Type of opportunity:

Lease (1 to 5 Years), Lease (5+ Years), Lease with Option to Buy, Internship / Mentorship, Incubator / Mentored Lease, Business Partnership. More info: As husband and wife, we currently grow vegetables, herbs, and fruit, collect eggs from 7 of our 9 ducks and 11 of our 14 chickens, all free-range. We milk our goats, but we are willing to grow our business to meat and other dairy opportunities. We prefer an incubator lease or lease with option to buy but our production is yet small. With more we could do more.

Equipment & infrastructure:

Fencing, Greenhouse, Livestock facilities, Farmer housing. More info: Fences are definitely needed to keep in livestock and a duck pond or a stream would be a plus but not necessary,

Current production on farm:

Field crops, Hay or pasture, Herbs, Poultry (Broiler/Layer), Sheep/Goat (Dairy/Meat), Vegetable production. More info: Guaraldi Family Farm feels it is important to grow a part if not all of the food on site instead of paying for it. We use our products to bake such as our zucchini bread.

Current farming practices:

Ecological production but not certified.

Previous farming experience:

Manager

Number of years experience:

4

Production goals:

Field crops, Hay or pasture, Herbs, Orchard, Poultry (Broiler/Layer), Sheep/Goat (Dairy/Meat), Vegetable production.

Personal experience and production goals summary:

BUSINESS PLAN

Guaraldi Family Farm

Jason and Cigi Guaraldi, Owners

Created on April 24, 2017

 

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

1.1 Product

Guaraldi Family Farm grows produce and raises chickens and ducks for the purpose of laying eggs as well as goats for the collection of dairy. The produce will be naturally grown with uncertified organic practices, free-ranges the birds on a pasture consisting of a mix of plants they love to eat while feeding on bugs and other small living organisms to produce eggs with the highest level of nutritional value able to be met in their all natural environment, and the goats 90% grass-fed, retaining the most wholesome milk for dairy products.

 

1.2 Customers

The audience targeted by Guaraldi Family Farm would be any people who want to receive the healthiest food containing large amounts of nourishment, yet not consume by-products and chemicals that may be harmful while doing so.

 

1.3 What Drives Us

The farming industry is a tough market to compete in. Guaraldi Family Farm has a plan that will enable us to grow from retailing fresh fruits, vegetables, and eggs to pickled and fermented products, along with herd shares for raw goat milk labeled for pet consumption. The goal is to obtain land and livestock that are beneficial to supplying the establishment with sellable products while feeding our own products to the animals that do so.

 

2. COMPANY DESCRIPTION

 

2.1 Mission Statement

At Guaraldi Family Farm we are dedicated to our family, animals, plants, home, and land. We put our love and devotion into making sure our produce is the freshest and all naturally grown to the purest, picked at the moment of the perfect completion of its growth; harvested only when 100% ready, ensuring the most delicious flavor and texture, full of all the best nutrients your body craves and thrives on. No pernicious chemicals, growth enhancers, or wax coverings. Simply the purest products grown the way they were first created. We as a family hold these standards dear and will continue that original tradition. Our animals are our family, providing eggs and dairy products. In return we give them a safe, healthy, large home, making certain they receive the most healthful food, exercise, and love they need and deserve, thanking them everyday with our love and care.

 

2.2 Principal Members

Jason Guaraldi - co-owner, main farmer, plant biologist, livestock caretaker, sales, advertising

Cigi Guaraldi - co-owner, assistant farmer, veterinary counsel, sales, advertising, bookkeeping, web master

 

2.3 Legal Structure

Guaraldi Family Farm is a marital Joint ownership that made its transition from a small homestead farm in Wareham, Massachusetts supplementing the cost of the food it provided for the family, into a profit making organization in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 

3. MARKET RESEARCH

 

3.1 Industry

As a result of the farming crisis of the 1980's, the rising price of the cost of running a farm, as pests, plagues, and disease were spread by nature or people and the public’s need for fairly priced products, the farming industry has dwindled down to many less production farms and ranches barely making profit offering wholesale or even retail prices. To counteract this demise, the IRS and the US government offer deductions for a percentage of the cost to run a food producing establishment. In addition, the USDA offers grants for startup or growing farms. These factors allow the men and women working so hard to make sure the nation can eat healthily, even offering the expiring or excess food or unsellable (but still very edible) quality produce to food pantries, are still able to make ends meet. However, the powerful retardation of the industry during the most recent farming crisis in combination with the growing awareness of wind and sun energy caused many farms to either turn into a solar farm, put up wind turbines, or sell their land to a developer who will turn it into a housing neighborhood or a plaza of some sort with storefronts or a business park. Today farms are getting back on financial track although there are a lot of cases where the kids went to college, all have jobs in different career tracks, and there’s nobody to run the families’ farming business after the primary farmer(s) reach an age that gives him and/or her too much difficulty working so hard, leaving thousands of farms unused. But, there are young people who want to become farmers that don’t come from an agricultural upbringing and there are programs that can help. In the past decade, there has been a more widely spread understanding of the benefits of using organic methods to grow and the harmful effect that certain chemicals, artificial hormones, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have on our bodies physically and mentally. The price for organically certified food is quite extreme due to loss and lack. There are, however, natural ways of preventing loss by companion planting or using natural chemicals such as neem to control pest problems, In addition, studies have found ways to increase productivity in livestock, such as free ranging chickens or kidding goats yearly. Yielding products that do not tie together the price that comes with organic certification, yet making use of all the same methods and charging a much more reasonable price allows for sales from customers wishing to fill their bodies with nutrients, excluding the unhealthiness of insalubrious pesticides and growth enhancers for whom the outrageous prices of certified establishments are too expensive to keep pace with, ensuring the ascension of transactional activity associated with the augmentation of the company's name being synonymized with its integrity.

 

3.2 Customers

This young company plans to focus on three groups of customers; Farmers Association for Retail Marketing(FARM) regulars who are specifically looking for Tennessee products to prepare at home, valuing a natural product at a great price, Oak Ridge High School flea market attendees, and Stewart Promotions show clients customers stumbling upon these great deals. Ideally our customers will be ages 25-50 who want the benefits of wholesome foods for themselves or their families without the subjugation of costly expenditure currently associated with them and customers 60-80 years old wishing to partly create an environment of alkalinity in their bodies with a morning start by eating eggs from our ducks for breakfast, making cancer a slowly growing entity as well as keeping their brain functionality at peak due to the high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids the eggs contain, after being educated by the awareness we create through education. There are numerous amounts of potential clients in search of the great value these products hold. According to ETIndex, the average household size in Knox County is 2.4 persons from 2010-14 and SmartAsset claims $433.29 recommended monthly spending per household on groceries, leaving the average over $173 per person recommended minimum spending per month. Kodak, TN is the most underserved market near us, averaging $41-45 revenue per capita in the industry of primarily crop farming.

 

3.3 Competitors

Searching in the local market on google, manta, sizeup, and other business tools such as SBA, BusinessUSA, Harvard Benchmark, and LocalHarvest, which includes Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, the only sales for eggs from ducks and muscovies locally found are on craigslist with a limited amount available. Metzer Farms has a page on their website with a listing by state of establishments selling duck eggs. Included in this list is Farmer Fred Homestead, which is located in Seiverville, TN, over 30 miles from Knoxville. Over a month's worth of hours a day of research shows goat herd shares and milk jars marked with a label indicating that it is for pet consumption only have a market competition only near Nashville and Franklin, TN, which are between 180 and 210 miles from the farm as denoted on Tenneseeans for Raw Milk along with the other resources used for market research. The only establishments nearby selling duck meat are food supermarkets, where they are whole, frozen, and are likely not to have the organic option. Finding Muscovy meat is only possible online finding sale prices over $50 a bird. The Farmers Association for Retail Marketing (FARM), our main stage for eggs, produce, meats, and zucchini bread, has other vendors who sell pastured eggs, produce, breads, meats, and fermented products such as pickles and sauerkraut. Speaking with another FARM vendor for a good while led to a claim that not only would duck eggs go over well, but even farm fresh, pastured, chicken eggs have more demand than supply, especially come the end of summer. The student council at Oak Ridge High School sponsors a flea market every Saturday from March to October in the parking lot on the turnpike side of the school, where a few vendors do offer fresh produce. Stewart Promotions is a flea market style series of three day shows that contain booth renters selling food for home cooking as well.

 

3.4 Competitive Advantage

By offering the natural foods at a price lower than the product-equal competitors, customers will be more inclined to eagerly claim these items before losing their chance due to limited supply. By competitively pricing nutritious, all natural products and creating a community awareness by using various sales pitches in all different retail environments (home improvement stores, supermarkets, clothing stores, etc...), a quickly growing customer base loyally looking for Guaraldi Family Farm at the markets frequented is projected. The friendliness of the team combined with the small scale of the operation often leads to solid relationships between customer and retailer. Pre-bagging items allows for speed of service, and as these relationships form, word of mouth guarantees cost-free advertising, leading to faster growth and profit.

 

3.5 Regulations

For pickled products and sauerkraut, F.A.R.M. and the Tennessee Department of Agriculture require a commercial kitchen.

 

4. PRODUCT/SERVICE LINE

4.1

Product or Service Guaraldi Family Farm will offer the following products: 

Duck Eggs

Muscovy Eggs

Chicken Eggs

Whole Rouen Duck Drakes

Muscovy Breasts

Whole Muscovy Meat

Chicken Breasts

Chicken Thighs

Chicken Legs

Chicken Wings

Chicken Innards

Whole Chicken Meat

Raw and Pasteurized Goat Milk

Goat Cheese

Goat Meat

Fresh Garden Vegetables

Fresh Fruits

Fresh and Dried Herbs