Farmer Spotlight: Rockwell Ridge Farm
THE FARMER
Cliff and Cari were always, in their words: “on a path to farming together—we just didn’t know it.” Today Rockwell Ridge Farm offers their local Madison, Wisconsin, community pastured pork and eggs, baked goods, and apples and pears from their orchard. Cliff was kind enough to share their farming journey, and the ways they’re shifting business online to address this recent pandemic.
Though Cari grew up on a pig Farm in Michigan, she swore to “never farm again.” Cliff considered himself a suburban kid through and through, having grown up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and eventually living outside of Chicago. From there, he would visit Wisconsin’s Driftless Area to fly fish. Enchanted by its beauty, Cliff swore that if he ever were to live somewhere else, it would be there.
Years later, newly married Cliff and Cari pulled up to a piece of land they found for sale within 10 miles of those creeks, at the exact moment the remote owner happened to be on site. They purchased the property, and in 2008 moved there full time, with Cari commuting back and forth to Chicago for work.
“When we first bought it, the goal was not to farm it,” Cliff reflected. Even so, the property garden slowly morphed into a Farm with chickens, grapevines, a handful of apple trees and eventually sheep. “We’ve always been foodies, and appreciate both regional and seasonal food. We even honeymooned in Italy, where it was all about the food and wine.”
The couple applied for the Dane County Farmers Market in 2008, knowing it would take years to be accepted, with the back-up plan of selling Cari’s incredible baked goods if they didn’t have other products to sell.
Eventually, Cari had an opportunity to transfer her job up to Madison, and she took it. “We were watching Farms in the area, and looked at our land saying ‘Why don’t we put our resources where we are?’” The couple began adding pastured pork and eggs to their offerings, and growing their direct-market business.
In 2017, after an 8 year wait, they got into the Dane County Farmers Market and things exploded.
GOING TO MARKET
At the time, they had only three feeder pigs, having bought their first registered Mulefoot sow and boar the December before. They sold out of the pork they did have quickly, and leaned on Cari’s baked goods as they ramped up production.
When we talked to Cliff this week, he said: “I finally feel like we’re in a position to keep up with demand. The last 4 years, we were kind of new to farming together. Even though our Farm was officially established in 2009, we really started ramping it up in 2016.” When asked what that “ramp up” looked like, Cliff responded, “Well, we went from 4 hogs to 50, 30 layers to 150 and are still growing.”
For the last few years, Cliff and Cari have been regular attendees of MOSES (the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Systems conference) in La Crosse, Wisconsin. “The dynamic has changed. When we started attending 5 years ago, we would split up to cover sessions, sucking up the information and focusing on what we needed to learn. Now, we know so many Farmers in the Driftless Area and feel less pressed to be in class every hour. It is a chance to catch up with friends, and take a breather from the Farm including thinking about our Farm’s direction in general versus being on Farm tackling that day’s tasks.”
“The accolades we’ve gotten from the community have been incredible. It’s reassurance that we’re doing things right. On Saturdays I went to the farmers market and heard people rave about our product, saying “You have to try this!”
“We’re diversified, so the locals come and buy the pork and the eggs. Tourists in Madison and the college students come and buy our baked goods. It’s something they can eat right there, or take home with them.”
HOW BARN2DOOR HELPED
“The college students, they love their credit cards! It’s absolutely what she [Janelle, the Barn2Door CEO] said in her seminar at MOSES. The way I look at it is “Sure, I can give a “3% discount” knowing I will get more sales across the board. The number of people paying with cards grows every year. When vendors don’t take cards, I just don’t know what they’re thinking.”
“We got to a point where customers at the market would ask about our website, whether they wanted to learn more about the Farm or the products, or to order without coming to the market. I realized we needed a web presence. It’s important to have that story out there. My son bought us a domain name for Christmas, and then Michaela [Barn2Door Employee] called. The timing was perfect and the pricing was so reasonable. I remember Cari telling me, “that is such a great deal—having someone build a website usually costs way more than that, not to mention you get all the support, resources, marketing tools and online store.”
“The coaching is phenomenal. You [the Barn2Door Team] did so much for me, adding email addresses and went out of your way to get us launched and going. Within one week of being online I got 3 orders for half hogs, so that paid for itself in full!”
When the Dane County Farmers Market shut down (due to the coronavirus), Cliff reported, “We’ve really been able to maintain our position during all this. We’re offering free deliveries in Madison, and expanding the area we offer delivery to. If anything, we are seeing an increase in sales overall despite the market closing.”
Barn2Door is proud to serve Cliff and Cari, to support their local communities and sell direct before, during, and after the pandemic. We’ve compiled free resources for Farms navigating coronavirus. If you’re curious about Barn2Door’s services for your own Farm, you can learn how it works in this short video.