Farmer Spotlight: DX Beef
How this South Dakota Rancher is feeding healthy local people and economies.
More with DX Beef:
Kelsey Ducheneaux runs DX Beef, where she ranches and sells grass fed beef to local communities on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. She is the Natural Resources Director for the Intertribal Agriculture Council, and a passionate advocate for growing strong local food systems. Kelsey shared about DX Beef and its response to spiking demand during the pandemic.
“I’m a 4th generation rancher in south-central South Dakota, and work alongside my dad and uncle. When I came home from college eager to get involved in the ranch, they said, “Great, get a loan and buy some cows!” They embraced the fact that I went to college and brought back an outside perspective—they could have easily called my ideas crazy but they never made me feel that way.
I was excited to dig into the big picture tasks. I got my Masters Degree online, which included developing a business plan for DX Beef. As a share owner in the ranch, I’m working to identify and capture the potential in the meat market locally. For now, I’m the sole owner and operator of DX Beef but it’s growing quickly—especially through the pandemic—into something that I’ll need more assistance with to keep up with demand.
We started by selling quarters of beef. I learned quickly to fine tune my communication, since it was easy to overwhelm buyers with too much information. The average consumer isn't interested in the higher-quality cuts, they just want a burger that tastes good and is raised well, so they feel comfortable feeding it to their family. In response, I developed a series of burger bundles at $50 or $100 worth of beef—buyers love it and quickly become repeat customers.
It has been ideal to have an online store and ability to promote DX Beef online. Due to covid, grocery stores are only allowing customers to buy 5 lbs of ground beef at a time—sometimes there’s no beef on the shelves at all. It’s really pushed people to reach out to the producer. Barn2Door helped me set up an online transaction process that was easy and clear to the consumer. As of May 6th we’ll have surpassed 750% growth in sales from 1st quarter 2019 to 2020. My next four animals are already sold! Local producers are reaching out asking, ‘How did you do it?’. I’m telling them about Barn2Door so they have the opportunity to create a similar outcome for their Farms and ranches.
I think hands down the best part about Barn2Door is the live human expertise that comes with it. The consistent meetings with my account manager has kept me accountable to making progress before my next meeting—it is what got me ready for the influx of demand during this global pandemic.
When asked who her customers are, Kelsey responded, “Over 90% of my business is to consumers residing here on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. It’s a fairly even split between young families and older, retired ranchers. I don’t have to go very far to sell my product.
The best marketing tool I have is the local restaurant that sells my beef. The only burger she provides is grass fed DX Beef—it gives people a chance to taste the product and decide if they want to buy from me. She’s always bragging that her food tastes good because it starts with local products! I love the partnership with the chef, and love that I can easily use Barn2Door to sell to both chefs (wholesale) and my community (retail)—even with different price points.
I take every opportunity I can to donate to local events. I love to say that DX Beef is “Local, Nutritious, and Rooted in the Community.” As much business as possible is conducted on our reservation; I look for opportunities for DX Beef to invest in the community, including donating to families in need of quality food, supporting local fundraising efforts and sponsoring events that will spread awareness across communities.
In our Lakota culture, we are taught to share our bounty so that everyone can survive in a comfortable manner. For me, the real wealth in this business is seeing families sit down to eat a meal that features DX Beef on their plates. Yes, a business has to be able to pay bills and can only stay afloat if the profits more than cover costs…but the financials aren’t what drive me to expand this business. My passion is truly in producing a beef product that is healthy, regenerating our landscapes, and feeding families.
In 2010 I started attending the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) annual conference as a volunteer. I learned quickly that I wanted to spend my entire life working alongside these people. I was fortunate to stay involved with the IAC throughout college and started as their Youth Programs Coordinator after graduation, in a shared employment position with the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative.
I firmly believe that the only reason a small beef business like DX Beef can succeed is as a result of the decades of work that the IAC has committed to Indian Country agriculture and food systems. I’m so proud of IAC’s contribution to Indian Country, it’s a true honor to help carry forward their mission every day.
The Intertribal Agriculture Council has established a trademark for “Made and Produced by American Indian” food growers, which DX Beef is proud to bear. This, along with the IAC’s American Indian Food program’s marketing expertise helps find paths forward for beef producers like me to feed their communities.
My goal is to be able to sell all of our animals in the form of beef, feeding families food they can trust. More importantly, my dream is to expand that reach beyond our own ranch’s capacity. Local producers do not have a place to market their livestock for meat sales. I think DX Beef can be a vehicle that connects consumers with high-quality, native ranchers throughout this region. We have to localize our food systems again, and getting ranchers to work together is one step in the right direction. I hope that I can contribute to this effort in the months to come.
I’m fortunate that covid has kept me at home and focused on the ranch, to look at the financials, and review my options and dig into the market opportunity. I have had an exponential increase in confirmed sales, once I had a website and store where I could easily invoice people through email. I’d get so many people wanting to buy (before I used Barn2Door), but I did not have a way to secure that payment. I was spending too much time going back and forth, feeling like I was harassing them to meet up and exchange cash or check. Now, I can send them an invoice—they get an email to follow-up and a reminder when it’s due without me thinking about it.
I’m excited about expanding our deliveries; Barn2Door makes it easy to roll out and manage new delivery or pickup options. My customers have been good about communicating back and forth, but soon we’ll reach a point in demand where that’s unrealistic, and it will need to be streamlined. I’m excited to have a tool that will scale with DX Beef!
I’ve learned one of my own weaknesses is scheduling time for myself to sit down and work on the business. Barn2Door has been great for that reason—giving me a clear vision and goals to meet, including committing time each week to focus on the business.
Barn2Door is proud to support Kelsey and DX Beef, and to partner with the Intertribal Agriculture Council. If you want to learn more about how Barn2Door works, watch this 5:40 video.