Congratulations! You’ve made it through 83% of a 60-day challenge. You should be really proud of yourself for having stuck with me for this long.
I’m so excited to be nearing the finish line with you, and I hope that you’ve found this experience to be rewarding thus far.
Today’s task:
Treat your body with the nourishment it deserves.
Financial abundance is very much linked to the daily actions/habits/rituals that we develop for ourselves, including what we eat. Given that many of you readers out there are farmers or future farmers, you’re probably way ahead of the curve when it comes to knowing what kind of food is good for you and prioritizing it as part of your diet. You are, after all, likely to be surrounded by an edible landscape. (Sorry to my meat and dairy folks…it may look a bit different for you).
Anyways, as I was making breakfast this morning, I realized how luxurious it felt to open up a jar of coconut yogurt and to realize that this is what financial abundance brings – good food to nourish my soul.
There’s been several standout food brands I’ve come across while in Santa Teresa the last month or so, and I wanted to highlight them here because 1) I think it’s important to talk about why people buy high-quality food products that keep them coming back for more and 2) it’s really easy to get caught up in thinking small about your market channels and value-added opportunities.
I think that the Agricultural Utilization and Research Institute (AURI) would probably be all over this article if they ever came across it. They’re a neat organization that helps farmers/food businesses with building out their product, whether through food science, marketing, feasibility studies, testing for certain nutrients in foods, etc. They have some awesome free programming/webinars that I highly recommend, too, if you’re looking for something interesting to listen to while working in the greenhouse this spring. I’ll throw it in with the links at the bottom for your reference!
When I have a chance, I’ll take a picture of their packaging, which is what drew me to their products in the store. I bought a bag of mixed nuts from these guys and fell in LOVE with the freshness. I’ve never had macadamia nuts that were so crunchy! I feel like you normally get these nuts in the states and they’re super oily. But these were anything but that. The simplicity of the packaging was on point, and then the quality of the product will have me coming back for another bag soon.
Takeaways for farm brands: Packaging and marketing makes a difference when you’re trying to stand out from other things on the shelf! There’s beauty in simplicity.
These guys make an incredible coconut yogurt that’s rather thick in comparison to others I’ve had, like So Delicious. They’re based out of Costa Rica, and they market the fact that they harvest ‘wild’ coconuts. Again, the packaging is simple and clean, coming in a glass jar, and the product is of superior quality.
These guys are quite popular in Costa Rica. I first came across this brand last year at Auto Mercado in Jacó, and enjoyed trying the different flavors. Their branding has a funky 70s vibe going for it with the font they use in their logo. I especially like their ginger kombucha. The carbonation level is rather high, but still delicious! I didn’t see any kombucha on the shelves at the grocery store two years ago, but now I’m seeing it become much more mainstream. Even in rural Minnesota, you can find a whole section of kombucha options in the grab-n-go aisle.
When it comes to farming and getting into the value-added space, I don’t think that people often think about stuff like this – coconut yogurt, bagged nuts, kombucha – as outlets. What if, for example, you grew strawberries for a kombucha brand? Or hops for a brewery? There’s so much in the food and beverage industry, and when I look at all of the programming and Extension services out there, resources from the Universities, and more, I don’t see a lot of people talking about these opportunities.
One of the things I’m most excited about this year is publishing an e-book called 50 High-Value Market Channels for your Farm Business You Probably Haven’t Thought Of. I get so excited to help people think about niche markets and spaces that aren’t so saturated.
Of course, I love marrying this with personal identity and farming as a form of self-expression. The sky’s the limit. But if you’ve never seen an example of what ‘big’ could look like, you’re likely to think that ‘wholesale’ is your local school or restaurant, direct-to-market is a farm stand or farmers market, and the creativity stops there.
It could very well be that some of these brands started out that way, selling to their friends, selling at local markets, getting feedback from customers…there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and you should definitely test things out before making a huge investment. But if you’ve got a great product and you’re filling a need in the market, that’s what really matters.
Some journal prompts to keep you thinking a bit more about this:
- What are the brands that you love and keep coming back to?
- What are the underlying elements/themes about these brands? Is there anything that unifies them?
- Where do you feel you could improve in your own branding/marketing or even where are there opportunities to enter value-added markets that others have not yet tapped into?
- Is there anything that your customers have expressed a desire for that’s not yet being filled?
- What market channel would you have a lot of fun working in? What would feel like a dream and more playful than actual work? Can you create this locally, or are there geographic limits to this?
- What’s feasible as a small next step to get you closer to evaluating this market channel as part of your market channel mix for next season? Is there any way you could pilot/beta test an idea this year?
Today’s resources to keep you inspired:
