How to Wine & Dine a Chef

Any farmer — or any small business owner, for that matter — can testify to the familiar adage that marketing and sales make up at least 50 percent of the time spent running a business. Between emails, social media posts, print ads, phone calls, and farmers markets, farmers can be left with barely enough time to grow what they’re trying so hard to sell. Streamlining this process is integral to operating a successful farm. Consolidating sales to a few prodigious points will allow you to find more time for the job you intended. Consolidation can come in various forms, including selling wholesale to a store, selling to a larger distributor, or selling directly to restaurants. Each of these options has its own particular benefits and drawbacks, but selling directly to restaurants arguably offers the most compelling advantages.

Selling locally grown meat directly to customers requiresanimal’s anatomy — the individual cuts and how to cook them. Sirloins and chops are easy sells, but there’s a whole lot of animal left after the choice cuts are gone. No farmer wants these languishing in a freezer. Not only is it ecologically unsound, but it’s also unprofitable if you aren’t able to sell the whole animal. Fortuitously, it’s in a chef’s best fiscal interest to use every part of an animal.