Is ChopLocal Right for You? Exploring the Benefits and Success Stories

Supporting Small Meat Vendors Nationwide

In a market often dominated by major meatpackers, ChopLocal offers a refreshing alternative by putting the spotlight on small-scale vendors and their high-quality products. Katie and Sydney from ChopLocal, along with Teresa from West Forty Market, dive deep into the advantages of joining ChopLocal, and share invaluable insights that can help local meat vendors thrive in the online market.

Watch the recording below or scroll down for a summary and full transcript.

Why ChopLocal?

High-Quality Vendors and Positive Feedback

ChopLocal is committed to featuring vendors who consistently deliver top-notch products backed by positive customer feedback. They emphasize the importance of quality, not just in the meat itself, but also in customer service and marketing efforts. They actively seek vendors excited about maintaining a good reputation and delivering the best to their customers.

Streamlined Customer Communication and Marketing Support

One of the standout features of ChopLocal is the robust support they offer in customer communication and marketing. Katie notes how essential it is to keep the lines of communication open and to be responsive to customer inquiries. ChopLocal also helps vendors with their marketing efforts, featuring vendor reviews on their platform and using various marketing techniques to enhance visibility.

Making Shopping and Inventory Management Easier

A User-Friendly Platform

Teresa from West Forty Market highlights the importance of a user-friendly platform. She notes that ChopLocal's interface has made shopping simpler for customers and inventory management more straightforward for her store. This ease of use not only improves the customer experience but also lightens the operational load for vendors.

Inventory Management and Logistics

Managing inventory can be a daunting task, but Teresa shares her strategy of using separate freezers for online-only inventory and replenishing them from in-store inventory. This strategy ensures that online orders are always fulfilled without disrupting the in-store supply. ChopLocal's vendor interface further aids this process by providing efficient tools for inventory management, rearranging product positions, and managing product visibility.

Financial and Marketing Insights

Costs & Reimbursement

Vendors are often wary of additional costs, but ChopLocal’s pricing is structured to support growth. They charge a monthly fee and a commission, part of which is reinvested back into the vendor’s success through various support measures. Additionally, they offer reimbursement on orders over $50, which can significantly benefit vendors.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Katie shares several tips for optimizing conversion rates, including using mouthwatering photos and detailed product descriptions. Other essential details, such as farm information, shipping methods, and product reviews, also play a vital role in convincing customers to make a purchase.

Nationwide Visibility and Sales

Expanding beyond Local Markets

One of ChopLocal’s most significant accomplishments is helping vendors extend their reach nationwide. The platform provides vendors with the tools and support needed to ship products across the country efficiently. Teresa discusses the shipping restrictions for bulk cuts and eggs but assures that most products can be shipped seamlessly.

Success Stories

Success stories abound on ChopLocal. For instance, Over The Moon Meats saw a 50% increase in sales within the first three months after switching to ChopLocal. Such examples highlight the potential for growth and increased revenue that the platform offers to its vendors.

Educational Resources and Community Support

Meat Commerce Essentials

ChopLocal doesn’t just provide a platform—they provide education. Vendors have access to the "meat commerce essentials" course for free and can benefit from other resources such as webinars and blog posts. These resources are meticulously designed to help vendors succeed in the competitive e-commerce world.

Group Coaching and Community Integration

Looking to the future, ChopLocal plans to roll out a group coaching program focusing on various marketing techniques, seasonal promotions, and other critical topics like email marketing and pricing strategies. This initiative aims to create a supportive community where vendors can learn from each other’s experiences and grow collectively.

Setting up for Success

Getting Started

Starting with ChopLocal involves making an official commitment, providing vendor information and product photos, and undergoing training before the launch. This structured approach ensures that vendors are well-prepared and confident as they begin their journey on the platform.

Point of Sale Capabilities

While Teresa mentions using a separate point of sale system for her retail store and online shop, she appreciates the integration features provided by ChopLocal. Vendors can manage inventory closely, push invoices, and even take deposits for bulk orders like quarter or half of beef.

Conclusion: A Collaborative Approach to Meat Sales

Katie concludes by emphasizing the power of collaboration and the right tools in achieving success in online meat sales. ChopLocal doesn’t just offer a platform; it offers a community and a support system that helps vendors navigate the complexities of e-commerce with confidence and efficiency.

If you’re a small meat vendor looking to expand your reach and streamline your operations, ChopLocal might just be the game-changer you need. From comprehensive support in customer communication to robust tools for inventory management and nationwide visibility, ChopLocal provides the resources and community to help you succeed.

Full Transcript:

Katie - ChopLocal [00:00:00]:
Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight. This is the first time that we've done a webinar like this. Normally, they're really focused on our educational offerings, showing you how to market your meat and that type of thing. But we wanted to try this tonight because recently we've had more interest in people wanting to get signed up for chop local. That means that we do a lot of one on one calls with people to talk, whether or not it's right for them. And we thought we would try this in a group setting this time to see if we can be a little bit more efficient, because that, I think, is a goal for all of us in our businesses all the time. So tonight the goal is really to show you how you can sell more meat online without hiring a marketing team. I'm guessing for a lot of you, this is maybe not the first time that you've thought about selling meat online, and you may have even gone so far as to set up a store online with another platform.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:00:57]:
So the first thing that I want to mention right off the bat here is that if you've tried to sell meat online and it hasn't worked for you, that is not your fault. There's a lot of information out there that can be really overwhelming, and there's a lot of things that you have to learn in order to sell meat online successfully, and that can be confusing. Many times that information overload, as well as all of the other things that you have going on, on your farm or in your meat processing business, can make it really hard for you to manage all of this and make it hard for you to succeed. So if you found in the past, if you're concerned that in the past you've tried selling meat online and that hasn't worked for you, I just want to put those fears to rest, because we have discovered over the past few years that you can sell meat online successfully. You just need to have the right team and the right tools to make that happen. So how can we be so confident that this is possible? Well, every year we do a survey of farmers and butcher shops across the country. Received over 300 responses from farmers. And that's what we're sharing here tonight.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:02:08]:
These numbers are from farmers butcher shops. Your numbers are going to look a little bit different. But what we found from this survey was that farms selling their meat direct to consumer averaged about $74,000 of meat sales each year. If they are not selling online, this means they're selling at farmers markets or to friends and family. Maybe they're taking messages, Facebook, messages or text messages to take orders. But if they don't have an ecommerce store, it's averaging $74,000 a year. You add ecommerce to the equation, that jumps up to over $100,000 a year. And then when we add ecommerce plus shipping, that number goes up to almost $150,000 a year.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:02:54]:
So farms selling their meat online and offering shipping are selling double what those farms that are just selling locally are selling every year. We also know from this survey that over 20% of the farm respondents were selling more than $200,000 a year. We saw responses 200 200 and 5300. 500, up to $850,000 a year in meat sales. And that's all of their sales online and offline. And so we know that this is possible. But for a lot of you, I know you're probably sitting here thinking right now, I don't know that that 850 is ever really feasible for me. We know to make that happen, you need to work smarter, not harder.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:03:47]:
Right? You need to be efficient, like I mentioned. And you probably need to build a great team of people around you. That person or that farm selling $850,000 in meat probably has a marketing person working for them. But that may not be feasible for you, but it is feasible for you to surround yourself with people that can help you and use a collaborative approach towards your meat sales. So let me give you an example of this. 25 years ago, well, over 25 years ago, it was 1996. Here in Iowa, Lewis Rich decided to close the West Liberty, Iowa turkey processing plant. And that left about 140 turkey growers in the state with nowhere to send their turkey.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:04:36]:
So they were really faced with the probability of going broke. You know how hard it is to find poultry processing? And these were actually commercial growers who had already invested in barns and spent a lot of time and money into growing their turkey business. So what they decided to do was they decided to band together, form a cooperative, and actually purchase that turkey processing plant so that they could control their destiny into the future. And this plant became one of the leading turkey processors in the country, and actually one of the leading lunch meat processors across the entire country, processing lunch meat for very big brands that you have probably eaten many times in your life. So these turkey farmers coming together to form this cooperative and purchase this plant really helped pave the way for wealth, for not only their generation, but for the second and now even third generation for those turkey farmers as well. The chop local founder, Jared, who's not able to be here tonight because he's working on his farm. Jared's family was one of those families that was part of the turkey Growers cooperative. And my husband's family was actually one of those families that was part of the turkey Growers cooperative.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:05:54]:
So this showed us how collaboration between independent livestock producers could really create a lasting impact and have a huge impact on the meat supply chain. This collaborative approach is really one of the things that led Jared to come up with the idea of chop local. I wish that I could take credit for chop local, but I can't. He came up with the idea himself. During the pandemic, while Iowa farmers struggled to get their animals to market, consumers struggled to find meat in the grocery stores. And our small processors were trying to figure out how to get meat into those consumers hands. Jared came up with this idea of, again, farmers and small processors working together collaboratively to create a nationwide farmers market specifically for meat. He described it as the etsy of meat.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:06:51]:
But if you're not familiar with Etsy, we've found that that farmers market analogy or description really makes a lot of sense for farms and butcher shops that we talk to. So the way that that farmers market works is it means that customers can come to choplocal.com as if they're coming to the farmers market and browse the booths and look for the products that they're looking for, or a farm or butcher shop, a vendor that really fits their needs. So they can come to choplocal.com, they can look at that vendor directory, or they can search directly for a product, find the farm or butcher shop near them. Now, each of our vendors, like Kinfork brand is one of them, can also have a micro store, which is like their farmers market booth online. And so they can send people straight from their website, from their social media, from their email marketing, straight to their online micro store, so that they can send their customers right there and they can purchase directly from them as well. So it kind of works in both ways. We're going to go into a lot more detail about chop local tonight, but want to take a second to introduce myself. My name is Katie Olthoff.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:08:09]:
I am a former teacher, also a former mommy blogger, and a small business owner. So when I have a degree in elementary Ed, when my husband and I were first married, it was my first year teaching. I was also freshly pregnant with that boy that's about to be 16 and is about five inches taller than me now. And we got approached about building turkey barns as part of this cooperative. And so we went ahead and did that. I didn't grow up on a farm. So I learned a ton about agriculture in this time. And at that time, the pioneer woman Reedrumond had started her blog and was starting to become popular.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:08:49]:
And I literally decided I wanted to be like Reedrunmond and have a blog. So I started blogging about agriculture, parenting, as well as DIY home improvement because we were fixing up a farmhouse that was 100 years old at that point. So I started blogging. I learned all about how to write for the Internet, how to take photos, how to drive traffic to my blog and use social media and that kind of thing. Quit my teaching job eventually, and then opened a small business rurally, where I painted furniture and literally hauled junk out of old barns, washed it off and sold it to people as home decor or garden decor. So again, I learned all about digital marketing for a small business and what it takes to build a rapport online with your customers and social media, that type of thing. Now, eventually, it came time that I needed to get a full time job again. And so I started working for ag organizations in the state.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:09:50]:
I worked for the Iowa Turkey Federation to start out with, and then settled at the Iowa Cattlemen's association for about five years, where I was the director of communications. And so again, working with a farm audience and working on their digital media, their website and that type of thing. And it was really during my time at the Iowa Cattlemen's association that I became so much more aware of how meat Packer concentration and consolidation has really impacted our independent livestock producers across the country and our meat supply chain. So when the pandemic hit, I was still working at ICA. We actually hosted a webinar about selling our meat direct to consumer. I saw Jared pop on the webinar as an attendee, and I was like, Jared has no beef. We're talking about selling beef. What is he doing? So I sent him a message.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:10:43]:
I found out about his idea for chop local, and I just absolutely fell in love with it. And the rest is history, right? I wish it were that easy. It took me a few months, but I did decide to quit my very stable job at the Iowa cattlemen's Association that I loved in order to help Jared build chop local. That was almost four years ago. And now on our farmers market platform, we have, I think, around 70. I lose count sometimes. Farms and butcher shops across the country, you can see all the states that we're in here. And then we've also worked with hundreds of farms and butcher shops through our annual survey, the webinars that we do the new course that we launch the events that we've gone to.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:11:30]:
And so we've really had the opportunity to figure out what works in selling meat online. And we love to be able to share that with farms and shops like you. So, keys to a successful online meat store. This is what we have learned over time based on our experience. You need an easy to use platform that works with your lifestyle and is not super technologically advanced. You need conversion rate optimization. This means that we are taking people who are browsing your online store or checking it out for the first time, and we are turning them into buyers. You need consistent, effective marketing and you need an effective team or an experienced team to help you out.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:12:17]:
And I think that's one of the most important things that we continue to get feedback on from our current vendors, is that our team has been really helpful for them. And as farmers ourselves, that has been something that we really pride ourselves on. So in just a minute, Sydney is going to go through all of our features and what this all means, but we'll run through this again real quickly. An easy to use platform that makes it simple 40 you to organize your meat business makes it easy for you to contact your customers. You can use it on your computer, or we have farmers that are using it straight off of their cell phone every day. She's going to share about conversion rate optimization. And again, this means we're taking those browsers, the people that are just looking at your store, and we are turning them into buyers. This is something that we've really focused on, and it's something that we think sets us apart from some of the other platforms that are specifically for farmers out there.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:13:20]:
Later, I'm going to walk you through a little bit more about what chop local does for marketing. As a farmers market ourselves, we are always doing events and promotions to bring more customers in. And then, as I mentioned, that team is really important. So at this point, I'm going to turn this over to my teammate, Sydney Hadacek.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:13:43]:
Okay, thank you, Katie. Like she said, my name is Sydney, and I have had the privilege of working with farmers on chop local for a little over a year now. So I actually did grow up on a farm here in Iowa. My family raises black Angus cattle, and so that's really where my passion for eggs started. And then I came out to central Iowa. I originally grew up in eastern Iowa and came out here to Iowa State University and got a degree in agricultural communications. Throughout my time in college, I worked for a few different ag organizations and ironically, worked for the beef industry council and met Katie kind of through that experience. So it's just funny how life comes full circle and now we get to work together full time.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:14:32]:
And then after that, I also worked in higher education at Iowa State, helping students learn what path is best for them and how they can have a successful experience. So all of those things tied together have really helped me understand how to work with farmers and help them be successful. Okay, so we're not sure if this is the perfect place for this slide, but I think it's good for you to know that before we cover all the tools and what our vendor really interface looks like, this is how we get started. And we want to emphasize that throughout this process, both getting started and then also as you start to sell online, we will be with you every step of the way. So obviously the first thing that you will do is make your official commitment. We have both monthly and annual plans available and we will briefly touch on those. But just a little bit later, then we'll have you fill out our vendor information form, provide us with your products, photos from your farm or your butcher shop, and also maybe your family. And then I will go ahead and take all of those things and put them together to create your micro store.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:15:46]:
Once I have done that, I will meet with you one on one in an onboarding call where we will walk through. I'll show you these tools next, but we'll walk through them again so that you feel comfortable as we launch your store in running that online store and also using the features that we have. So let's go ahead and get into some of those as we go through those. Oh, sorry, I forgot about this part. So one thing we do like to mention is that it can be a little overwhelming as you are getting started. And so likely some of you have heard of our meet commerce essentials course. And one of the perks of becoming a chop local vendor is that you get access to this course for free. It's a $497 value, but we truly believe it is what can set you up for success in the ecommerce world.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:16:38]:
And obviously we will be there to help you. But these lessons within this course really reinforce all of the things that we believe it takes to be successful. And so this is something else that will be provided to you at no cost to you once you become a chop local vendor. In addition to that, we also have tons of free resources that are available to anybody. But we do want to again emphasize that these are always at your disposal. So, like tonight, we have all of our other webinars recorded and posted on our YouTube page. And then in addition to that, we have a blog with tons of helpful [email protected]. Okay, so now, sorry, I got a little ahead of myself there.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:17:29]:
Now let's get into kind of the vendor tools in the interface. So the first thing we're going to start with is the product page. Obviously, you can see a screenshot here from one of our vendors. And we wanted to point out a few things that make this vendor interface so easy to use. So that first column that you see there is simple inventory management. So right away you can tell that it's really easy to manage your inventory and look at everything all at once. The next column right there is a pretty new feature, but one that we think is really helpful and that is easily rearranging your product position. So this is great if you maybe sell a lot of different types of products and you want to organize them into different categories.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:18:18]:
So you want to put maybe all of your beef together and all of your chicken in, all of your pork, all in different categories. That's a great way to do that. Another way that we see vendors using this is maybe if they are featuring a product or they're running a sale, maybe they'll rearrange those, put them on top so they're super easy for customers to find. So another good feature right there on that product page, the last column that we have highlighted is managing your product visibility. So this is a great way to turn your products kind of on and off. That's how I would describe it. So maybe if you're out of inventory on a specific product, you might just disable that for the time being to kind of clean up your store. And then it's super easy to just go back in and turn them right on.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:19:07]:
Okay, next slide. So what we're looking at here is if you were to click on any of those products that we were just looking at, we have a more in depth product page. Now you can see the first thing or not the first thing there, but the product description. It is super easy for you to add or edit descriptions. When I set up your store, I will add your descriptions in, but if there's ever anything that you want to add or change, it's really easy to go right in and do that. We'll continue to touch on conversion rate optimization, but I do want to point out here what a great product description this is. It starts off with a mouth watering description of what the product is, but then it also talks about the weight of the package and then the vendor also provides some recipe ideas. So those are all really great things to include when we're talking about increasing your conversion rate moving down a little bit, you can see two product photos, so we allow up to three photos.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:20:11]:
We think two to three photos per product is best. So always including both a raw and a cooked photo is a good way to go. I mentioned inventory earlier on that slide before this, but you can also edit the inventory within the product page as well. The next thing we're going to talk about is pricing and sales. So I highlighted two boxes here and you'll notice that the price is showing up twice. I rhymed there. That's neat. So if you want to run your own sale, we have designed this page to make it really easy to go ahead and do so.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:20:48]:
So the first price you see there is just called the price. And then if you jump down, that is the list price or the MSRP. So what you're going to do if you want to run a sale is just adjust the price and then if you go to the next slide, you'll be able to see how that shows on the customer end. So we have lots of different stickers to make it really evident to customers when you're running a sale to help convince them to make a purchase. The smaller screenshot you see down there on the right hand corner is also from the micro store. So not only do the stickers pop up in the product page, but also on the front side of the micro store as well. So again, those sorts of features really help increase conversion rate and encourage your customers to purchase. Okay, another thing we're going to talk about a lot is search engine optimization.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:21:44]:
So really we go super in depth in this, in another webinar that we did. But what this does is help people find your products. So this is just another tab on your product pages that helps you add keywords that make your products discoverable. Basically, we won't go too much into depth there because I know it can be a really tricky subject. Okay. Another thing that we do maybe a little bit differently than some other platforms is we sell by weight ranges rather than by price per pound or exact weight pricing. And so when we talk about this, some people say, well, I have to do exact weight pricing because that's what customers are used to at the grocery store. And while we do understand what they're saying there, what we actually find is that customers are comparing their shopping experience on your online store to other online shopping experiences, not necessarily their experience at the grocery store.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:22:50]:
And to break that down a little further, what we mean is that when they click checkout, they want to know exactly what they're paying for with exact weight pricing. That's not possible. And so this method helps remove some of that uncertainty and concern when they hit the checkout button from the vendor's back end. This is kind of what it looks like under that general button that you can see. That was where I showed you the descriptions, the pricing, the inventory, all that sort of thing. But if we move over to the variations, you can see all the different weight variations that are offered here on this porterhouse steak. You can again adjust the price and the inventory from here as well. And that makes it really easy to adjust those things within the product itself.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:23:40]:
We also note here that we recommend doing a little bit larger increments for things like rows, bigger cuts, and then for things like fillet, you can do smaller increments, but it's all up to you. However you want to break that down and set your pricing from the customer side, this is how it's going to show up. They'll just be able to click that weight drop down and select the variation that they'd like. And as a note to this, it's not related to weight, but we can add those sorts of variations to really anything that it applies to. So the first thing that comes to mind for me is flavor variations. So if you have something like beef sticks or patties or brats that have different flavors, we can add variations for those as well. All right, let's talk about shipping and pickup methods. So our platform allows for you to have multiple pickup and delivery methods available.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:24:42]:
One of the things that Katie briefly touched on before is that a lot of farmers and butcher shops that are selling, not necessarily for butcher shops, but for farmers specifically, they sell through lots of different channels, not just online. And because of that, it's really important to have different methods available for people to be able to get their products, because we know there's lots of local customers, but there's also customers that need their products shipped to them. So you can see a good example here of one of our vendors down in Arizona. One of the things that she does is she's super active with farmers markets down there. So one of her methods is delivering to those farmers markets. Next, we have a pickup method from her farm. And then lastly, we obviously have shipping from her farm with her pickup method. She does have a pickup discount available, and we'll talk about that in a second.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:25:40]:
But I do want to touch on our shipping? Regions are predetermined, and one of the other things we offer with shipping is an integration with shipstation, which is just one of the ways that we help you save on shipping costs. Okay, so moving on to the next slide. You can see here from the customer checkout page. The customer will be able to see what options are available to them. So let's say they went ahead and picked the pickup method. You can also adjust the description. So she says pickup can be arranged. Arrangements will be made once order is placed.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:26:16]:
Now, this vendor offers a 10% pickup discount. And the reason she does this, we'll touch a little bit on shipping later, is because we encourage our vendors to incorporate their shipping expenses into their prices so that it's not an additional fee when the customer goes to check out. Now, to help avoid this fee for your local customers, that is why they offer a pickup discount. We see vendors offer those anywhere between ten and 20%, and you can see how that applies automatically here. All right, another great tool that we offer is our customer message center. This is a great way to get better at customer service is having all of your messages and communication in one place. We see tons of questions come across chop local every day. Anything from how the product was raised to when their product will be shipped, how shipping works for the farm or butcher shop.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:27:21]:
And so being able to have that all in one place so that you can respond quickly is a really great feature that we offer. It's also a good way for you as a vendor to be able to communicate with that customer. Tell them, hey, I shipped your package out today. It should be there in a day or two. Here is your confirmation number. Really, it's a great way for them to communicate with you and then vice versa. Okay, subscriptions. This is another thing that we get questions on all the time.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:27:53]:
And yes, we do offer them. We won't go too in depth on how that works on the back end, but you can offer flat discounts like you see here. You can also offer discounts by the percentage and really anything that you think you want to offer with a subscription. We have kind of tried it all, so these are available as well. Okay, so we keep talking about conversion rate optimization. Let's dive into that a little deeper as it relates to shipping. So I talked a few slides ago about not having those extra shipping fees at checkout. What you can see here is that the number one reason shoppers abandon their cart at checkout is because the extra costs were too high.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:28:43]:
So probably the biggest one that I can think of there is the shipping costs, but also anything like credit card fees or delivery fees. All those sorts of things are kind of scary to customers when they hit the checkout cart. And so avoiding those sorts of things is really important to getting them to make that final purchase. Now, we know that shipping isn't free, but the way that we make it free, quote unquote, is by again, incorporating those into your pricing. Now you're wondering, well, do I have to do free shipping? And we think that, yes, it is important to be able to offer that at a certain threshold. What you can see is that 66% of consumers expect free shipping for all online orders. Now while that isn't necessarily possible, we do offer free shipping to customers on orders over $50. And because we're not going to have you cover that entire cost, chop local helps you with that.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:29:45]:
We provide our vendors with a reimbursement on those orders that are over $50. Okay, let's dive a little bit deeper again into this conversion rate optimization thing and what you can do to help increase that. So the first thing here is having mouth watering photos. There is a lot of times that we will look at a farmer's online store and either maybe they don't have pictures at all, or it might just be the picture of the product, like in the packaging. And while that's great because it provides the customer with a realistic idea of what the product looks like, it's obviously not the most enticing photo. So while you can use it, we don't ever encourage using it as the main photo. We recommend two to three photos per product. Always doing a raw photo and a cooked photo.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:30:38]:
And then the third one is kind of up to you. As far as product descriptions go, we encourage you to start off with something mouthwatering that really makes the customer want to purchase that product. You also need to be including how many there are per package, the weight of the package, thickness, bone in or boneless if that applies to the specific product. Any questions that a customer might have about a product, you need to be including those details in the descriptions. And you can see that here on one of our vendors descriptions. We also help you make sure that those are all uploaded and so that your product pages look the best that they can. Other information that we include on our vendors product pages, we have a little tab you can see here about their farm. This is just a screenshot, so we can't click into each of these.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:31:33]:
Then we have another tab about shipping and how that works for this specific vendor. And then we also have reviews. Once you scroll down a little bit on the page, you can also see a little scrolling tab that says you might be interested in. And again, this helps encourage the customer to make other purchases and continue shopping on your store. Okay, I briefly mentioned reviews, but this is another huge thing that we want you to have prominently displayed on your store and we have made that easy with the chop local micro stores. So again, you can see here on the product page right next to the description, there is the reviews tab. And then on your Microstore home as well, we provide your reviews too. So making those as prominent as possible so that customers can see, hey, other people are purchasing from this store, I should too.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:32:36]:
Okay, Katie.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:32:38]:
Okay, awesome. Sydney, you covered a ton of information in a very short amount of time and there are more features and things like that, but that's just kind of give you an overview of what it looks like on the backside as well as what it looks like on the front side for your customers. Now, one of the questions that we always get asked is what makes chop local different from the other platforms that are out there and the other platforms for farmers? And this is what we found works really well to explain it. When you set up your website and your online store on another platform, it is like having a roadside stand for your farm. Right? You have to get the customers there. They may not be able to find it, it may not be in a well trafficked area, and it can be really hard to increase your meat sales that way. But when you're part of chop Local, it's like being part of a really popular farmers market that is helping you, providing you with support, helping you with marketing and promotions. And so that's one of the ways that we really compare that.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:33:38]:
Now, if we want to get a little bit deeper into what chop local's marketing looks like, these are kind of our basic principles with our marketing. One of them is that we stay really positive. Okay? So we are not disparaging any types of farms or farm production practices or anything like that. We really want to celebrate our farmers, our vendors, our butcher shops and stay really positive in our marketing. Along with that, we put our vendors out front because we know that people want to know the people behind their food. And we know that, honestly, anytime we can show the faces of our vendors, it's going to go over really well with our customers. We also really believe in working smarter, not harder. So we have worked on marketing techniques that draw in customers that are already interested in purchasing locally or purchasing directly from a farmer or butcher shop.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:34:36]:
These marketing techniques are things like search engine optimization. So when they are searching for the word local meat or butcher shops near me, chop local is coming up in that search. It's also things like email marketing, where we have a sequence of emails that when they sign up for our email, they automatically get a sequence of emails that helps nurture them to become buyers. And then the last thing here is that we want to use our marketing dollars to benefit our customers and vendors whenever we can. That's why we run these sales and promotions. We know that we could pump a lot more money into ads, into Facebook and Google, which we do use those as ads, but we know that when we run a sale or a promotion, it gets customers to purchase and it moves local meat. And honestly, at the end of the day, our goal is to make it easier to buy and sell local meat online. And so running these sales and promotions just really makes sense for us.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:35:36]:
We get a little bit more specific. I mentioned our email marketing. In addition to the welcome sequence, we also send out emails about sales and promotions. We send out emails that feature special products or seasonal products. We like to feature our vendors. We have a bunch of different email campaigns that go out all the time. We, of course, use social media, primarily Facebook and Instagram. Sel stands for search engine optimization.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:36:04]:
And I mentioned that that's when somebody googles something related to local meat or specific product. We're working to get our website to the top, and oftentimes it is at the top. Search engine marketing is a little bit different. Those are your Google Ads. Okay? And Google shopping ads are relatively new for us. We launched them in the second half of 2023, and right now we're averaging about a million impressions every month on our Google shopping ads. So our vendors products are showing up in Google shopping that scrolls across the top when you are googling meat products. CRO conversion rate optimization.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:36:43]:
Sydney's talked a lot about that. That is a key part of marketing and it's part of our work. Smarter, not harder. And then, like I said, the sales and promotions, we know that there are some people who still consider buying meat online to be a little bit risky, right? But if you give them that discount, it removes some of the risk and it makes it easier for them to take that step and make that purchase. The other thing that we think makes chop local difference is our team. We know that there are other software companies out there that have a tech background and they're hiring a lot of young people, that type of thing. Our team is all made up of farmers who have been where you have been. We know what it's like right now.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:37:28]:
My kids are at grandma's house because my husband is still out on the farm because the weather is nice. So we know what your lifestyle is like. We know what you're talking about when you're talking about meat and selling carcasses or harvesting, processing, that type of thing. And we hear continually, this always feels awkward because I feel like we're bragging about ourselves, but we hear continually from our vendors that this is one of the things that they really appreciate about chop local is our team. So now we're going to talk a little bit about your farmer butcher shop and how it might fit into chop local. We obviously think that chop local is a great solution, but it's not the right solution for everybody. So your farm or butcher shop is a good fit for chop local if you are primarily selling USDA or CIs inspected retail cuts of meat or seafood. We do allow other products on shop local.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:38:28]:
As long as your main product is retail cuts of meat, you do not have another online store. Or maybe you'd like to switch from your current online store to shop local. This example that we have on the slide here over the moon meats had a Shopify store. Shopify or squarespace, I can't remember now, but they recently switched to chop local as a way to boost their meat sales. And in the first three months that they were on chop local, they saw their meat sales 50% higher than they were the previous year. In that same period. If you are ready to ship your products, because we are doing marketing nationwide, our vendors are shipping products now. Sydney mentioned the educational resources.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:39:14]:
Shipping is part of our course. We also have a mini course on shipping. And so if you are not shipping yet but you're thinking about it, we encourage you to look at those resources first to determine if that is something that fits into your business. We also are looking for vendors who have positive feedback and reviews from your current customers. You don't have to have been in business for a long time, but you should know that you have high quality meat and you should have some positive feedback because that means that you are headed in the right direction to have a successful meat business. And we want to be able to feature those reviews on chop Local. We can take your Facebook, Google reviews and things like that and actually load them onto your micro store on the back end. That's something that we can do as a team.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:40:01]:
Our vendors can't do that themselves, but we can do that for them to help get the word out about how great their meat is. And then, like I mentioned earlier, our marketing is really positive. And that's what we expect from our vendors, too. That you have positive marketing that's not disparaging other farms products or practices. And then, of course, we've got this piece of it right. So if your farmer butcher shop meets all the previous criteria, and a monthly fee of, plus a one and a half percent commission fits into your marketing budget, then we might be a really good fit for you. Now, before we wrap things up and turn it over to questions, I want to address something that's kind of always hanging over our heads. The major meatpackers and retailers think that they have the market cornered on the meat supply chain in the United States.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:41:00]:
They think that they're the most meaningful part of that meat supply chain. But we know that they are wrong. Right. They want you to think that the impact that you have is not significant, but we know that the impact that your business has on your farm, your family, your community, your downtown area. Teresa can talk about that later. Is huge. Even if it feels like the major meat supply chain commodity, the major meat commodity supply chain players are rooting for you to fail. It might be true, because they don't have any interest in seeing you succeed.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:41:40]:
They don't benefit from seeing you succeed. But we know that you guys make an impact. We know that what you do is really important. And the difference with us is that we really, truly do care about seeing you succeed. I mentioned earlier that our mission is to make it easier to buy and sell local meat. And we work to do that every single day with all of you. And we know that it's possible. We know.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:42:06]:
I mentioned earlier the West Liberty food story. We saw 40 farmers come together in Iowa and literally change the meat supply chain for turkey in the United States. We know that this is possible, and we know from working with our farms and butcher shops across the country that there are people out there doing it every single day. So here's a few of our vendors, and I'm just going to tell you a little bit about each of them to see if maybe you can see similarities. See yourself in these farms and shops. This is Dalton Farms, one of our newer vendors from Wakeman, Ohio. They have a little meat shop on their property. They call it the meat barn.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:42:43]:
It's open just a few hours a week. Like I want to say, less than 10 hours a week that it's open. And they are selling over 400 steers a year direct to consumer off of their farm and other farms products that they've brought into their shop as well. We've got kinfork in Pennsylvania. Kinfork is a cooperative of amish farmers that built their own processing facility and are now selling their beef and their cheese as well as they recently launched lamb as well. So another great example of collaboration together to control their marketing, White Barn beef is on the New Mexico Arizona border. They actually recently switched from another online platform that was built for farmers, but they felt like they weren't getting the support and the tools and the customers weren't getting the experience that they needed. So, Whiteborn, on the Arizona New Mexico border.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:43:40]:
Border, you could throw a rock into Mexico. They're doing several farmers markets like Sydney mentioned earlier, and they're selling wagyu beef all across the southwest and western part of the United States via chop local. Over the moon meat and flowers. We mentioned them earlier, too. They're the ones that switched from squarespace or Shopify. They are an Iowa farm couple who is really making a living off of the farm, completely selling their pork, their chicken. They've got duck and turkey as well as flowers. They don't sell their flowers on chop local, but they're selling all their other meats on chop local as well.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:44:23]:
Twisted horn cattle company. This is a ranch in Petaluma, California. Sydney and I actually got to visit it recently when we were invited to be speakers at a conference in California, Twisted horn. These are two brothers, Jack and Asa, who grew up in beef production. They're third generation. Their grandpa came from Portugal and had a dairy out in California, but their dad raises beef. But these guys bought their own registered herd of longhorns and are now raising grass finished beef north of San Francisco. And I just love this.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:45:05]:
These kids are 18 and 20 years old, and they bought this two years ago. It just blows my mind. And honestly, we are so honored to be able to help them build their business. It gives me goosebumps. Okay. Might get a little teary eyed, too. Okay. Klein smokehouse.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:45:21]:
Here's another brother set. Clayton and coal. I think this is down in Texas. They have a processing facility. They do a lot of deer processing, but they make these specialty smoked sausage products that they are selling on chop local and now reaching a much wider audience that way. And last but not least, Teresa Davis is one of our favorite vendors. Teresa owns West 40 market here, right outside of Des Moines, Iowa, in a suburb. And she is here tonight to tell us a little bit about her experience with Chop Local, as well as help us answer any questions that you might have.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:46:00]:
So I'm going to flip to the next slide that has more information on it, and then I think we'll turn it over to Teresa to give a little bit of her story. Okay. Go for it, Teresa.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:46:15]:
Oh, gosh. On the spot here.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:46:17]:
Okay.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:46:18]:
Yeah. So I've been with chop local for a little over a year. As Katie mentioned, I do have a storefront, a retail store here in Ankeny, Iowa, which is just right outside of Des Moines. And so I started that almost three years ago and started with just a couple of local farms. My family farm included selling individual cuts of beef, pork, chicken, bison, lamb and turkey. And so it's kind of grown over the last couple of years to be sourcing from about seven to eight Iowa farmers, depending on the time of year. We've grown our business quite a bit over that time. And a huge portion of that is, I think, thanks to the online piece with chop local.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:46:55]:
The uniqueness that I kind of have, too, is the fact that I utilize the online platform a lot for my customers here locally. To be able to shop online just from a convenience standpoint, and to be able to pick it up either in store or we offer local delivery as well, too. So in the world where everything is crazy busy and a lot of people just don't have time and they love the convenience of online shopping, I am able to utilize that and really cater to my customers a lot more with utilizing the chop local platform. And of course, we ship all over the United States, too. But a lot of our local folks really appreciate the online access. And so I would say, I think maybe I'm here today because I'm a huge advocate of chop local. I drugged my feet for a solid year, at least. I will proudly say that Katie and I had many conversations before I finally joined chop local.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:47:46]:
And honestly, I just needed to make sure it was the right fit for me. And I was still kind of trying to figure out my business. But I love to have my handheld. Any partner that I have with my business, my accountant, my tax person, my banker, my everything, they all know that they have to be ready just to coddle me and hold my hand. And I found that with Katie and the team here, as they will know, I probably bugged them a little bit more than I probably should. But I think that that's really important when you're not only building your business, but growing. And I think that Katie and the team here at chop local really do that. And the platform itself is fantastic.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:48:22]:
And there's just even in the last little about over a year that I've been a part of them, the platform itself has grown a lot too. So they've added a lot of really cool features to it that allow it just to be an easier thing for our customers to shop from and to utilize and also easier for us on this end to adjust our inventory and move stuff around in our own store. And so while they do a bulk of the work, especially to set it up for us, I think that they make it very easy for us to control it on our end as well too, if we want to do that. I'm happy to answer any questions here. I'm also happy to answer any questions offline too. So we have our Facebook and Instagram page, West 40 market, all spelled out. So you guys can find me there or, I don't know if Katie and Sydney will send out the information afterwards, but you're welcome to email me or reach out to if you have any questions or want to just talk through what this might look like for you.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:49:18]:
Okay, thank you, Teresa. We do have a few questions. Come in. So let me see for one of the questions is, for farmers market pickup, can customers select a date? So we don't have that really set up, but what you can do is you can list the next few dates that you're going to be at the farmers market. And it's so easy to communicate back and forth with customers that then you can arrange that. Would you agree, Teresa, you do a lot of messaging in our message center, and does that work pretty well for you?

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:49:50]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's an important piece, is really keeping in touch with your customers and making sure that the communication is crystal clear. I have customers too. In the order form, when they place their order, there is a spot for the customer to add a note or ask a question. So I've had customers kind of clarify some things in there. Absolutely.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:50:11]:
The next question is the processor that they're using right now is not usda or on the CIS list. What process is required to get the processor on CIS? So CIS stands for cooperative interstate shipment and it is an option. In states where there is a state inspection program, which is not every state, the state first has to apply to be part of the CIS program. Then they have to put the rules and regulations all in place to make sure that their state inspection for CIS is at least as stringent as what the federal guidelines are. And then the processor has to go through the process to become CIS inspected and meet all those regulations so it can be kind of a lengthy process. I want to say that over the whole thing, for Iowa to become part of CIS and then for the first processors to become CIS inspected was probably at least 18 months, maybe two year process. And the first step is really, does your state have the state inspection program? Is it part of CIS? And then does the processor want to go further with that? So that's kind of how that works. I hope that meet regulations are clear as mud, and it's different from state to state.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:51:40]:
We had a big discussion about that at a conference Sydney and I presented at on Saturday. Different from the one we were at in California. But it's very confusing. It's very difficult. We wish that they would make it easier to sell local. Right. Another question regarding shipping. Does the software determine how much product can fit into a single shipment box and if additional boxes are necessary? No, that's really.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:52:09]:
So our average order online for shipping is around $150. So you think about what $150 looks like for your meat and see what kind of box that will fit in. Every once in a while, someone will order more meat that you can put up to 40 pounds ish in one box, depending on the size of your box. We don't recommend that you ship more than what your upS guy can carry comfortably because then it starts to get beat up a little bit. But you can put about 40 pounds into it, which if you start to think about what that order value looks like, it gets pretty big. Now, we do have farms that will ship, like kin fork that we mentioned earlier will ship an entire quarter or half of beef, or a whole beef, but they know that it's going to take them four or five boxes, and they've got that all built into their price. They do a flat price for their halves and holes, and they've got that built into their price knowing that they're going to need that many boxes. So I hope that that answered the question.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:53:13]:
We also integrate with a shipping service called shipstation that gets you really steep discounts on your shipping, which is really helpful as well. Your top local orders go straight into shipstation. It verifies the address. It's really kind of a slick system. Another question. Are the practice claims like antibiotic free, grass fed, grain fed, et cetera, verified by a third party? And they are typically not. We require that our vendors follow the same labeling rules that USDA and FSIs have in place for those types of claims. And in our vendor agreement, we specify that we are not compliance officers.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:53:56]:
We are not going to verify it, but if we asked for documentation. You would be expected to provide it so far with our farms and vendors that we're working know it's a small enough group. Sydney and I know them. We talk to each of them. There's a little bit of an informal vetting process, and there have been a couple of times where we didn't feel like a farm was a good fit and so we didn't allow them on chop local. And so we kind of go through that process to make sure that we feel really comfortable with our farms and butcher shops because we need everybody to provide a great experience in order for this collaborative marketing to work the way that we want it to. Let's see another question. How do you handle refunds if something shows up thawed after shipping? So this is really kind of on a case by case basis.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:54:53]:
There are times when shop local covers it. Most of the time. That's when we feel like it's a belligerent customer who maybe isn't completely being honest in their claims. We don't like to push that onto our vendors. We like to just take care of that for you guys. There are other times when we have the vendor cover it. If it really seems like the package was not properly, if it wasn't packed properly and it's vendor error, then we would expect the vendor to cover it. But there have been times where we cover it as well.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:55:28]:
So it's really case by case every once in a while. It's not very often, but every once in a while it's the shipping company's fault. And then the vendor usually works with the shipping company to resolve that. Let's see, one of the questions we have this come up a lot. One of the questions is regarding chicken. Chicken. Poultry processing is a huge challenge. And I know that the person asking this question is from Iowa.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:56:00]:
There's actually task force in Iowa right now to work on poultry processing led by another Iowa turkey farmer. And Jared is on that committee as well. There is a poultry exemption where in Iowa you can process up to 1000 birds on the farm. But those could only be marketed in the state of Iowa. And so the question is, could those be sold on chop local but with a restriction to only the state of Iowa? The answer is yes. We have products that can only. Like Teresa, you have some products, for example, that you don't offer for shipping. Can you tell them a little bit.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:56:39]:
About how that I have. Mostly it's just my bigger bulk cuts. So like the entire brisket. Some of the things that I know of that are much heavier that really have a hard time fitting in a standard box that I use or a standard cooler that I use to ship with and also like my bigger bundles. I know that Katie mentioned earlier that there are farms that do ship like quarters and half beef. I choose not to. I sell quite a few of those here in store and I have the retail store, so I set restrictions on those items on my shop local page. And so that was one of the tabs across the top, like where you saw the SEO and the variations and things like that.

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:57:18]:
There's a restrictions tab. And so you can choose on every single item. You can choose whether you want that item to be able to be shipped in pickup or delivery or whatever your sources of getting the item to the customer is. Or you can be specific with different items. Eggs is another example. I sell eggs in the store, and so because I utilize my shop local platform a lot for local customers that pick up in store, I have items like eggs that I do have on shop local for people to purchase, but they are pickup only. So my restriction for that then, of course, would be you can't ship it. And I don't deliver those either.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:57:54]:
Thank you. Okay, another question. Is there a mechanism for bulk orders like taking deposits for a quarter or half of beef? Yes, we didn't really touch on that, but we do want you to offer retail cuts. But most of our vendors also offer quarter of beef, half a hog, that type of thing. You can take a deposit, they can pay that deposit, and then that opens up the chain of communication where you can message them back and 40, you can actually invoice them for the final amount straight through chop local, send them a link to pay. This also works really well with wholesale customers where you can invoice them a custom amount and they can pay through chop local as well. You can also just start that communication with them after they place the deposit. And if you want to take payment in another way, that's completely fine too.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:58:49]:
We are not going to go back and be like, oh gosh, she took a deposit, but we never saw that final payment come through. That is on you as the vendor. Oh, I clicked the wrong button there. Sorry. And then a question. Could I use chop local to replace my point of sale system? I'll let Teresa talk about point of sale too, but we do have typically not. I will say that we don't have a point of sale system. We do have a couple of vendors that use the backside of chop local as a point of sale system though.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:59:24]:
So it is possible it's not as user friendly as a real point of sale system. It is possible. Teresa, you use a separate point of sale system. Right. And can you talk about how you manage inventory between your online store and your point of sale?

Teresa - West Forty Market [00:59:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I do. I use a different point of sale system for my store, my retail store versus the online. I have to keep up on my inventory pretty darn closely. And I will say I'm conservative with my online inventory. If I know something is pretty low in the store or it's an item that moves really fast, I won't set a very high inventory on that with my online. And it is just an exercise that I do on at least a weekly basis. So when we bring meat back from the locker and we stock the shelves here, that's just one of my processes, is I go onto my online store and I update inventory from that standpoint.

Teresa - West Forty Market [01:00:18]:
So there isn't anything that allows them to communicate with each other. It is just kind of me making sure that I'm keeping tabs on everything within that. I will say to Katie's point, there have been times there is a way that you can send basically push invoices to customers through chop local. And I think that's what you're referring to, Katie, to be able to do that. So I've done it a handful of times when there's sales online, and especially if I have maybe an older customer come into the store and they're like, I want the deal. And I know it's only an online deal and not your in store deal, I will set them up with an account on shop local. I will add items to their basket and I will push them an invoice that they literally just have to click a button and pay for it then. And then that way it processes through chop local.

Teresa - West Forty Market [01:01:02]:
And it follows then the sequence of events. Or if I have people that want to maybe send something, a gift to somebody or something like that and they want to ship it, I will set them up with an invoice through chop local so that the shipping is included in all of that and push it through that way for them. So there have been a handful of instances that I do that, but for the most part, I just keep pretty close tabs on inventory in store and online. This is a little bit newer for me, but I'm starting to have a separate set of inventory that is online specific. In other words, I have multiple freezers here with my inventory.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:01:39]:
Right.

Teresa - West Forty Market [01:01:39]:
So I am dedicating a couple of freezers that are just online only inventory freezers. And that way, as I kind of grow, it's a lot easier for me to really keep tabs on what I have for inventory completely set aside for my online stuff. And then if I have to pull from my in store inventory to replenish my online inventory, it's a little bit easier to manage that kind of behind the scenes on the back end for me too. So that's a little bit of a new approach. I don't have a whole lot to speak to because I haven't really used it for a very long time here, but that's kind of something I'm testing out.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:02:15]:
Okay, well, we have come to the end of our questions. There's just a couple of compliments in the question box. I don't need to read those out loud. Right. But we do appreciate hearing that. Those from our viewers, our attendees here tonight, we thank you for coming. If you have more questions, please reach out to Sydney or I. We would be happy to meet with you one on one and talk about chop local and be happy to figure out a way that we can serve you.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:02:44]:
We mentioned already that we do have the course that's available. So if the chop local platform isn't a great fit for you, but you still want know, stay in touch, see Sydney and I on the big screen a few more times. You can check out the chop local course. We also have the shipping course and Sydney told me, I'm not allowed to mention this yet, but I'm going to do it anyway. Jared and I decided we were overruling her. Within the next few months, in 2024, we are going to be launching group coaching for our vendors so that we can walk them through marketing techniques, help them have kind of an accountability group that will help them learn about meat marketing as well as work on seasonal promotions. Holiday sales are huge. Teresa can attest to that because she was on our webinar about that last fall, and that's something that Sydney and I met with a lot of vendors one on one to help coach them through how they could improve their holiday sales.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:03:44]:
We're thinking this year we're going to work smarter, not harder. Do a group coaching system and get that in place. We'll also cover things like techniques for farmers market, how to get your farmers market customers onto your email list so that then you can later sell to them online. In the off season, we'll talk about email marketing. That's something that we have really been focusing a lot more on and I'm not sure if we remembered to mention but chop local does integrate with Mailchimp for your email marketing, so that is another great tool there. And talk about social media, pricing, shipping, all of these things that are on your mind that you know are important to marketing and improving your meat business. But you need that team again. You need to surround yourself with that team to help you do it.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:04:30]:
So if there are any other questions again, please let us know. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you to Teresa for being here and we wish you all the best in your meat marketing.