The "Ick" in Organic: Fox and Factory Farms Fight Back!

Sweetbreads recently sent me this article/video titled "The 'Ick' Factor and the Myth of 'All-Natural'". Give it a quick watch. At a minimum it's entertaining.
 
The article/video really reinforced the great responsibility that we are assuming by committing to produce food. It reminded me how important it is for new farmers to make sure that we produce at the highest standards of quality and cleanliness. Especially for those of us that are (or will be) in the business of producing alternative food products. There’s already the hurdle of trying to sell something that’s not mainstream, so why add any more fuel to fire? 
 
First, a few things that I appreciate about the video.
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One Small Step for Family Farming, One Giant Step for Little Seed Farm

Sprout Creek Farm, Cheese Curds, Little Seed FarmSprout Creek Farm Cheese Curds - Photo by Sprout Creek's Georgie Blaeser
Big news on the Little Seed Farm front! Sweetbreads recently accepted an apprenticeship role at Sprout Creek Farm near Poughkeepsie, NY. We’ll be packing up and moving out at the end of November and she’ll be working on the farm for approximately 6 months. As we posted about previously, Sprout Creek operates a highly diversified farm (dairy, meat chickens, eggs, pork, lamb, goat, turkeys, etc), but really specializes in cheese. 

On our first Farm Hop to Sprout Creek we had a long heart-to-heart with Margo Morris, the founder. The entire time we were chatting I was thinking to myself
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Farm Flows - Leveraging Your Fixed Costs

 
I think a lot about how we’ll manage the cash flows at Little Seed during the first few years of operation. It’s an extremely important topic because it can literally make or break your business... no matter how well you appear to be doing. Fast growing, seemingly profitable companies go under all the time and the culprit is typically poor cash flow management. One way to prepare for (and hopefully avoid) that unfortunate circumstance is to understand your fixed and variable costs. In this post I’ll cover what that means and how it can impact your business and in a later post I’ll expand into how it applies to various circumstances (debt load, working capital needs, etc).
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