going really well. We carried two mortgages for a while. Um, the property market took a crash. So, and we chased it down. So then our, our little six acres actually cost us money to sell that. We didn't get anything from it. And the bank was like, you now owe way more than we're comfortable with. Then what you have now doesn't cover it. And we're going to,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
cut our losses and foreclose and it was like what like can they do that is that even legal um apparently it is um but because um we're a farm and farms are treated differently it takes 12 months to foreclose on a farm you can't just foreclose in three so um then that 12 months it was like this has to work so we um we're buying a lot of time with a beef herd No, it's not.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So we were growing our herd and we also had, um, we were working with, um, some friends and things at the coast who traditionally they, they grew speckled parts, which is a Canadian breed. Um, and they were unfinished if you like, and then they would take them to this sales barn. So they ended up finishing them for us. We'd buy them from them instead of them taking them to auction.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Um, and then we would process them and sell as beef. So, um, It worked like, I don't know, 50% gross to the point where we had an order book. We were doing two a month and then three a month. And then we had orders for five a month, up to 10 a month. And it got to the point where we went...
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Over our local representative's head, who was just being a pain in the ass and went to the head office in Saskatchewan and said, look, for the last 11 months, even with our hands tied because you're foreclosing on us, I have an order book of eight months ahead and I'm bringing in 50K a month regularly selling beef. What's happening? And they actually said, we apologize.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Hi. Nice to be here.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And they halted proceedings and they reinstated the mortgage. Like it was it was just insane. So it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. But within that time, obviously, Google, I was searching for, you know, how to sell beef online and help with selling online. And the companies I came across, they talked an amazing game. And I was like, yes, you can save my ranch. You can save me.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And then I get hit with how much it was going to cost. And it was like, yeah, no, no. Like, there's no way I can give you $18,000, $20,000 when all this is happening. So it was do it myself. Like, we're pretty smart. And we put together a solution that really did work. And a lot of that was starting an Instagram account. That was literally the turning point.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
But then after all of this happened and everything is hunky-dory and we would post about our story and we would post, you know, we're first-gen ranchers, blah, blah, blah. I would get messages and direct messages from farms all over the States going, how do you do it? Like, how do you do what you do? Like, how did you do this?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
To the point where I was, I kind of joke and say, I was handing out my phone number like candy and I would have hour or two hour long phone calls with someone in Oregon and someone in Ohio and someone in Montana to the point where I said to my husband, maybe I should do something with this. And this was in 2022, like November, 2022, I was like, I should do something with this.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Like we could help so many farmers do this and it be affordable. Like it's not going to cost $18,000. Um, and that's when sell beef direct was born. So we launched in January, 2023 and it's changed a lot since then, but it's doing pretty well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
We don't sell individual cuts. And I actually warn my students, like the farmers I work with, I mean, if that's something they really want to do, fine. But it's hard work because it's inventory. Like, you would have to itemize every single item in a carcass and upload it to a website and then find that item and ship it or, and it's too much like hard work.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So we sell quarter size and whole and we, our ranch, we do packs that we have a 10 pounds of ground and we have, you know, like a steak pack or a steak and ground pack, but we don't sell in, no, you can't just go online and order a steak.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It doesn't work for us.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
That's our ranch brand. That's Why Kick a Hay Ranch.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So something that I kind of speak about a lot on my social media is we are pretty remote and our neighbors and our local area are not our customers because everyone has an uncle who has a steer and gives them a side for Christmas or they have – a couple of acres and they take, you know, a couple of yearlings a year to finish and they keep one and sell one. So my local area is not my customer base.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So we actually drive five hours away to deliver our beef.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
My husband does. Yeah. That's just what works for us. But we go once a month. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Half is, but no. So for us, our most popular item is a quarter cow. We sell more of them than anything else. Our next most popular item is 10 pounds of ground beef. We can't keep ground in. Yeah, people love it because it's so versatile. Burgers, chili, pasta, lasagna, meatballs. What's, you know, what's for dinner? Like kids love. We can't keep ground in. It goes out so fast.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Was that based on hanging or was that based on yield?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So we, um, a lot, I mean, a lot of what, what I teach is you have to train your customer. So all through your website and your social media, you're not selling beef. You're, you're educating and telling people things that they, I mean, they don't know what they don't know. So, um, we always do, do hanging weight and it's never hindered us, but we do explain it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
that you have this forum that you have to get them to the point of comparing apples for apples. And I actually have a student, he did an exercise and he priced out his carcass if you were to buy all those cuts at Walmart. So not like Trader Joe's or a butcher, but Walmart. And his carcass from him, if you bought a whole cow, would be like five grand. Whereas
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Don't give it away. Oh, I might help you. My name is Amy. I'm a first generation rancher. Get it yet? No.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
and that was hanging weight, like eight bucks a pound hanging weights. Um, if you then he priced it all out, that carcass at Walmart was $6,800. Yeah. But people don't know that. People think I'm spending $8 a pound hanging weight. That's way too expensive. And it makes my heart hurt when farmers are literally charging $3.50 or $4 per pound hanging. I'm like, I can't raise a cow for that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It doesn't work. But even at $8, if you actually do the homework and find your comparisons, it's cheaper. Hmm.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And the two biggest, not complaint, well, I guess the two biggest issues farmers have when they come to me is how to find customers. They're like, I have this amazing product. Everyone who buys it says it's fantastic, but I can't find new customers or more customers. The other one is pricing. So we go over those a lot.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
But finding customers is you have to know who your customer is first, too, that you can't just You can't just keep on advertising or saying I have beef for sale. I have beef for sale because that's not going to appeal to people. Whereas if you post, I don't know, save money on groceries, you're going to get every mom within like a whatever mile radius going, oh. save money on groceries.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And then when they delve into that more, they'll realize that you're funneling them into buying a quarter beef. Um, so you're not saying buy my beef and people go, I've just been to Costco. I'm done. Keep scrolling.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
But that big hook or that big kind of reason is save money on groceries or drop 10 pounds, which is a huge one because everyone wants to drop 10 pounds, but it's, you know, drop 10 pounds, prioritize protein, buy a quarter beef and but you're funneling them into your world by giving them answers to what they want.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Yeah. Whatever works. Yeah. But yeah, it's, um, that makes sense.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
That's only a, so that's one character trait, if that makes sense, that we teach that you have to appeal to like five or six character traits. And one of them is know where your food comes from. But then one of my best customers for our ranch is, I hooked him in with, it was, did you know red meat has more creatine than a supplement? And I was targeting carnivores and gym goers.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
No. I'm from Scotland.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And he was like, oh, really? And then he went through all that material and ended up calling me and buying a side of beef and he buys a side of beef every two months and then he told all his friends at the gym and i think we sell six sides of beef every two months just because of that post about uh creatine and red meat yeah what do you think your average age is of your buyer it's um 43 hmm
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's as old as day. I check my diagnostics. So we have people who are in their 20s, and we also have people in their 60s and 70s that buy our beef.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And I live in Canada, but this, the name of the ranch is actually Maori. My husband's from New Zealand.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's not just to post buy my beef. It's to post your whole story.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Yeah, they can. We do that for some customers. It's not something we like doing, but we do teach how to run your socials. But a lot of these farmers, they hand that over to their wife or to their kids. Or there are social media companies who will do it for you, but you still have to train them in, this is selling beef. This isn't just selling pictures of a ranch kind of thing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Like there is a knack. Like you really do have to answer that pain point because... If you then want to speed things up and say, I don't want to be on social media all the time and I would rather run ads, like I would rather spend 10 bucks a day running ads to these landing pages, you still have to test that in social media.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So if your content isn't appealing to a warm audience, it's not going to appeal to a paid audience either. And that's when you start wasting money. Whereas if you know your message is converting for free, then at that point you take those best posts and you can run ads and you're going to save money and get a much higher return on investment.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
As in you want to contact me to help you?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
I'm not sure if you want me just to answer the question or if you want me to start a pitch.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So our first step is, I mean, regardless of how much it is, it's still a bigger investment. So it's almost like a value ladder. So the first thing you would do is, you know, look at some of the free resources. We have a free workshop that goes every month that literally shows people how to do this and what steps they need. And it's free.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
There's a free masterclass that kind of teaches them how to use social media. And we have a free Facebook group where they can ask us lots of different questions because money is... And being a farmer myself, I know there's not always a lot of disposable income. So before you make that investment, I would check out all those free resources first.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And then we have like an entry level course, which is only $47, but it's going to really kickstart your marketing. It's going to tell you how to post on social media, what to post, who to target, how to use social media, how to use emails, how to set everything up.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
all the way up to i will design your website for you like so there's like entry level up to the full everything and there's there's one in in the middle as well is that 47 canadian or usd us us is pretty much a universal currency for digital products because um if it's in my home currency i almost have to pay a conversion rate twice yep gotcha
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
I haven't posted it yet, but I was scheduling a reel for my social media, and it was kind of all about contingency. And our ranch, so this hat, had a bit of a tough year this year. My husband almost lost his hand in a post-pounding incident.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
incident and that kind of because we do everything ourselves we have no staff that's really slowed things down for two or three months while he was recovering and then we were just getting back to delivering beef and catching up when he just dropped off ten heads of at the pro successors and the stock trailer got rear ended.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So on first look, it didn't look that bad, but it actually got written off. And then we had no stock trailer to take cattle to. And it was a big fight with ICBC, which is our, we only have one insurance company in BC and trying to get them to pay out is impossible because So then we just got, so this was in like October. We just got that fixed. We're like, right, we have to catch up.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
We have all these orders. We have to get beef in. The butcher dropped us. The butcher was having staffing issues and they weren't getting stuff cut right. And they just shut down to regroup. And we're like, but we're booked in until February. Like, what are we meant to do now? So then we found another processor at the coast, which is a 10 hour round trip. And he's going to start this month.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
You're in BC.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So it's from July till now, it's been, wow, one thing after another. But by having this in place and taking pre-orders and people can purchase in advance, having all of that in place meant that we didn't take a big nosedive, like everything did kind of keep on ticking over.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Canada is literally halfway between Scotland and New Zealand and finger on a map. That's why we're here.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
oh naturally tenderized by really the the uh i mean it's almost like a comedy sketch the poor guy who rear-ended he was a senior and he was volunteering at the senior center and to paint their i don't know something so inside his ford f-150 he had a five gallon drum of white emulsion i will
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
when he hit the stock trailer so he completely wrote off the front of his truck but the inside of his it was just white paint it was like oh my god the poor guy he was devastated funny but not funny oh it is funny yeah that's about as funny as it gets as long as no one got hurt yeah no one got hurt no one got hurt and the trailer was empty but yeah it it completely twisted the chassis
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's at Cell Beef Direct.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Facebook and Instagram or pork or whatever, you know, we have, um, we have lots of, we have beef, but we also have chicken, goat, lamb, bison. We have a yak farmer. Um, I have an author who, who has written some farming books and he's using it for that. And I also have a farmer who is, um, they're more a homesteader, but they import coffee beans and they have a, uh,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
local roastery and they sell and roast coffee so i mean it works regardless of what your product is i think i just added yak to my food bucket list yeah my pig suppliers roast their own coffee beans and they give that they give that away for christmas and it is dang good it's so good it's all i drink now is her is her coffee
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's halfway between New Zealand and Scotland. It's in the middle. Nobody has preferential treatment.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Perfect.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
No way.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Two things. We have our ranch. We're a direct to consumer. So we only sell beef, like we don't do auctions. So we're a grass finished beef ranch, but just for a direct to consumer market. So that's this, that's one hat. The other hat is I developed a program, if you like, to teach other farmers and ranchers how to start selling direct to consumer.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Exactly. Yeah. And there's so many free tools out there that if you learn to utilize them correctly, it just opens up a whole new world of customers for you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
We're first generation. So it's my husband's maybe got a little bit more farming background. I have zero. We're both engineers. My history or both our backgrounds is the maritime industry. So he was chief engineer on the big boats. And I designed satellite communication equipment for oil rigs and ships and the military, etc. And that's how we met. So
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Nothing to do with farming at all, but it was always kind of a dream. And the first night we met, he told me that his dream was to have a ranch in Montana and to raise Wagyu beef. And we're not in Montana, but we're pretty close. And that's basically, yeah. So it was like a conscious decision to kind of leave the rat race and leave what we were doing and focus on family and raising beef.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
And that's what we did. So that's what we do now.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Canada was kind of where we almost moved to the States. We almost did, but... I don't know if I can even say this. Your insurance, your medical insurance is insane. And when we were looking to move, because I was of childbearing age, I couldn't get medical insurance because it was almost like a given. So if we ever had kids, they wouldn't insure us for like four years.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
We just couldn't get insurance to go to the States.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Are you saying I'm no longer a childbearing?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Every province is different, but it's tiered. So it's like free to a certain amount. And then the next tier is... say 20%. And then the next tier is 30%. So if you're in a higher tier, you only pay that higher bracket for that, that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Not for your whole salary.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Um, it was his, well, it was his dream was to have a ranch and, um, I used to be a vegetarian very long time ago, but, um, more because I didn't agree with how animals destined for our plates were treated. But if my dad or brother shot a pheasant, I'd happily pluck it and eat it because it was like flying around one bad day.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
It's on my plate as opposed to, you know, like factory farming, commercial farming. Bear in mind, I was like 20, 19, whatever. So when we kind of started discussing things, it was giving people... I mean, we're going back to 2005 when we were speaking about this. It was giving people that option of, you know, you want to eat meat, but you don't want to eat that meat.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
You want to know where it comes from. So we built... this around that, that we wanted to give people a conscientious and ethical food choice. And now more and more people are like, there's that farm to fork movement is huge. Like there's, um, the statistics that are readily available are for the States, but out of the something like 2 million farms in the USA, only 7% sell direct to consumer.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Yet the farm to fork movement, the people who want to buy direct from the farm is huge and growing. There's actually not enough farms to supply that demand.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
There is. So we, we had, so when we lived, we moved here. So the ranch I'm sat in now is five hours away from where we started in like near Vancouver and, So we had five or six acres and we literally went to the auction and bought four Hereford steers, finished them, sold them. So we advertised. So it was to kind of test the market and we kept one for ourselves. We advertised the rest.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
to see if this was a viable option. And it was like, we almost got to the point where people would knock on the door going, I heard you had beef for sale. And we're like, we're all out. It was like this backdoor beef sales. Yeah, exactly. But it worked. So we did end up keeping on.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So on our six acres, we actually ended up with a herd of like 23 head of cattle, but we leased two 10 acre grazing around us. So we were able to raise them. you know, from May through to October and then bring them home and feed them haylage, et cetera.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
No, we don't. So our, we do Wagyu. So Wagyu is our kind of main breeding stock. So we have our full blood Wagyu and then we also have our F1s and F2s. So our cross breed is Highlands and Galloways.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
So there's not, I'm sure I'll get yelled at this. There's no such thing as miniature cattle. It's a dwarf gene. Like people just breed for it, but it's not a breed. Like, I don't know. Miniature cattle. No, no,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
They do look cuddly.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Yeah, so our F1s is just our standard beef, but it has that buttery flavor of Wagyu. And even though we don't feed any grain, it's beautifully marbled. You can cut it with a fork. Galloways are slightly faster growing than highlands. Highlands, in Scotland, a highland cow is actually considered a premium breed.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
They're very slow in growing, so you can't really process them until at least 36 months. So they're always going to be in OTM But that slow growth lays itself to this beautiful, thick marbling. Like it's not being pounded with grain for 18 months and then sent to harvest. It's grown slowly. So they have, they're more expensive than Angus.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Like if you want to order like a prime river, something Highland is like a premium beef. For our model, they're a little bit too slow growing, so we're moving away from highlands, but we chose them because they suit our environment. It's rugged, it's mountainous, it's extreme cold, extreme heat, that they do really well. They thrive, so it's less input for the same output, if that makes sense.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
That's a distinct choice. We're a regenerative ranch. So we really follow regenerative agricultural practices and we host clinics here for regenerative ag. I will caveat with saying I am system or feed agnostic that we need a place for all farming. This is just our choice and it's not something that I would force on anyone else. But for us, it works really well.