[goostavos]

Are farms which sell directly to end consumers profitable at all? Like as a lifestyle business?

Last year I purchased a 1/4 beef directly from a local farm and, as a life long city dwelling techbro, found the whole experience awesome. As dumb as it is, I really liked feeling 'closer' to where my food came from. I know the farm, the people who run it, the age and hanging weight of the beef, where it was processed, and so on. I even like that you get everything, including the generally 'undesirable' cuts, because you're processing an entire cow. I haven't purchased beef from a store in almost a year at this point!

I've been enamored with it ever since. On the techbro side, I wonder if there's something more small farms can do "local beef as a service" wise. The process, at least with the farm I went through, was clunky and manual to say the least (especially when doing it for my first time).

[relaxing]

> Are farms which sell directly to end consumers profitable at all? Like as a lifestyle business?

It varies, but the range is generally between “no, someone’s working a job outside the farm to make ends meet” and “margins slim enough that one small disaster means no longer being able to cover expenses.”