Leaping Bear Farm April 26, 2023 Justin Bramhill and Vanessa Rose 153 Plowden Road Putney, VT 05346 https://www.leapingbearfarm.com/ Prepared For: Justin Bramhill and Vanessa Rose with Assistance from Mike Ghia, UVM Extension Farm Business Planner, with funding provided by UVM Extension through a grant from the Vermont Farm Viability Enhancement Program Executive Summary: Leaping Bear Farm is a small, organic poultry and microgreens farm located on leased land in Putney and Westminster, VT, owned and operated by Justin Bramhill and Vanessa Rose. Founded in 2019, the focus of the farm is organic broiler chickens and eggs. The farm sells whole chickens as well as parts, and also produces a chicken broth from less marketable chicken parts. The microgreens business provides supplementary income mainly in the winter months, but is quite profitable at its current scale. Markets are both wholesale and retail as well as to restaurants. The farm is currently a part time business, and not yet profitable. But both Justin and Vanessa would like the farm to be profitable, and to replace their off-farm income with income from the farm and make their full living farming. Eventually, Justin and Vanessa would like to own their own farm property. Substantial growth will be needed to achieve these goals. The purpose of this plan is to facilitate modest growth to begin to scale up the farm in the direction of the size and scale that it will need to be in order to accomplish this. By the end of 2024, the farm should be modestly profitable and well positioned for further growth in 2025. Farm Description: Leaping Bear Farm started in 2019 as a sole proprietorship under Justin’s ownership. In 2023, Justin and Vanessa created an LLC-partnership, and are developing capital accounts. The main farmstead is located on a rented farm on Plowden Road in Putney, VT where the couple lives, and Justin also works as a caretaker. However, since there is a limited land base at the Putney farm, starting in 2023, Leaping Bear will also be leasing a field from another organic farmer in Westminster, VT where most of the poultry will be raised during the growing season. Leaping Bear Farm was started with a focus on pasture raised and organically fed whole chickens and eggs, which are now certified organic and are also part of the Real Organic Project. Justin added microgreens towards the end of the first season as a way to grow fresh produce through the winter. In June 2019, he started vending at the Putney Farmers Market and has been there ever since. Justin and Vanessa met at the start of the 2021 growing season and have been working together to develop Leaping Bear Farm into a sustainable business. In 2022, they also added homemade canned chicken bone broth utilizing their chicken backs and necks, which has quickly become a top seller. They are planning to raise 1980 broilers and have a flock of 950 layers this season. Infrastructure and Land Base: The farm in Putney offers between 6-8 acres of pasture, in addition to a barn where broiler chicks can be brooded, and a high tunnel where layers can be overwintered. A small portable shed is currently utilized for the microgreens operation. In 2023, Leaping Bear will begin to lease an additional 7 acres from High Meadows Organic Farm nearby in Westminster, VT. As a part of this plan, they will be purchasing new portable housing for both layers and broilers to facilitate the expansion of both of those operations. In 2024, Leaping Bear started bringing their broilers to Maple Wind Farm. They also currently have a small on-site processing set up to process any birds above what Maple Wind can accommodate this year (batches of ~230). In 2025, Maple wind can accommodate batches of 500, and Leaping Bear Farm is exploring avenues to double their meat production for next season. Currently, the broth is produced and canned in their home kitchen. However, in 2023, sales reached the cottage exemption cap of $10,000. Thus, to grow this enterprise further, there will need to be a move to a commercial kitchen. At this point, none of the regional food business incubators have the approval or the equipment to be process meat products. It is likely that it will be necessary for Leaping Bear to invest in its own processing facility and equipment to grow the broth part of the business. This will be researched further in 2024 as a part of the Farm Viability Planning Process. Markets: Leaping Bear is now at three farmers markets (Brattleboro, Putney and Londonderry) which gives them year-round market access. They wholesale to the Monadnock and Putney Food Co-ops, local restaurants including the Putney Diner, The Putney Food Shelf, are part of 3 farm CSA's and are stocked at multiple local active farm stands. All markets are projected to grow under this plan. Management Analysis and Risk Management Strengths: • Vanessa’s graphic design background • Justin’s education and apermaculture/regenerative design background • Relative youth • Justin’s kids like being a part of the farm/helping out • Off-farm job income and savings • Farm’s support from the community • Connection with poultry processor with which have priority • Ability to work well together • Justin’s experience in managing people/employees/contractors/employees/students • customers mostly responding to our products with enthusiasm Weaknesses: • lack of farm capital • first generation farmers • using leased land that is limiting the potential and ability to scale up • layout of leased land at home farm is exhausting to manage • Juggling the demands of other jobs • Lack of farm labor other than Justin and Vanessa • Have some farm debt and student loan debt • Need to improve bookkeeping and accounting knowledge • Limited on expansion of the chicken broth by the lack of a licensed processing facility Opportunities: • Lack of significant local competition for all of the farm products • Getting into more food co-ops and farm stores • the momentum of the local, organic, regenerative food movement • Vanessa consulting in farm marketing and graphic design • Building Putney Farmers’ Farmers’ Market back up • being plugged into multiple farmers market communities across southeastern VT gives resiliency • Leasing additional land for expansion • Developing on farm processing • Expanding production for all products, particularly eggs Threats: • housing market and farm affordability • lack of available farmland in or around Winhdam County • Predators of chickens • Bird Flu • Climate change • Policy changes and increased regulations • IInflation of costs, particularly grain Justin and Vanessa share most of the tasks of the farm production and marketing. Justin is the primary bookkeeper and financial manager. Funds from the Farm Viability Program have been used to pay for assistance from Carlson Consulting to help Justin increase his knowledge of Quickbooks, and to improve his utilization of QB for the farm’s record-keeping and financial management. Justin will be working on tracking individual enterprises separately so profitability and needed improvements can be better tracked and assessed. Vanessa takes the lead on marketing, putting her professional skills and experience in this area to work for the farm. Still being in the start-up phase, Justin and Vanessa are learning annually what is needed for efficient and profitable production. The purchase of new, pre-made portable housing and bulk grain storage has gone a long way towards improving the efficiency of the business from both a labor and cost standpoint. A loan from VEDA, along with a financial contribution from Vanessa are facilitating these capital investments. Predation and Bird Flu are major concerns for the business. Justin and Vanessa intend to be diligent about sanitation, and reducing contact with wild birds and other poultry flocks. There is little else that they can do to mitigate this risk. In addition to electric fencing, the farm purchased a livestock guardian dog in the summer of 2022. Natural Resource Mgmt. Analysis: The poultry business is based around rotational grazing of the chickens on green pasture during the growing season. This is helping reduce nutrient loading and improves nutrient distribution. The poultry are grazed sufficiently away from surface waters that surface run-off is not a concern. Eventually, there will be a need to add further to the land base to both facilitate growth, and to also prevent nutrient overloading. Soil testing will be needed to monitor nutrient loading. The harvesting of hay by a neighboring farmer may be utilized to help keep down the accumulation of nutrients. Market Analysis: Currently, there are only a few area farms who produce broilers or layers at any scale, and none of the other farms have their products certified organic. This gives Leaping Bear a relatively wide-open niche for their products which are marketed as local, organic and pasture-raised. The main competition comes from larger operations such as Pete and Jerry’s eggs and Misty Knoll chicken in the wholesale market. But, the demand for their local eggs is currently outstripping what they can produce. They also regularly sell out of whole chickens and chicken parts. Based on experience, and feedback from wholesale markets and restaurants there is plenty of room for the growth projected for 2025. Testing the assumptions on market demand will be an important aspect of 2024 towards assessing the potential for future growth. At this point, it is difficult to determine at what point the farm will tap out the portion of the local market which is prepared to pay a premium for meat and eggs, and thus, at what point the farmers will need to pursue markets further away and/or improve efficiency in order to become more price competitive. With USDA inspection, the farm is be able to tap nearby markets in NH and MA. It is uncertain that the VT markets will be sufficient to allow them to grow the business to the point where the farm will meet their financial goals. Further diversification may be necessary. Currently, eggs are the main product other than meat, and Leaping Bear has broken into a new market in 2024 by selling their eggs to the Farm on the River CSA which distributes on Long Island and has 1200 members. This partnership has promised continued opportunities as an outlet for eggs if Leaping Bear can grow this enterprise. The production of the microgreens is currently at a very small scale and is focused on the winter when there is considerably less competition from area vegetable farmers. Using grow lights and a heated space allows for the production of greens in the winter months that local growers could not grow consistently in unheated tunnels, which has become a common practice in recent years. This gives Leaping Bear a niche for local greens that is not being filled by other growers. Modest growth is projected for 2024 (with the addition of the Monadnock Food Co-op wholesale account) and into 2025 which will further test the expected potential for growth. Planning and Implementation 1) Increase layer and broiler numbers: The farm will grow their layer production from 600 to 950 layers. Broiler production will grow from 1500 birds processed to 1980 birds processed. At the end of 2024, the farmers plan to review both the market potential, and their ability to produce more birds. They have the market opportunity and the desire to double their growth for 2025 and beyond. Leasing additional land and investing in new equipment will support the project growth in 2025. 2) To facilitate greater efficiency and allow for greater production, the farmers purchased pre-manufactured moveable poultry housing in 2023. These facilities have lived up to expectations, and the markets allow for further growth, so additional houses can be purchased to double production. Capital will need to be raised to support these purchases. 3) Increase broth production: The chicken broth is made from backs and necks, which are less marketable parts as well as old laying hens. The broth has proven to be very popular. In 2023, broth production will be expanded up to the limit of the cottage exemption which allows them to produce the broth in their home kitchen up to $10,000 in sales. Research to date has not yielded a suitable location for further expansion. Building on the leased properties is not an option. In 2025 we plan to explore including purchasing a “commercial kitchen in a box”. 4) Grow more microgreens: The microgreens enterprise has proven to be quite profitable with strong potential for expansion. At this point, a modest increase in greens production is being projected for 2024.