The Continued Success of a Fifth Generation Ranch
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we talk with Logan Mannix of Mannix Family Beef in Montana. We discuss the origins of the 5th generation ranch, their continued focus on conservation and partnerships, and the establishment of their successful and growing direct to consumer business.
Mannix Family Beef raises grass finishes beef, offering cuts, bulk beef, bundle boxes, and wholesale options. Despite their remote location, Logan has found great success offering local pickups and bundles of their products.
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Richard Weisberg: All right. Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast.
I'm Richard, your host for today's episode, and we have a great conversation with you today with one of our newest Farm Advisors, Logan Mannix from Mannix Family Beef, located in Montana. Welcome, Logan. We're happy to have you.
Logan Mannix: Yeah. Thanks for having me here.
Richard Weisberg: Absolutely. Well, we've got a lot to get through today.
Um, how about you just get us started by telling us a little bit more about Mannix Family Beef and what we all produced today?
Logan Mannix: Yeah, so, um, our ranch is a generational ranch. It was homesteaded in [00:01:00] 1882. So I'm fifth generation on the ranch. It's primarily managed now by, my dad and his two brothers, so, David, Randy and Brent Mannix.
Um, their three spouses also help, at times on the ranch. And then, quite a few of my generation back as well. So Brent and Stacy's son, Brian is back full-time and, his wife, Kate. This last fall, their daughter, Ashley and her husband Taylor, came back to the ranch. Ashley's helping a little bit with the beef business and Taylor's working full-time on the ranch. Um, my cousin Neil is on the ranch, , my brother Jordan and sister Erica are on the ranch full time, so, , uh, slew us out here, which is great. And then we also have, uh, Brad, Marty, and Kelsey's an Apprentice for us this year . So, um, that's kind of the crew.
We're raising about 1,250 cow calf pairs. We background all of our calves currently. So that's, you know, give or take 1100 calves in a given year. Some [00:02:00] of those will be replacement heifers. Um, some of those we sell as stocker steers and almost all the heifers and some of the steers then we keep over for a second year and finish as grass fed beef. And that's, um, our direct marketing enterprise primarily.
Um, we sell both those finished beef that are between 24 and 36 months old. And then we also sell, a significant number of cold cows now that we mostly use for burger. Mm-hmm. We've found more and more, ways to start keeping some of the other cuts off those as well.
This year we kept, 300, heifers and steers to finish, and sell and they'll be, about 200, burger cows , you know, older than three years that will be moving through the program this year.
So, yeah, that's the heart of the ranch, I suppose.
Richard Weisberg: Right on. Sounds like you guys are staying busy then.
Logan Mannix: Yeah.
Richard Weisberg: Well that's great to see the, the families out there as well. And, um, how long have you had interns on the ranch? That's, uh, something I don't hear often with many of the [00:03:00] farms I work with.
Logan Mannix: So, um, a few years back, , we started participating in the new agrarian apprenticeship program from Quivira. So we've been involved for about five years, but this is a second time taken on an apprentice. We've had people out, before officially having apprenticeships. Mm-hmm. And had always enjoyed it so, part of it is that I think it's a great program for getting people who maybe are having a hard time finding their way into agriculture.
Um, we just value the program for that. But it's also been good for us. It's kind of a, a cheaper way for us to get an extra hand on the ranch and then return we try to balance that with, rather than treating 'em like just in a ranch hand, we're trying to give them as much education,, as possible. . But it's been, it's been great.
Richard Weisberg: That's awesome. That's awesome. Now, you mentioned the, the ranch started, was it 1887? Is that what you said?
Logan Mannix: 1882.
Richard Weisberg: 1882, right on. Um, so tell me briefly a little bit about the history. Uh, how did Manic Family Beef come to be and, you know, how has it [00:04:00] really changed over time?
Logan Mannix: Yeah, so, Timothy Benjamin Mannix, homesteaded the ranch out here, he fought the Civil War and then, came this direction. My grandma's side of the family actually has maybe even older roots in the Valley by 10 or 15 years, too , there's a fifth generation Gary Ranch in the valley, and they share roots if you go all the way back with our family back there, so,
Richard Weisberg: no kidding.
Logan Mannix: Um, I think it started out as a sheep ranch and I don't remember exactly when, maybe early 1900s. Mm-hmm. Uh, is when it moved from a sheep ranch to a cattle ranch. Um, and uh, so they've been running cattle since the early 1900s.
Coming out of the Depression, it was not in great financial shape. Um, but grandpa did a great job kind of getting it back on its feet economically, I think he was a really good manager. And then one thing I think he did really well was stepping aside earlier than maybe he was ready [00:05:00] for his sons to kind of step in. Mm-hmm. So in the eighties and nineties, my dad and his two brothers, started coming back.
And they first started out on their own on another ranch that was their uncles. But then, um, grandpa stepped aside and they sort of started running those two ranches as a unit.
And then since then they used some conservation easements to expand the ranch. We were able to buy some additional chunks of land, and that's part of why we have more people back now.
Um, and then as far as how did we get into direct marketing from there? Um, in the nineties, Ranching for Profit, was pretty influential. We've all gone through the program now. I think Dad was the first to go, but went through this Ranching for Profit program. Um, it's been really influential on how we do our economics. Mm-hmm. Um, and one of the things that it started us down is we were kind of following the rest of the industry with our, our cow size was getting larger, we were kind of pushing for more production [00:06:00] for animal and kind of through this Ranching for Profit, we realized we didn't quite think that was the right direction. We started downsizing the herd a little bit not, not numbers of cattle, but in terms of frame size. Um, smaller cattle, deeper belied, trying to find hardier cattle that would require less inputs, be able to say graze a little longer in the winter. Um, started moving further into the rotational grazing practices. We realized the same animals that were sort of heartier and required less inputs, were the, same animals that might do well on grass Right, be able to finish on grass.
And my generation can't take any credit for that. Um, I was, uh, you know, graduating from high school and early college when they were first, doing that.
I would say 2003, 2004 were probably the beginnings of, starting to finish beef on grass. So they started selling primarily through farmer's markets. Mm-hmm. And then finding wholesale customers, they found a few grocery store partners around that would [00:07:00] sell whole animals, found some guest ranches and stuff that would sell whole animals. And that was all offline. They didn't have, the ability to order online or anything like that.
Mm-hmm. It was mostly done, done over the phone, and kind of door to door. So, that's how it got started.
Richard Weisberg: Right on. Hey, I love it. Well, and I've, I've had the privilege of being able to work as your Account Manager for some time, and I know land stewardship, seems to be at the core of Mannix Family Beef.
And you mentioned kind of changing the animals to, to better, graze off, grasses Right. For longer periods of time. So can you tell us a little bit about the practices you currently have in place?
Logan Mannix: Yeah. And again, so much of this credit goes to, uh, generation four, dad and his brothers. Mm-hmm. And grandpa as well, they've always had a land ethic about, you know, leaving it better.
We're really focused on forming partnerships. I think one of the best things they've done, is they were always willing to open the doors and work with, , Fish and Game, and Forest Service. Mm-hmm. And conservation groups like the Blackfoot Challenge, which is a [00:08:00] influential, uh, grassroots group out here, , conservation groups that are working with land trusts and conservation easements, and Trout Unlimited. And I feel like we've always come out of those partnerships better off than we were before. You know, there's definitely been some compromises, but I would say more often than not, it's less compromise and more win-win that they've been able to find.
Um, and so going back to the Ranching for Profit we've, uh, been working really hard on our grazing practices and soil health and really in the last, you know, six or so years kind of increasing our focus on that soil health piece. So we're trying to practice rotational grazing our stockers and our beef are primarily on daily moves on our irrigated ground this time of year. So we've set up, uh, we have a couple pivots and we've set those up to have, movable water source and, both, permanent and temporary electric fence to be able to move those daily. [00:09:00] A lot of the mother cow herd this time of the year that's in the Meadows has more, two to four day moves, developed a lot of water infrastructure to make that possible. We're starting to expand, , now to trying to develop the infrastructure to do more of that on some of our dry land acres. Because those are have been a little bit more difficult there, large pastures, uh, sagebrush, not super productive, not a lot of water. Right. And we've probably got down to one or two wheat grazes on most of that. But we just got a TIF grant to, put in some additional water tanks. Basically we're building a big collection tank to hold the water from a whole bunch of springs that could then feed larger herds down below it and hopefully that gets put in in the next few years.
But then aside from the grazing, I think good grazing practice is probably the heart of what we do, but we've also sold conservation easements on the vast majority of the land that we own used that to purchase some additional land. We've, , worked with Trout Unlimited to do some restoration projects on streams to put in fish screens,[00:10:00] to do a water lease on some irrigation water to leave more water. Mm-hmm. In the stream at certain times of the year. They put in a fish ladder on a pond that my great grandpa put in.
Wow. Um, which is funny, those ponds, he won conservation awards for putting them in back in the day. But of course now we know that there's impacts from that. So, um, rather than tear 'em out, they realized it was a source of purebred cutthroat trout. Um, Because it's a little bit, the fish can't quite get into the stream.
And rather than fixing that, they've put in the fish ladder, so they're spawning upstream and then occasionally trap fish out of there to transplant to the river.
Richard Weisberg: No kidding.
Logan Mannix: Um, we've worked a lot with the Blackfoot Challenge on trying to live with predators on the ranch. So we've got grizzlies and wolves, and they've helped institute a carcass pickup program where when animals die, we try to quickly haul 'em into the ranch.
Put 'em somewhere like on a bale or something like that for a day or two. And within a day or two, there's a truck that'll come by, pick 'em up and [00:11:00] haul em to a compost site. . And a lot of these ranches used to have sort of a, a dumping ground, if you will, for those carcasses. And that can be a big attractant for bears and wolves.
Richard Weisberg: Definitely.
Logan Mannix: And I think that getting that. Has been a big way, a big part of reducing conflict on the ranch. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We also participate in a range riding program. My brother's done that quite a bit, for maybe five years or more he was the range rider that would travel around, set up game cameras, kind of track activity. Mm-hmm. And just be a presence on the landscape. In general, I would just say that the family's willingness to work with, Fish and Game, and Trout Unlimited, and Blackfoot Challenge has just been great, great partnerships for us. And we've usually come out the other side, better than we started. Win-win.
Richard Weisberg: That's awesome. That's awesome. Now,, do you think it's a, it's a really important deal for your retail customers to know these practices and to, have these practices in place?
Logan Mannix: I sure think so, um, especially the heart of our customer base. Um, [00:12:00] you know, where we were attending farmers markets in Missoula and Sealy, these are towns that are in our watershed and I think that through our partnerships, helped get our name out there.
People maybe recognized us a little bit that, and they wouldn't have, if. There weren't, um, you know, some of these partnerships . Um, they hear about us and we've hosted some tours out on the ranch related to those conservation efforts.
And I, I think it's both helped get our name out there and then I think that as our customers learn about that, I think it's a big part of the reason why they'll stick with us. Um, yeah. Yeah. Even if, uh, you know, let's say we haven't done as good a job making our box pretty as we should or, or something like that. I do think it's a, a big piece of loyalty for our customers.
As we are trying to expand our customer base, I think it's gonna be important for us to try and tell that story to customers who might not have learned it otherwise. Our single biggest grocery store, the Good Food Store in Missoula mm-hmm. I think our practices were really [00:13:00] important for them in being loyal to us and for a long time that was a huge portion of our business. Mm-hmm. Um, before we were going to direct to consumer. And so yes, I de I definitely think those conservation practices have been important.
Richard Weisberg: Good, good. Now speaking of, your direct to consumer buyer base, you mentioned in your history the ranch sold quite a bit to restaurants and, the retailers.
And tell me a little bit about making the change to selling direct to the consumer and then, you know, what was the early stages of that? What did that look like for you guys?
Logan Mannix: Yeah, so, um, like I said, initially, We did sell direct to consumer at farmer's markets early on.
Richard Weisberg: Of course
Logan Mannix: we were attending a couple of them and consumers could buy locker beef halves, wholes and quarters, but we had no freezer storage on the ranch that was sort of a pickup from the butcher thing. Mm-hmm. And then we had just enough storage for our farmer's market trailer. At the time we'd spent really no money on advertising other than farmer's markets and, so, a fellow that worked for us for about 15 years was [00:14:00] instrumental in getting all that going. So that's when I kind of stepped in to, um, managing the beef business was after he left. And I think, one of my goals was, maybe I'm a little bit younger generation, a little bit more techy and was thinking, hey, we should really start actually allowing people to purchase online. Mm-hmm. Um, and I thought that there was, , unmet demand out there, um, outside of the farmer's markets. And uh, so I was, had started doing that. I redid our website.
Um, had very few pickup locations. Basically when we were going back and forth to the butcher, I created some drop locations in town on our way through. Sure. And, uh, was just kind of starting to get it off the ground the pandemic hit in 2020. And so I've been thinking about expanding the route for some time. It just kind of seemed like, man, if we're ever gonna do this, this is the time. And so we immediately launched a weekly delivery route with pickup locations. Nice. I started trying to [00:15:00] build an email newsletter and a following . Um, we purchased a refrigerated van, to be able to better do that delivery route. And sales, uh, really took off one.
One thing I should say too, in the history of our program we are actually losing ground with the number of beef we were able to sell wholesale. Um, part of that was just, I think we're getting a lot more competition. There's more and more and more ranches um, trying to do this, and um, we lost some of our, business with different, guest ranches and stuff and mm-hmm. And I think a lot of that was just more and more competition, more producers coming in. Some of that I think is just, The convenience factor, for some of those places , not wanting to sell whole animals, they started wanting to sell primals.
And we were selling more and more out of state on the hoof to, more national brands. Mm-hmm. Um, we sold to US Wellness Meats and we sold to Thousand Hills. We'd always wanted to [00:16:00] have some of those selling to those programs cuz we felt like it was our, our overflow valve if you raise more than you could sell locally, we'd sell em that direction. But the number we were selling that direction was growing. Mm. And frankly, we were losing money on those sales, at least if you look at the opportunity cost of what we could have sold, those animals for it just wasn't paying to sell to those programs.
Mm-hmm. And so, I think before the pandemic hit, but going into that, I think part where my head was at is we need to stop selling these to those programs. You know, we had sold two truckloads in a 70, 80 head out of state the previous year, and that was just, Not worthwhile. And so I wanted to see if we could sell those locally.
Yeah. So that was also kind of leading into this decision to start selling direct to consumer, is that there is not very many good foods and real food stores out there that are willing to sell whole animals. Yeah. And that are willing to pay more for local beef. And not only is there not a lot more of 'em out there, but the ones that are there have more and more [00:17:00] producers calling them.
And so we wanted to build their own following. So, We launched that delivery route and, our direct to consumer wholesale beef has gone from maybe 20 to 30 a year to 160 to, I hope this year, 200 finished beef. We're going from selling maybe 30 of those cold cows and burger cows locally to, I'm hoping 160 to 200. We don't have enough coal cows on our own ranch anymore to fill those accounts, so we started partnering with another ranch to bring in some more coal cows. Um, there you go. So yeah.
Richard Weisberg: That's awesome. Oh, wow. Um, well, great scaling. No kidding. So that's good to see. Now, um, so you mentioned the pandemic, , you were expanding your customer base. Um, I'm really always excited to hear when ranchers are collecting and sending out emails. So, great head on your shoulders there for that one. But when it came to, joining Barn2Door, why, why'd you sign up with Barn2Door in the first place?
Where do we come into this, equation here?
Logan Mannix: Yeah, so , I think I've seen [00:18:00] some people build successful businesses off of, you know, Shopify and those things and, um, and there's some, definitely some strength to those platforms, but the ability to find a platform that, is built for selling by the pound, was important. And that's hard to find. Also, Our main way of selling has not been home delivery, it has been pickup locations. And we really needed a tool that would force customers to choose, you know, um, you can only order from us every other Saturday and you gotta choose that I'm gonna meet you at this school parking lot at 10:00 AM.
Um, that's really hard to arrange with other platforms. And, I think when I looked at Barn2Door, I was wanting to improve our website and the website designs that Barn2Door offered were, professional and beautiful looking. That was one thing that, attracted us to the program. Mm-hmm. Um, another was just kind of the ability to meet with an Account Manager. [00:19:00] Um, I think that's been valuable for us and was one of the, um, the idea of being able to meet with somebody, you know, each month and, and check in and ask questions was another part of it.
Um, but honestly, the initial piece, that website design was a big part of it . At any rate, those were two of the big ones that drew us to the platform and, and we've been here since.
I couldn't imagine doing this without a tool like that to allow us to, uh, sell to pickup locations and have customers be forced to choose a time and a location to meet us. Mm-hmm. Has been hugely helpful.
Richard Weisberg: Yeah, absolutely. Well, running the schedule and the business that you guys are over there, uh, you don't have a lot of time to, to bend over backwards for orders and things like that, so. Well Good. Um, now you mentioned something, um, a little earlier, you know, just in terms of your, your location and other, um, you know, locations where your customers are.
Um, Given the, the rural location of the farm, how [00:20:00] have you met, the expectations that customers have when it comes to ordering online nowadays?
Logan Mannix: Yeah, so, I might be wrong about this, but we kind of think we're a little too remote to say go with a, um, on farm store pickup very often there are people who will. But we're an hour to an hour and 15 minutes from most, uh, Population centers. Most of our customers are at least that far away in bigger towns. Hels, you know, got a population in the valley of under 200, and they're mostly ranchers. Mm-hmm. Who aren't our customers. You know, farmers markets have been, I think, a great way to get our name out, but they've never been, a huge point of sales for us.
Um, in fact, Probably for the first 15 years we were losing money on it and we knew it, but we at least losing money if you considered time and expense of travel in there and paying somebody and, and all of that. But, but it was our only marketing and uh, I think it was worth it for us to go, but if that was our only sales, it would never have been worth it.[00:21:00]
Now we are making a little bit of money at the One Farmer's Market we're still attending, but it's still more, I think of a get your name out there in Marketing Event than it is our main point of sales. And so I think, you know, we realized we just needed to find a way to make it more convenient for more people to buy from us.
The main way that we've met that is through our pickup locations. Mm-hmm. We basically looked at all the major populations within a few hours drive of us and tried to, set up a loop with pick up locations in each major place. We drive that, a route every week. One week we will go north and hit um, towns like Missoula and Lolo and Kalispell and Polson and Sealy and Big Fork.
Um, the next week we will go south and hit the big towns are Helena, Bozeman Butte, but we'll pick up some little towns in between like Anaconda, and Belgrade. Mm-hmm. And so each week we're either going north or on that loop or south. And we've adjusted that a little bit and now we only do the [00:22:00] full loop once every four weeks.
And in those off weeks we offer some home de delivery. So we hit either Missoula or Helena pickup locations and then do home deliveries in those towns after that. Mm-hmm. So those home deliveries are kind of a newer experiment, but just seeing if we can, even another level of convenience maybe for customers, but still the pickup locations are driving our sales and not the home delivery at this point.
Richard Weisberg: Definitely.
Logan Mannix: Um, but being, I think another way we meet that is one of our advantages of being a big ranch is that, We're slaughtering enough that we slaughter every two weeks all year long. Mm-hmm. Plus some additional, additional butcher slots Nice. Elsewhere. And, um, that's been an advantage in working with our butcher because they can rely on us to bring, , right now it's 12 animals every two weeks into the butcher.
Mm-hmm. Um, And that's helped us find butcher slots that I think other people have a harder time scheduling. It's been an advantage for our customers cuz we have beef year round. Right. And if we [00:23:00] do sell out of something, we'll have more soon. Mm-hmm. And so people can order from us in December, in March, in September. Um, so they can order halves and wholes year round.
And I think that's been a big advantage for us. Yeah. The fact that we're not seasonal that way, it's a bit of a challenge on the management side. But I think it's been worth it to be consistent. Our biggest wholesale customer wants fresh beef.
Mm-hmm. And so we kind of have to be butchering every two weeks for them Yeah. To sell fresh beef. Um, so both being available year round, them being able to order online and then for us to have pickup locations within you know, 10 minutes where they live I think that's really helped us to expand that customer base.
Richard Weisberg: Nice. Um, and just to dig into that a little bit, um, I'm curious on how you determine where to set up your pickup locations so they are convenient. Cuz I, I know, um, you know, just from what we've seen most customers don't wanna drive more than about 15 minutes for any pickup location, right? Because they're [00:24:00] busy, they got crazy things going on in their lives.
And so when it came to you guys determining where to set up your pickup locations or, um, you know, importantly your delivery zones and you know whether or not you're charging delivery fees, tell me a little bit about how you made that convenient for you guys as, as well as for the customer.
Logan Mannix: Right. So, I think I was just looking for, , parking lots was spaced that, so that it's not stressful for customers trying to find us.
Perfect. Um, and then just trying to spread 'em out a little bit. So, Missoula, I knew is where we've been at Farmer's Market for years, so I knew a lot of our customers were, were there. So we had two pickup locations there, one on either side of town. Hmm. Um, so that it was, uh, convenient for people that didn't have to go clear across town, which can be a pain there.
Mm-hmm. Um, In the other towns, uh, we didn't really have time to, I would like to set up more pickup locations, but we didn't have the time or the customer base to justify that yet. So I just tried to find one good location that was fairly central. [00:25:00] Um, for example, right now one of our pickup locations is at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, but it's, uh, about 10 or 15 minutes from Whitefish, which is on the north side and Kalispell on the south side. So we picked that location Gotcha. Hoping that it would be close to both of those markets. Mm-hmm. Um, and then a lot of 'em are small enough towns that they're a five minute drive from anywhere if you're Yes. Near that town like Sealy. And we'd been at a farmer's market and Sealy for a lot of years.
So we have, we knew we had a customer base there, so we made sure to put a drop location there. So some of it was where do we already have customers? Some of it was, um, Just how can we access the most people? Mm-hmm. Um, and, , we've started hit hitting, um, the max weight limit with our van on some of these routes.
So I think that soon if we keep going, we'll have to consider adding routes or, or pick up locations which is a good problem to have. so in some of those places like Bozeman we did not [00:26:00] have a presence at a farmer's market, so we were really breaking into a new market. So it's a big enough town to easily have more than one pickup location, but we just started with one and then figured if the customer base grows enough, maybe we'll add a second one.
And I think we're getting close to considering that now.
Richard Weisberg: Nice. Right on. Awesome. One thing that we're pretty passionate about here at Barn2Door is, is helping ranchers save time. Cuz I, we kind of made a nod to it earlier, there's really not a lot of spare time, uh, running an operation your size, let alone a ranch in general. Right. So, in what regards has Barn2Door helped you save time, and help managing your farm a little easier?
Logan Mannix: Yeah. The single biggest reason that it helps us save time, I think is obviously collecting online orders without, uh, having to be, on the phone or your email, and just reducing that communication that's necessary.
We still have a few people that aren't very comfortable ordering online, and I end up helping 'em over the phone. I've been able to transition most of our old customers that we're always [00:27:00] ordering by the phone to online ordering. I still will let them call me or email me if, uh, if they're having issues. But I can't imagine taking that many phone calls or emails without an online shopping cart. Um, just all the details of, not just what are they gonna order, um, what do you have available, when are they gonna pick up? There just no way we could manage that without them being able to order online and choose their pickup location and time on their own.
Um, and so that's been, uh, the single biggest way that it's helped us save time.
Richard Weisberg: Awesome. I love that. Now, we had chatted also that, you did a lot of bulk beef, you got some coal animals for burgers and things. Um, you also offer a variety of bundle boxes, correct?
Logan Mannix: Yeah.
Richard Weisberg: Awesome. Um, Tell me a little bit about that, that bundle box, um, setup, you know, has that helped you save time?
Um, and have buyers responded well to seeing a bundle box?
Logan Mannix: They [00:28:00] definitely have. Um, as soon as we started offering them, they became one of our, um, our larger sales. So oddly enough, kinda selling halves and holes was decreasing .
Richard Weisberg: Wow.
Logan Mannix: It's actually started to come back after the pandemic. It seems like that drove some more interest in selling halves and holes, but mm-hmm. Um, this is not an original idea. It's something I learned from other producers , but there's plenty of people out there that would love to buy in bulk and save a little money, but who don't really know how to, or, it's intimidating for them to give cutting instructions, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you're thinking about convenience for the customer and what it takes to get a half a beef, you know, first they gotta, they gotta order it, they gotta schedule a time for it to go to the butcher, which at times can be a couple months away if, one of our advantages is it usually can go in the next two weeks. Mm-hmm. But, you know, there've been times where we've got backed up and we were several months out on ordering those. Then they gotta give cutting instructions, which many of them don't understand. And I can't blame them because I didn't [00:29:00] understand it when we started doing this.
Right. I learned it because I, I had to, as I took on direct marketing. Yeah. Um, and, then, you know, then you have to wait till it gets cut, and then you have to arrange pickup and, and that's a lot to ask a lot of customers to do. Um, and then, yeah, it, it's expensive to buy it one steak at a time.
And so I think the bundle boxes have been a great in between where people can get a variety of cuts. We offer smaller 25 pound bundles. Mm-hmm. Which are maybe our most pop popular that are, there's a grilling bundle, a slow cooker bundle, a classic bundle, and a butcher's cuts bundle, which is all kind of the cuts that people may have never tried before.
Richard Weisberg: Nice. That's awesome.
Logan Mannix: Um, like merlots and Denver's and Terry's majors and stuff like that. But we also have an eight to beef bundle, a quarter beef bundle, and now a half a beef bundle, which I hadn't had a half a beef bundle until a few months ago. Yeah. And I was really surprised at how many customers immediately started going for the half a beef [00:30:00] bundle instead of the half a beef. Just because you could get it in two weeks and didn't have to determine cutting instructions. Hmm. Um, I think there's a fair amount of our customers that call in their cutting instructions and get stuff back and then be a little bit disappointed at what they got back. And it wasn't because the butcher did anything wrong, it was because they are used to seeing what we request in our cutting instructions and thought they communicated that but didn't.
Um Gotcha. Cause they just didn't understand the nuances of putting together that cut sheet, and so mm-hmm. Um, I, we still like offering halves and wholes as an option, but I think it's been great to have the bundles as an option for a lot of customers who don't necessarily wanna go through that headache.
Richard Weisberg: Yeah. No, I believe it. Now if you could , expand a little bit on like the, half beef bundle. Is that just like the Mannix cut sheet and they get a box that's equivalent to a half? Um, what, what does that look like?
Logan Mannix: So with all of our bundle boxes, we've made them a set price. [00:31:00] And it sort of said at least this many pounds. So with the half a beef bundle, it is, I think at least 220 pounds of beef. And so we try to hit that plus just a little bit. Our, our quarter beef bundle is at least 110 pounds of beef. Nice.
And it is designed to be close to our average half a beef. Mm-hmm. But certainly some animals are smaller than that and some are bigger than that. Right. And so we just say, you know, that's going to be, five to six tenderloin filets, it's gonna be five to six ribeyes, six New York's, and uh, all the way through the list.
Um, and then we've set it up to try and move all the cuts that we wanna move. And then the reason we're giving them the discount then is because you're signing up to use all the cuts. You're signing up to eat the shank and the top round, not just the, the ribeye. Um mm-hmm.
But yeah, so for the half a beef bundle, it's just pre-cut. Um, and it's not necessarily from one beef. It's, uh, right put together from cuts in our freezer.
Richard Weisberg: That's [00:32:00] awesome. Uh, nice and convenient for you guys as well. Box, measure it out. You're, you're good to go.
Logan Mannix: I would say one thing that's probably worth mentioning there, yeah that's been usually helpful for us is that what, because we have slots every two weeks, you know, sometimes we're booked out, but sometimes there's like two or three slots unspoken for mm-hmm. So it's really nice to have those bundles that, so when I don't have to like not send a beef to the butcher cause I don't have a buyer for it.
Mm-hmm. I can just have it cut to our specifications. Yep. And then it comes in our freezer and then I can move that through. So it's helped me to keep all of our butcher slots, whereas before I think, oh, maybe we'll send five this week and mm-hmm. And we'll see if we can get seven in the next week. Cause we have more orders. Um, it's been a lot easier to hold those butcher slots consistently because of selling bundles.
Richard Weisberg: Yeah, absolutely. That sounds like it's just streamlines a lot of the backend and the inventory management as well, which is huge time saver. Um, well, as one of our [00:33:00] newest members of the Farm Advisor Network, um, I would say, what are you most excited for when it comes to joining the team here?
Logan Mannix: Um, most excited for getting to know some of the other, advisors and learning from them. Um, I would say that, you know, I think we've done a decent job with our email newsletter. And I think that, like you talked about our, kind of our production practices, um, and some of the relationships that the family had built before direct marketing have helped us.
Mm-hmm. But I would say we're actually pretty new to the, you know, social media, marketing, Facebook and Instagram we're trying to improve our game in those areas. Um, uh, trying to improve some of the automations in our newsletter. We just got some of our automated journeys in Mailchimp working. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I think we actually have a lot to improve on in terms of our marketing, um, actually, and so I'm, I'm hoping to learn right a lot more from other members.
Richard Weisberg: The, the other FANs [00:34:00] I'm sure feel very similar about you joining the team as well. So we're happy to have you. And so, uh, last question for you.
What's, what's next, you know, what are some of your goals for Mannix Family Beef, uh, this coming year?
Logan Mannix: Yeah, so, um, one big thing kinda lumen over all of this is that my brother started a, co-op, called Old Salt Co-op, and they are, partnering with several ranchers and they've opened a restaurant and are looking to open another one.
And they have a food truck and they're trying to put a music and food festival on at the ranch, Old Salt Festival here on the ranch . . Yeah. And, um, If Old Salt, uh, really takes off, our family will have a decision to make whether to continue marketing as Mannix Family Grass Finished Beef on our own.
Cuz right now we are separate but we sell some beef to Old Salt and they sell it to customers and Mannix Family Beef sells beef on our own. Um, depending on how that goes, I could see us either continuing to market on [00:35:00] our own or keeping our wholesale customers but not driving their roots anymore. Or I could see us combining our program with theirs and, uh, trying to market all of ours through that co-op, so. Mm-hmm. So one, that's one of the big things on the horizon for us is, uh, seeing how that works out. They're hoping to own the, they own a small processing plant but doesn't have slaughter yet. Mm-hmm. They're hoping that by fall this year or early winter, we might through the co-op, not through Mannix Ranch, but through the co-op control, our own processing, which would be, yeah, that would great.
Um, a neat step. And then, you know, depending on how that goes, if we are, um, if we are continuing Mannix Family Beef as it exists, uh, just continuing to grow the program, you know, we do have a large ranch. So despite selling, a few hundred grass finished beef each year, we could sell a few hundred more if we, um, had the market and the processing and the storage lined up.
So, I think we're trying to grow our customer base, uh, just [00:36:00] kind of consistently over the year and sell more and more of our beef locally.
Richard Weisberg: Awesome. I love it.
Well, I wanna extend my thanks to Logan for joining us on this week's podcast episode here at Barn2Door. We are humbled to support thousands of Farms across the country, including Mannix Family Beef.
If you want to connect with Logan and other Farm Advisors, attend Barn2Door Connect, register for weekly sessions barn2door.com/connect. And for more information on Mannix family Beef, you can follow them on Instagram at @mannixbeef. That's m a n n i x b e e f. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.