| |
California Producer Advises Niche Producers to “Go
Slow”
When you’ve got more than 20 years of pork niche marketing experience like
Scott Long of Manteca, Calif., you know what does — and doesn’t — work in
this business.
“The most important thing is to start small and go slow,” says Long, who
markets 8,000 hogs annually from Long Ranch in the Central Valley. “Keep
learning, and don’t give up.”
Long sells specialty meats, marinated loins, bacon, and more. He uses no
antibiotics in the feed, and his products appeal to a variety of consumers,
including the ethnic market.
“The Southeast Asian trade made up 99 percent of our business for nearly 10
years,” says Long, who’s the vice president/owner-operator of a
feeder-pig-to-finish operation. “Now that’s dropped to 50 percent, but the
biggest growth areas have been Hispanics and Samoans.”
Serving diverse customer needs
The different ethnic groups have different requirements for the pork they
buy.
“The Hispanics want a big market hog, Asians want 100- to 200-pound hogs,
and Bosnians like 60- to 70-pound pigs,” explains Long, who serves on the
National Pork Checkoff Board. “Samoans want 30- to 35-pound suckling pigs to
serve at their parties, and they like to buy 50 to 100 pigs at a time.”
Accommodating these various needs fits well with an all-in, all-out
production system, Long adds.
Adding an on-farm store
Long Ranch includes an on-farm processing facility where customers can pick
out the pig they want, have Long process it for them, and take the meat
home. Since April of 2003, Long has also operated a small retail store on
the farm where he sells bacon, ham and marinated products including loins
and spare ribs.
“We have one employee who handles the further processing,” Long says. “We’re
still learning about how to make all this work. It’s really exciting, but
it’s also a challenge, because you have to sell the whole pig.”
Some local custom cut-and-wrap meat businesses provided valuable pointers,
as did the California Association of Meat Processors. “Our marinated
products are selling well, because people like the convenience,” Long says.
Still, growing the business has been a slow process, adds Long, who also
sells pork at the local farmers market. “Each month business at our retail
store picks up, but you need patience, because it takes awhile to get the
word out.”
Building a niche market
One useful new tool for spreading the word is the Pork Checkoff-funded Niche
Pork area of the Internet. Many pork producers are listed in the “Locate a
Producer” section of the Niche Web site, which is marketed to consumers,
chefs and restaurants that are looking for speciality pork products.
“Our name is on that Web site, and we’ve already gotten quite a few
consumers calling us wanting different products and asking questions about
our products, which is exciting,” Long says.
After participating in a recent niche pork committee meeting, Long says the
Pork Checkoff is developing other ways to support niche producers.
“We’re going to try to make connections so if a producer wants to go into a
certain area of niche marketing, there will be someone they can talk with to
get some advice before they jump in. With all the new things the Checkoff’s
got coming forward, it will be a lot easier for producers to learn more and
see if niche marketing’s a good fit for them.”
To contact Long Ranch Inc., call 209-823-5515, or e-mail
lranch@inreach.com.
All pork producers can participate in the Checkoff’s Niche Pork area of the
Internet. To see this area from
www.pork.org, select “Niche Pork
Production” from the “Pork Production” menu.
To be listed in the “Locate a Producer” section of the Niche Web site, pork
producers can call the Pork Checkoff Service Center at 800-456-PORK
(800-456-7675) and complete a brief survey of information they want to
include on the Internet. |
