Derrick Jackson @ Grass Grazed
Refocusing The Family Farm On CPG Meat Sticks
Derrick Jackson is a first-generation farmer and Co-Founder of Grass Grazed based in Durham, North Carolina. Grass Grazed is supporting regenerative agriculture with a myriad of direct-to-consumer livestock products, including grass-fed beef and pork, pastured poultry and eggs. They recently launched their first CPG item online – Grazed Snax – a meat stick made from 100% pasture-raised pork.
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Meeting His Own Demand(s)
Derrick and his family, like many rural Americans, lived in a food desert. Still active duty and stationed on a military base in North Carolina, Derrick was struggling with gut issues. He quickly went down a rabbit hole on food production and resolved to find better foods for himself and his family. It started with weekend trips to a local farmers market – not easy when you’re juggling four kids and their schedules…until his chicken source dried up.
“I was like, we’re trying to feed seven people. You’re a farmer, you do this for a living. How do you run out? And he told me what I didn’t know…I went home and started looking up 'how long does it take to grow chickens?' I watched a YouTube video about a man who went from being an accountant to raising all of his food. I thought, if this person can do it, I can too.” – Derrick
That night, with his wife Paige sleeping beside him, he ordered his first brood.
Backyard Chicken Chronicles
Waking up the next day, the reality of late-night shopping hit home. Ordering chicks is a good idea when you live on a farm, but definitely a challenge when you’re living in an esteemed subdivision in historic downtown Fayetteville, with tiny backyards and no fences. He texted Paige with a screenshot of the sales confirmation, asking her “What do I do now?”
Derrick had no other choice than to get up to speed, and quickly. After consuming dozens of books on pastured poultry and farming, Derrick and the family started raising their 25 chickens in a chicken wagon. They got plenty of surprisingly positive inquiries from their neighbors.
Eight weeks in, they ran into a small hiccup: processing. Derrick found a processor in South Carolina. With lots of laughs at his expense, she quickly informed him that their minimum was well above 25 birds. Not one to give up, Derrick did the research, took an online class, bought some equipment, and harvested the chickens on their driveway with Paige and the four kids.
“I always thought that the police were gonna show up. Someone’s gonna drive by and see the chickens hanging and report it. But I told my neighbors we're gonna process the chickens in the yard. There were so many people asking about the birds that the wheels started to turn in my head. I wanna do something on my own.” – Derrick
Buying & Building A Farming Business
It was time to expand. While looking at properties to lease, a local farmer planted the idea of regenerative farming with Derrick, emphasizing that "a good farmer will take the land and bring animals that will benefit the land, not the other way around.” He was hooked.
The Jackson’s leased a 60-acre farm, inheriting the existing layer operation with it. They also partnered up with a friend who convinced them to take on 15 hogs to root around the 40 acres of woodlands. A marketer by experience, Paige realized that building a brand was a lot harder than working off existing market share. So they found another farm that had been selling products for about eight years, acquired their existing business, and refreshed the brand.
In just 11 months, the Jacksons went from raising 25 to 4,000 chickens – during COVID. They diversified into five income streams (poultry, eggs, beef, pork, and dairy) and secured a steady revenue stream.
They built a stable and centralized market for their diversified products through a buyer’s club of 65 local families, committed to exclusively sourcing all their protein from the farm. These families are invested in the process. It enables the farmer to sell the whole animal, there’s no middlemen, and the farmer and “eaters” share in the expenses and benefits.
“It helps us to predict our bottom line. We don't have to worry about paying the rent or paying the mortgage or paying our employees because we know that that's covered from our buying club. So we are able to focus on other things.” – Derrick
Chasing CPG
Buying farmland, particularly for first-time, historically underserved farmers like the Jacksons who are African-American and want to farm the land regeneratively, is a huge challenge. To get an FSA or USDA loan for the property, too often the questions center on conventional practices and revenue from commodity systems.
“She said, there’s a poultry farmer in your county that raised hundreds of thousands of birds a year. She’s looking at revenue only. My revenue isn’t as high, but I bring home way more than they do in profits. We support three families from our farm. But that’s how they based the application process. I’m not going to do that to be able to purchase land. So CPG was the only other option.” – Derrick
By creating a meat stick, the Jacksons have been able to capture profits from the whole pig, not just the preferred cuts. There’s less stress from packaging and shipping non-perishables versus frozen, perishable proteins. And the margins don’t hurt either.
CPG Challenges
While the meat sticks promise long-term ROI, getting them ready for market was a Herculean task – from navigating what you can and can’t put on a label (they couldn’t claim gluten-free, non-GMO) to the headaches of ensuring an accurate barcode, to nailing down the ingredients and processing.
“Overall it's been a good transition from what we're able to control as a farmer. I want to be able to control the entire process as much as possible because I don’t want additional hands touching the product because that's when things get added and changed. We don’t want to cut corners and want to have as much transparency as possible. And that means from the animals we produce to the meat sticks, to the actual label, packaging and shipping. We want to be involved in the whole process. That way, when our customers ask us, where did that come from, we’re not afraid to tell them.” – Derrick
50% Market Share
For Grass Grazed, the future is meat sticks and CPG products from pasture-raised animals. And as Derrick sees it, "bringing more farmers to the table” is the key to a regenerative future.
“Farmers are already producing, right? Farmers are already producing good products, but we need more brands and marketers that are willing to bring the farmer to the table. We want them at the table, in the conversation, because we're less likely to take advantage of them. They will produce the products in a way that's regenerative and not just sustainable. They will produce the actual supply that they need in order to get the products out there.
People want the product. People want healthy. They want a local product that is raised in a good way. So if we share these stories and tell them how farmers are actually doing it, we get people to trust these CPG products and support regenerative ag.” – Derrick
You can check out the full episode with Derrick Jackson @ Grass Grazed HERE.
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