Farmer Spotlight: Chestnut Ridge Farms
More with Chestnut Ridge Farms:
John Montgomery, his wife, son and nephew live full, active lives at Chestnut Ridge Farms. They share it abundantly—selling beef, pork and a healthy lifestyle to their local Virginia community. John described how their lifestyle and philosophy connects with local buyers, and why and how they prioritize convenience as a way to ensure loyalty and a growing business.
Speaking with John, it’s hard not to agree with his wife that he’s a “philoso-Farmer”, passionately spreading his health, fitness and nutrition expertise with his community. John shared, “Between being in the military and being a firefighter and paramedic, I’ve seen enough bad things for five lifetimes. Those details aside, what it makes you realize is that every day is a gift. I try to live as fully as possible, enjoying family and my Farm, reading about history and philosophy, and working to stay active and healthy.”
John works alongside his son, who hopes to one day take over the Farm. His son is a skilled pianist and athlete, sharing John’s passion for reading, learning and exercise. The two have recently begun barefoot training—the newest addition to their rigorous workout routine, which they maintain in addition to the physical demands of running a Farm. “We’re a fitness-oriented Farm, from the food to how we live our lives.”
“I don’t just sell meat; I sell a lifestyle,” explained John, “Sure, our meat is better than the cheap, commercial product. I attribute some of that to the mountain air and bedrock. My heart was always in the mountains. We bought this bank-owned property in 2011 and fixed it up. Our Farm business really got going once friends from church and the gym started asking about our products. That has always been our niche—the fitness community.”
When asked about the marketing and operations side of the business, John explained:
“My older daughter made us a website—it was static but did the job. One day, my wife in her wisdom asked, ‘Do we know how to grow and raise food, have endless knowledge about fitness, health and training? Yes. But we just don’t know this business side of farming.’ Around that time Barn2Door reached out. After a couple calls and talking it through, I decided ‘I’m going to do this.’ It has turned out to be exactly what we needed—someone with business-side tools and expertise—and the timing was perfect.
I’d been thinking about selling online in the back of my mind for a while. I knew that’s where all the Buyers are, and that it would help our business. I also knew it would take time and effort to learn a new system and manage my business in a new way. Most online commerce solutions don’t have the specific things Farmers like us need, like how to handle deposits, variable weights, order reminders and local deliveries. I was delighted to learn that Barn2Door had built all of that and more. It’s nice to have a company—and now a partner—who is 100% focused on building software specifically to help Farmers manage their direct-to-market business. You made it work and now we can sell online with the best of them. We’re like a local Amazon!
Before the pandemic, we were already experimenting with a bit of home delivery. I told my wife, ‘We’ve got a great Farm, a great product and a great message. The missing piece is that we’ve got to make it convenient for people. Like it or not, people are ordering from Whole Foods and don’t even need to leave the house to get groceries delivered to them.’ Barn2Door had already built this capability in, and we already had the know-how, we just needed to add a schedule to our store with order-by dates and delivery zones. Our Account Manager [go-to point person at Barn2Door] helped us get it setup and provided extra resources on how it works for other Farmers—it was great.
Barn2Door also made it easy to promote our Farm online. The custom designed website has really helped us tell our story. I can tell people to go look at it, and it gives them a quick view and understanding of our Farm. I’ve received so many compliments on the website, people saying “This is awesome!”
Having you build and host our website saved me a small fortune—I still don’t know how you guys make money, but am glad you figured it out! You are saving me time and money, and actually helping me increase sales, simply due to the online experience and easy shopping we can now give to our Buyers. I think you all have a great product. I’m excited about the subscriptions, which I learned works for a lot of other Farmers. It will be a great way to grow our business. We’re about to set up a subscription for delivery with beef, pork or a combination.
If it hadn’t been for Barn2Door, with the website and logistics, we would have had a huge amount of trouble adapting to anything. This pandemic is a black swan. No one saw it coming, but it changed daily life. We’re just lucky we were up and running before a lot of other Farms realized they needed to move sales online.
It used to be that at the farmers markets we’d get foot traffic and have conversations and get people to try the product. Now, they’re letting a limited number of people in for drive-through. I’m doing better with my online home delivery sales than I ever did at the markets. Some weeks my younger daughter has even stepped up to help make deliveries, due to the number of orders. We’ll never stop doing delivery now—it doubles our outlets to sell! When the markets open up, we’ll do delivery at the same time. Making it easy to offer both is one of the things Barn2Door does well.
In the military, I learned you never want to be caught standing still. You want to be moving. We train for adversity before things go wrong, so we can be ready when they do. As a small Farmer, you need to embrace this new way of doing things. If buyers can pre-order groceries online, you have to offer it too. If you’re not open-minded to these ideas, you’re absolutely doomed.
Farms need to communicate that they’re offering something of value, then do some of the work to make it easy for buyers to get it, or else those Buyers will continue shopping at Wal-Mart and Costco. You can’t compete on every level (like price), but you can compete on convenience. Luckily, Barn2Door set us up to make that mental paradigm shift a selling reality.
We want our business to be personal. We’re a family farm. It’s all about relationships, and I view Barn2Door—our Account Manager, Monica, and all the folks we’ve worked with—as part of an extended family working together to make the planet and people better. If sharing my story helps get your service out to other Farms, I’m more than happy to do it.”
At Barn2Door, we’re proud to support Farmers (and philoso-farmers!) like John, as they spread positive outlooks, health knowledge and quality products in their local communities. We provide the tools and support for Farmers to build their brand and win with convenience. You can learn how Barn2Door works in 5:40.