What started as a venture to produce food for their own family turned into a successful small business for Joe and Amanda McCabe of Pekin Hill Farms.
Located about 30 miles south of Rochester, The McCabes raise all-natural cattle, pork, and pasture-raised chicken with help from their four children, Trayton, Addison, Jaxon and Hazel.
Joe had been farming with his dad since he graduated high school, but it was about five years ago when he and his family looked into direct sales.
“We started the pastured pork and poultry to try to diversify a little bit and bring a little extra farm income during the down markets,” Joe said.
They started selling to consumers with farmers markets but eventually moved to online sales with a home delivery service.
“It has been a huge difference for us,” Amanda said.
In pure happenstance, their online sales began just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States creating an immediate demand for their services.
“Obviously in times like this, an online store and the home deliveries are what needs to be done,” Joe said.
The deliveries are completed with food safety in mind. The McCabes give customers an estimated time of delivery and ask for coolers to be left out for the products. Essentially, there is no risk of contact through the process.
“We’ve seen quite a few new customers,” Amanda said. “A lot of people that have been previous customers are referring us.”
With the quick uptick in demand, Joe and Amanda came across an unexpected problem.
“The production was kind of the tricky part with this,” Joe said. “Nobody was planning on this happening and the increase in sales. Do we ramp up production to meet the demand? Is the demand going to fizzle out? Nobody knows.”
Pekin Hill Farms was exploring opportunities to use their established online base to help other local producers in the area sell products.
“It is really great when they can support local businesses,” Amanda said. “It really helps them.”
–Kaitlyn Riley
Leave a Reply