If recent public outrage regarding the ammonia-laced ground beef additive dubbed “pink slime” is any indicator, the interest in all-natural, locally sourced food is real.
Cody and Dawnnell Holmes are counting on it.
The husband-and-wife owners of Norwood-based Rockin’ H Ranch raises seasonal produce and free-range chicken, pork, beef, lamb, turkey, eggs, cheese and milk without the use of antibiotics and chemicals.
With goods sold under Real Farm Foods, the six-employee company has experienced 20 percent growth each year for the past five years, and the owners, who declined to disclose revenues, expect that growth to keep pace for the next few years.
Matt O’Reilly, development chair and founding board member of the upstart Farmers Market of the Ozarks Inc., one of the venues where the Holmeses sell their goods, says local food sourcing is catching on.
“We’ve become a society where we buy our vacuum cleaners and get a new suit at the same place where we buy our groceries,” says O’Reilly, who is also the owner of Dynamic Earth outdoor gear store. “We have all of these health issues and questions arising from (genetically modified foods).”
Dawnnell Holmes says the company met sales expectations at the new market, which reported more than 6,000 visitors on opening day April 7.
About 60 percent of Real Farm Foods products are sold direct through its on-site store at the 1,000-acre farm, home delivery, community-supported agriculture groups and through farmers markets; nearly a third of sales come from wholesale produce markets and selling to specialty stores in the Springfield region including Wild Root Grocery, Home Grown Food and Spring Valley Herbs & Natural Foods; and 10 percent of sales come from school districts.
Ranching legacy Cody Holmes is a third generation farmer. In 1973, at 16 years old, he began his cattle herd with six 4-H cows. By the time he was 21, Holmes had purchased his first 107 acres, and the farm peaked at 5,000 acres in 2005.
Holmes earned a business degree from Missouri State University and worked as a self-employed accountant until about 15 years ago. In 2001, he began taking a serious look at the traditional beef market. “We had a commodity-based operation, and I began to get more concerned about a particular hormone implant used in the beef industry,” Holmes says. “I used it and was shipping those cows out for other people’s families to eat, but I would not feed those cows to my own family.”
The couple then began the slow process of transitioning the cattle ranch. “All of our animals graze freely, and we do not use chemicals of any kind on them or in the plants we raise,” Holmes says.
The farm is not certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture – an arduous and potentially cost-prohibitive process for small family farms – but chemicals have not been used in the animals or on the land for at least a dozen years, Holmes says.
The Holmeses say they plant more than 4,000 tomato plants each year and 1,000 pepper plants, two of their largest produce sellers. They also grow green beans, okra and corn.
The biggest advances in the business are with produce, which has been growing about 50 percent each year, Cody Holmes says. “More stores are opening up, and we’ve talked to Hy-Vee about selling our produce,” he says. “We can produce what they demand by simply planting more seed.”
Holmes says they’ve added two 2,900-square-foot greenhouses in the past couple of years and plan on adding three more before winter, helping to expand the farm’s growing season.
Real Farm Foods also has between 300 to 400 cows that produce 200 calves each year, more than 500 sheep, 120 hogs and 5,000 free-range chicken and turkeys. The animals produce tens of thousands of pounds of meat that is sold each year.
Know the source One of the largest means of distribution for the farm is through home delivery. About 100 customers in a 200-mile radius area buy meat, cheese, milk and produce weekly. Delivery stops include Seymour, Rogersville, Nixa, Springfield, Strafford and Marshfield.
Cabool resident Helen McDonald found Real Farm Foods while searching the Internet for locally sourced foods. “I lived in Brooklyn, New York, for 36 years, and I was used to good meat we found at the local butcher shop,” McDonald says. “I was buying meat here at large stores, and I wasn’t happy with the quality.”
McDonald says she buys mostly meat from Real Farm Foods and purchases produce to fill in for what her own garden isn’t producing. A whole cow, pig or lamb – which cost about $2.50 per pound plus processing – will last in her household about six to nine months.
“I know I’m not getting any fillers, I’m getting real, natural meat,” she says.
An area the Holmeses hope to grow is sales to school districts. Currently, the farm sells to the Crane and Reeds Spring schools.
Ken Llewellyn, food service director for Crane, says about 25 percent of all fresh produce and meat the school district purchases has come from Real Farm Foods for the past two years.
Llewellyn says local growers are especially important to his district as Crane has a 90 percent participation in the reimbursable school lunch program, which means the district is reimbursed for healthy lunches served.
“(Real Farm Foods) meets our high standards in providing healthy foods to our kids,” Llewellyn says.
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
