Taking Control of Our Future
Taking Control of Our Future
Feb 24I have never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. Even now that we have created a business and successfully marketed our brand, for some reason I don’t put that label on myself. What am I then? . . . A “farmer”!
But, as I sat down to write this post, I began thinking about all of the qualities needed to be a (successful) farmer, and in fact, many things on that list would be the same for an entrepreneur . . . hard working, able to think outside the box, resourceful, able to multitask, useful with minimal resources, capable of dealing with things beyond our control (i.e. weather), and above all, having a great love of what you do.
My partners and I created Bluewater Beef, partly as a means to take back control of our futures. We were quite honestly, losing money in the beef business. Constantly at the mercy of the open market, we never knew from one day to the next, what price we would get for our cattle. When the market hit rock bottom in May of 2003 many beef producers got out of the business, but we all figured “eventually prices have to go back up… don’t they?” It took until 2011 for the price of beef on the open market to reach the level it was at prior to May of ’03. That was a long 8 years of losing your shirt! But in the summer of 2008, we decided we weren’t going to wait anymore and came up with an idea to set our own beef prices, eliminate the “middle-man”, and get our premium quality beef into the hands of consumers at a fair price. We created Bluewater Beef!
We have created a business that we are extremely proud of. We have been successful in marketing our locally raised, hormone-free, premium beef products direct to consumers in the Sarnia-Lambton area. We were nominated for the OBA for Marketing & Promotions for the past 2 years. I guess maybe in some circles we would all be considered entrepreneurs, but around here, that just makes us Farmers!
