Posted on 01/08/2010 2:26:25 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
(Without electricity, a car, or a cell phone, Amos Miller turned his dad's Pennsylvania farm into a $1.8 million national food retailer)
Imagine trying to build a national food retailing business based on mail order, far-flung distributors, and trade shows—without using the Internet. No e-mail newsletters or Web site for taking orders and handling complaints, no Facebook fans, or Google (GOOG) ads, or Twitter following.
That's not all. Imagine doing it without using cell phones or computers. No BlackBerry for expediting orders. No CRM software for segmenting customer lists. Absolutely no texting.
Let your imagination go a little further and picture doing it without driving a car or without using electricity. No quick trips to the post office to ship orders, and no fax machine, scanner, or copier.
Remarkable Anomaly
This is the world of Miller Farm, a Pennsylvania food producer that has grown to $1.8 million in annual sales from less than half that four years ago. The farm is so busy it's turning away orders from food cooperatives around the country.
But data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture suggest what an anomaly Miller Farm is.
While farming is undergoing a renaissance of sorts, with more than 300,000 new farms started from 2002 to 2007, accounting for nearly 2 million small farms, making a good living is becoming tougher. The USDA in its 2007 census said the number of small farms with $100,000 to $250,000 annual sales (its highest revenue range for small farms) declined 7%.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
“It used to be that organic was all the rage,” says Dan Kittredge, executive director of the Real Food Campaign, which is part of advocacy group Re-Mineralize the Earth. “Now everyone has organic.”
Nutrient-dense food is the new rage and gives “the advantage back” to small farmers who leverage the notion that certain foods, such as fermented vegetables, grass-fed beef, and pastured chickens, are more nutritious than conventionally produced products and may help consumers strengthen their immune systems. “There is money to be made here,” he says.
Garden Ping Worthy?
I used to live across the road from an Amish factory that made double pane vinyl windows. They had a sign in the retail showroom that explained that it was community owned and operated off diesl generators so it fell within Amish rules.
Apparently they got enough questions about it that they felt it was easier to explain it with a sign. It was a small but very modern place.
So the real Amish actually have initiative and business sense versus the “Amish” who want handouts and entitlements and a transfer of wealth for just being here? Just saying
There is an Amish colony near Corpus Christi, TX (actually closer to Beeville, but nobody knows where that is). They actually have phones, computers/email, and a suburban for emergencies. But they mostly use horses and wagons (and build beautiful wagons sold worldwide), and electric service to a limited extent. Most go barefoot. Very nice folks. Don’t like having their pictures taken, though.
We buy our meat and poultry at a local Penn Dutch market. The other day I bought some chicken at the supermarket because I had a guest and the PD market wasn’t open - after I cooked it and tasted it - bleah - what is this cottony texture, this tasteless meat? Sauced up it was okay but not what we’re used to.
The market doesn’t advertise organic food as Mr. Miller does, and I know the PD are not sentimental about how they treat animals - they have notorious puppy mills - but their meat, eggs and milk are so much better than the supermarket chains’.
However, there were a few that I called "real" Amish. They did not like talking on the phone, and one could tell immediately that you were talking to one of them by their greeting when they picked up: "Yeh?"
How long before these Amish entrepreneurs are set upon by government regulators who will demand they adopt electric coolers, pressure washers etc. all in the name of protecting the public?
A fellow I was in boot camp with was from that area, and had joined the Navy to see the world...the only way he figured he could. After boot camp he got a shore duty billet at NAS Chase Field in Beeville...I swear, he was crying real tears.
Sounds more like Mennonites, which are in effect Amish plus cars and electricity.
At least someone knows the proper role of animals in our lives.
I’m not into the whole “organic” thing. Besides, what’s the opposite of an organic carrot, a metal one? Can you even eat an inorganic carrot?
In any case though, the free-range critters always taste better. Chicken is the biggest difference as you’ve seen. Supermarket junk is so bland and tasteless I might as well eat tofu, but free-range (real free range, not packed-in) is yummy.
“So the real Amish actually have initiative and business sense versus the “Amish” who want handouts and entitlements and a transfer of wealth for just being here? Just saying”
Yea, so what are you saying?
Enlighten us “English”.
I think the poster may have been playing off a joke commonly posted here. When an potential terrorist incident happens, people will often ask if the suspect is Amish, because of course it is NEVER the Amish.
That stuff doesn't leave the field on a horse cart.
Modern logistics are involved.
Michael Palin took a tour a round the world in 80 days.
He got sidetracked in Shanghai and went to a restaurant where they insisted he try the snake, a specialty of the house.
His question to the waiter was “is it free range”
What's the opposite?
Well, for one thing, a carrot with about 24 chemicals in it - systemic. That means throughout the carrot - you can't wash or peel them off.
So you can have all the poison laced carrots you want. I'll take mine 'just carrot'
If I can make my farm at least 1/100th as successful as that, I will die a happy woman. :)
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