Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Shauna Ferguson-Farver, Managing Owner of Farver Farms, located in Scobey, MT, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
We are Farver Farms, and we produce a ready-to-eat snack made from the lentils we grow in our fields on our 5th-generation family farm. From our fields to our private processing center to be cooked and packaged, then shipped directly to the consumer or to one of our retail partners, we provide a true field-to-fork experience! Our Lentil Crunchers Snacks are vegan or vegetarian, gluten-free, and packed with fiber and protein.
Tell us about yourself
When our then high school-aged children started talking about returning to the farm after college, we started looking for extra ways to make income from our farm. With only so much land to grow crops or raise beef cows, we needed to create a value-added product or service from the resources we had at hand. Since food has played a recurrent theme in Shauna's life, it was a natural step to create a product that could be marketed directly to consumers for increased income (versus hauling the raw commodity to the elevator buyer for a fraction of the profit) from the crops they already grew. Making room for our growing family, our children, and our grandchildren to have a role on our farm and preserving that lifestyle for the next generation remains my biggest motivation.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My biggest accomplishment is building this business from the ground up. We built day by day, bit by bit, and now, we've shipped directly to consumers in every State in the Nation, have over 50 retail partners, participate in farm-to-school programs, and are just getting set to establish our first export market! We're creating jobs in our community and establishing a precedent for farm-to-market packaged goods. I say we because I've built a team that makes it all happen, and I'm really proud of that accomplishment as well.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Finding a work, home, and farm balance have been the biggest challenge. As a woman in business, you really can have it all, but I'm learning that there really isn't a way to balance it all at once. I think it's natural for there to be times when your business will take a front seat and times when your family and home life are, and should be, your focus.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
Reach out! The best piece of advice I can give is to reach out to the resources available to you. For us, it's been our State Departments of Agriculture, and Commerce, our State Food & Ag Development Center, our local SBA Center, and the USDA through the Value Added Product Grant program. There are individuals at every turn with knowledge, knowledge of how and a passion for their job... find the ones that fit your niche and get connected!
I mentioned it before, and it's absolutely crucial. Build a team from your employees to outside consultants, to local groups and governments, to your lenders. Build a team who understands your motivation and your goals and who are anxious to buy in... not financially necessarily but to your overall mission. Create and foster an atmosphere where everyone learns, grows, and succeeds together, and give a sense of ownership to all involved. I'm always quick to point out that none of what we do happens without every member of our team and to remind them how important they are to me and to our business.
Be realistic about what you're headed into. You're going to run into adversity at some point; whether it's financial or logistical, you're going to have plenty of opportunities to learn from your mistakes. You're going to run into challenges with your family schedule at some point. You're going to run into not enough sleep and not enough hours in the day at some point. Think ahead about all of those things, and be proactive about how you might problem-solve. Can you reach out to more resources to help with funding or to learn more about your business model? Sit down with your family, close friends, and extended family ahead of time. Let them know you'll be hyper-focused on your business --especially in the beginning-- and ask for some grace in caring for those relationships.
Consider taking a time-planning mastermind course, or at the least, investing in a planner to help you create a schedule...then do your best to stick to it. Make sleep a priority. It's a proven fact that you'll accomplish more in less time if you're well-rested. Instead of burning the midnight oil and struggling through a project or process, get a few extra zzz's and zip through it in less time the next day on a recharged brain!
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://farverfarms.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FarverFarms
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farverfarms/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunafarver/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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