Membership Plans – Apr Update

Short answer, sort of. Our values are more aligned with Community Supported Agriculture.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a concept that originated in the 80’s as a way for a community to support a farmer at the beginning of the season (when the expenses and risk are high, but sales are low). In return for their support (or loan/subscription to the farm) each member of a CSA receives a share of the harvest throughout the season.

We find CSA to be a bit cumbersome to explain, especially for the uninitiated. It’s much easier to explain a subscription-based membership.

Our mission is to build community and awareness about social justice and ecological conservation by bringing people closer to where their food comes from. In this way (we hope!) our monthly membership is much more than a meat delivery service but rather a community of members who care for the health of the earth and the well-being of the farmers who grow their food.

Short answer, sort of. Our values are more aligned with Community Supported Agriculture.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a concept that originated in the 80’s as a way for a community to support a farmer at the beginning of the season (when the expenses and risk are high, but sales are low). In return for their support (or loan/subscription to the farm) each member of a CSA receives a share of the harvest throughout the season.

We find CSA to be a bit cumbersome to explain, especially for the uninitiated. It’s much easier to explain a subscription-based membership.

Our mission is to build community and awareness about social justice and ecological conservation by bringing people closer to where their food comes from. In this way (we hope!) our monthly membership is much more than a meat delivery service but rather a community of members who care for the health of the earth and the well-being of the farmers who grow their food.

Answer here…

Subscription is rolling and your membership will begin when you are invited to sign up. For example, if you sign up in February 2021, your last distribution will be in January 2022.

Through our consultation process we try to make sure that members are aware of the annual commitment they are making when they subscribe to a plan. We also ask members to sign a covenant that, barring unforeseen circumstances, they will stick it out for the year. An annual commitment is tremendously helpful for reasons explained elsewhere.

This said, the covenant that members to sign is not legally binding in any way and we will not hold anyone’s feet to the fire if they request to cancel their subscription for any reason.

Short answer, yes.    

There are three options: 

1. We can try to match you up with a buddy–someone you see regularly, or another member who lives close to you inside of the free delivery zone.
2. We will deliver to your home for a $10 fee
3. You can pick up at our farm in Cedar Grove for free.

No problem! The plans that we advertise are $50 (City Slicker), $100 (Homesteader), and $200 (Farm Family). 

If, for example, you want to sign up for a plan that is $150, you simply need to sign up for both the $50 (City Slicker) and a $100 (Homesteader). 

Feel free to mix and match any of the plans to arrive at the value you think best fits your household.

We will allow members to skip a month if they become overwhelmed with meat for some reason. For example, one of our members was bed-ridden with an illness for over a month and couldn’t eat as much meat as she normally does. 

In these cases, we will allow folks to skip a month and add it to the end of their membership year. For example, if your membership year is slated to end in January 2022, your monthly payments would stop, but instead of January, you would receive the last distribution in February 2022.

You could do that, but….

This whole arrangement is in good faith, and remember, the monthly membership helps us plan. We base our production and future inventory according to the plans that folks have signed up for. Therefore, please think about your household’s meat consumption and try not to make a habit out of ordering A LOT of add-ons to your order each month. If every member took that approach, our inventory would fluctuate too much.

We will work with you to make this happen. To date, we’ve only had folks ask to increase the value of their membership plan. 

To do this, we simply add a prorated subscription to their existing plan so that both plans end at the same time. 

For example, if you signed up for a $100 Homesteader plan and two months into your membership year you decided that you wanted to add $50 worth of meat every month, we would simply add a $50 City Slicker subscription to your existing Homesteader subscription and set the renewal date for 9 months instead of 12 months.

We have learned that it’s better for everyone if we take some time to onboard new members and make sure they fully understand the commitment and monthly routine. In 2021 we are planning to add about 12-15 new members a month. When you join the waitlist, we will tell you when you should expect to hear something from us about signing up.

Watch the video above where I explain the process of placing a monthly order.

We send out the order form in our newsletter on the third full week of every month. The form will be disabled until we send it with the newsletter because we want everyone to order from the form that has our most current availability.

Members have about 72 hours to place the order at which time we start assembling everything and preparing for distribution. In addition to email, we also send a friendly nudge to those we haven’t heard from, so don’t worry: you shouldn’t miss the boat on placing an order.

We’ve been told by the folks on the tech other end of our order forms and payment processing platform that our forms are more secure when they require a password for access. 

We will give members the password during the onboarding process (for new sign-ups) and in our monthly newsletter (for order form).

Here are our distribution dates for 2021.

Chapel Hill / Carrboro / Hillsborough

Last Tuesday (of a full week) of every month*:

*except for Thanksgiving week

1/26, 2/23, 3/23, 4/27, 5/25, 6/22, 7/27, 8/24, 9/21, 10/26, 11/22, 12/28

Durham / Raleigh

Last Thursday (of a full week) of every month*

*except for Thanksgiving week

1/28, 2/25, 3/25, 4/29, 5/27, 6/24, 7/29, 8/26, 9/23, 10/28, 11/23, 12/29 

We use an app called Routific which helps us optimize our delivery route and communicate with members. You will receive three text messages on distribution day.

1.) We send the first message in the morning to remind folks that its their distribution day and to please leave a cooler out for us.

2.) You will receive the second message approximately 30 minutes before your order is delivered.

3.) Your final message will be automatically generated when we complete your delivery.

No problem! There are several options:

1. Ask a neighbor or house sitter to pick up your order and put it in the freezer for you.
2. Offer a neighbor or friend your share for the month, or tell us to donate it to someone who needs it.
3. Double up your order the following month (i.e. if you signed up for a $50 plan, you would place a $100 order the following month and leave us a note on the form to remind us).
4. Pick up your order at our farm in Cedar Grove on another day.

Short answer, no. 

Because many cuts of meat have variable weights our order form is designed to calculate the average weight of each cut. Therefore, the total value of your order is an estimate: we won’t know the exact value until we pack your order and add up the exact weights. 

When the actual value of your order is less than the estimated value (i.e. your plan is $200, but the actual weights only add up to $175) we will pack some extra items in with your order to arrive at the value of your membership plan. 

When the actual value of your order is more than the estimated value (i.e. your plan is $200, but the actual weights add up to $210) we give you three options. 

1. Best Option: Keep a tab for any amount that the order has gone over the value of my plan and send me a bill once a quarter for the difference (so long as it is not 20% more than the value of my plan.) Example: November exact weight total = $109, and your plan is $100. We will add $9 to your tab. If your November total =$92 we will add $8 more of something you have ordered to get closer to $100. 

2. Add-On Option: I have intentionally ordered extra this month so please keep a tab even if the total is over 20% of the total.

3. Standard Option: I would like for my monthly order to stay within the monthly amount that I signed up for even if that means taking an item or two off of my order. 

We believe that it is possible for everyone to eat better meat, and we’ve worked hard to remove as many hurdles to make that possible. Let’s face it, not everyone can wake up early on a Saturday morning to make it to a farmer’s market, or fight through rush hour traffic to make it to a pick-up site, or lay out a large amount of cash all at once.

Here’s where we refuse to comprise: price and commitment. 

Price: We have priced everything on our order form such that the farmers can make a decent living doing the hard work of raising happy animals. Raising animals on pasture requires a lot of work and a unique set of skills: moving fences, managing nutrition, keeping animals happy and healthy in inclimate weather and so much more. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the true cost of meat. Check out these references.

Breaking Down the Costs of Pastured Poultry, Center for Environmental Farming Systems

Commitment: Agriculture, particularly animal agriculture, requires a significant upfront investment. All of the infrastructure, materials, feed, animals, and labor has to be paid for before there is a pack of pork chops to deliver. 

A year-long commitment from our members makes farm planning and liquidity (or cash flow) so much better for us. This is why we ask all of our members to sign a pledge that they’ll stick it out for at least a year (and we hope for a lifetime!)

The word organic is pretty loaded these days. Most folks use it as short-hand for anything other than conventional feedlots

Certified Organic is an official USDA designation, and only those who follow the regulatory guidelines and are regularly inspected can claim to be Certified Organic. We are not a part of this program and therefore we cannot claim to be Certified Organic. 

That said, we believe that our animal husbandry practices go well beyond what is required to be Certified Organic. Our animals have 24/7 access to woodland and pasture forage from the time they are old enough to withstand the outdoor elements (chicks 3 weeks; turkeys 5 weeks; pigs 8 weeks). 

We let our animals graze and forage for as much of their nutrition as they can in our pasture and woodland areas, and we supplement the rest with non-GMO feed from a local mill, whey from Boxcarr Cheese, and waste fruit and vegetable from chemical-free neighboring farms.

Here are a couple of resources from NC Choices to help you understand what labels mean.

• What do all these labels mean?
• What does “natural” mean?