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Direct Marketing Meat & Animal Products
Promoting Meat to Ethnic Markets
To expand sales of their lamb and goat meat, Larry Jacoby and Judy
Moses built new connections with the growing populations of Mexican
and Somali immigrants in western Wisconsin. Their efforts –
advertising in multiple languages, promoting visits to their 140-acre
farm in Downing, Wis., and attending customer weddings, among them
– have resulted in a substantial increase in annual sales.
“We like working with a variety of people, it fits our interests
intellectually,” said Judy Moses, who, with husband Jacoby,
received a SARE farmer/rancher grant to explore new ways to promote
to culturally diverse customers. “Once you get into their
network, you’re in. When we have goats for sale, the word
spreads quickly and customers come.”
Now, they sell almost all of their goats and about 40 percent of
their lambs to ethnic customers at premium prices. In busy periods
during the Muslim month of Ramadan, Christmas and New Year’s
holidays, monthly sales of adult goats, kids, and 80-pound lambs
surge. In 2005, they sold more than 500 live goats and lambs during
the holidays at an average of $100 each.
Moses and Jacoby learned a lot over the two years of their grant
project about how to reach new customers, many of whom speak limited
English, come to the farm at all hours, and want to slaughter their
animals according to religious customs.
Moses’ co-worker at her off-farm job, a Somali native, sparked
the project by suggesting that local Somalis, many of whom work
at a Barron, Wis., turkey processing plant, craved fresh goat meat.
While Moses and Jacoby tried ads in ethnic magazines, established
a multi-lingual Website and posted information on bulletin boards
and tourist information centers, word-of-mouth brought the most
customers.
A friend who worked at the processing plant encouraged some of
her Somali co-workers to visit Moses’ and Jacoby’s Shepherd
Song Farm, where they raise about 400 goats and 300 lambs annually
on pasture.
In keeping with tradition, the Somalis wanted Halal slaughtering
practices involving a Muslim imam. Moses found a state-inspected
processor 14 miles away willing to slaughter goats in the preferred
manner with the local imam present to supervise. Moses and Jacoby
adapted in other ways, too, growing accustomed to unannounced visits
from families, some of whom liked to pick up animals in the midst
of the winter holidays. Many of those visitors bought 10 to 20 goats
at one time. They even bartered occasionally, with Jacoby swapping
lamb for a new pair of leather boots imported from Mexico, among
other items. Customer relations soared.
“Mexican and Somali families have sought us out,” Moses
said. “These families purchase something more than food –
a memory of their heritage while strengthening family bonds.”
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