 of her husband are a fourth generation farm and ranch family located near Scobie, Montana, where they raise wheat, lentils, pea, corn, barley, and hay, and also run a herd of 100 Black Angus cow calf pairs. In addition to farming for the traditional commodity market, Shana and her husband began a direct consumer business called Farver Farms LLC. They market a lentil cruncher ready to eat snack, lentil baking mixes, and lentil meal kits such as salads and soup mixes, as well as two wheat meal mixes, which I'm just curious, has anyone in the room run into those products? I know I've seen lentil crunchers around. We've had them at some events. I've seen the soup mixes that cooks on main. Okay, awesome. So we do have people who've run into Farver Farm products, Shana. So wonderful. And then just to wrap it up here, Shana is an advocate for agriculture and rural America and does speaking engagements, blogging and fundraising activities. So thank you very much for joining us. I am Shana Farver. I'm the president and founder of Farver Farms LLC, which is the commercial production leg of our farming operation. And we do use the commodities that we grow, wheat and lentils, to make products, meal kits and baking mixes, and also lentil crunchers snack products. And I had some pack to bring with me, and I feel bad that I wasn't able to get them there for you. So you can find them at Cook's on Main. You can also find them, I believe, at Glotanning Salon there in Milliston. Or if you'd like to try, you can order online and when we're done here, I'll set up a free shipping link. Just use NDSU, and I'll set up a free shipping link in case any of you would like to try and we'll include some extra goodies in your order since I wasn't able to bring them for you. So let's start a little bit with the history of how this whole thing started anyway. We have a traditional farming operation, about a small operation, about 3,500 acres. Some of that deeded some leased, and we run about 125 head of Black Angus cow calf pairs. And that was fine. And then our kids got a little older, they got into high school and started talking about how they wanted to come back to the farm when they graduated, which is fantastic. I think a lot of farm families are in the same position and really hope that their kids will want to come back. Or they're in the position where they want them to run as far and as fast as they can. But we were happy to hear that our kids wanted to come back. And the question becomes then, how do you make that happen? So what we had was supporting one family, our son and our daughter both wanted to come back. So how do we make what we have support three families now, or at least partially support three families? We knew some off farm income would have to be part of that. But really wanted to find a way to make that fit so that we could all be here together doing the thing that we love doing. So there's only so much land. Land is hard to come by. Land prices are challenging right now, even if there's something that does come up for sale. You can only grow so much on that land. Obviously using all the techniques that we knew how to use or know how to use to maximize our bushels per acre, rotational grazing so we can run the most amount of cows possible. But there's still only so much that you can do. And so we started brainstorming and thinking what else is there? You step out your front door or whatever it is and you look and there must be something else that we can do to supplement here. So about the same time I went to a conference that's held here in Montana every year, women stepping forward for agriculture. It's a great conference and they have some fantastic speakers. And one of the speakers was a woman who runs Elliott's of Montana. They do fundraising with cookie dough and she talked about how they started from their home. They originally used some products from their farm. They don't anymore, but that got me thinking it sort of set the ball rolling. I'm actually a farm girl and I'm messing with my phone here sorry because I keep getting messages. I'm actually a value-added girl from way back. Montana used to have what was called the Montana Ag Innovation Center and I worked as a regional counselor in that capacity. So value-added agriculture has kind of always been on my radar. We did some beef sales way back when the kids were just little and the internet was kind of just getting started. So and I don't know if you're getting are you getting those sorry those notifications that keep showing up on my phone are you seeing those we're not no oh good okay so I won't be distracted by them. So we had talked about value-added things before and started talking again what can we do and we really literally just sit down and sat down and we made a list on paper what are our options do we want to sell beef by the cut again do we want to look at agritourism do we want to look at opening you know getting some kind of dealership farm dealership or something like that that would tie into what we're already doing. We went through a lot of really crazy things and put them all down on paper and talked about what the pros and cons were what would fit what wouldn't fit what the investment would be we're located in a really remote area a long ways from everywhere in scoby I mean our whole our whole area is you I don't have to explain that to any of you but scoby is really 45 miles from anywhere on roads that are less than desirable so so that was that was part of it too and that ruled out some things like shipping beef by the cut because we actually can't ship overnight or or overnight into scoby so so that automatically ruled some things out and we eventually came up with food food has always been on my radar as well I had a german grandmother and I remember when I was two her pulling a stool up to the counter for me to to stand on and watch as she would bake and she'd tell me that we feed people we feed them often and we feed them well and so that's something that really stuck with me it's something that's always been kind of a heart thing for me and terry felt like he had his hands full just farming and doing the farming part of it and he said well let's let's go with that then so we we developed a line of mixes that uses the wheat or the lentils just in their in their raw form in their seed form as they come out of the combine they get cleaned and then they and I'll show you some products here in a minute they go in the bag with a seasoning packet and then they go on the shelf so we talked about it being almost like an adult hamburger helper kind of thing and so then you add meat or or other things that people usually have in their kitchen add to those mixes to make a meal for their families incidentally I was at a trade show one time in Salt Lake and I was talking about how we we view this as sort of an adult hamburger helper and one of the people that I was pitching to actually was involved with a company that makes hamburger helper so he didn't think it was very funny so I use that cautiously now so that's where we started with those mixes and then at some point the lentil crunchers showed up about three o'clock in the morning one morning in my head one of those nights laying awake we had a lentil cruncher mix that that you could make and and bake the lentils in your oven it honestly wasn't very good and so we were discontinuing that anyway but wondered if there was a different way to do that we we kept thinking about corn nuts I don't know how many of you have had corn nuts but thinking certainly there must be something that we could do with either the lentils or the wheat we knew that wheat was a there was a puffed wheat product that a company just down the road from us in big sandy actually crackloin commutes have any of you had that product I have yeah yeah yeah and it's actually changed ownership now but it's a crunchy wheat product and so we knew that was being done and so we thought well maybe we can do that with the lentils so we started thinking about that and and immediately after that actually I went to a trade show where I connected with Thomas still worth who manages that big sandy organics facility and he said well why don't you bring those lentils over and we'll try processing them similar to the way we process the crackloin commuter let's see what happens and we did that and we really had no idea what what would come from that but it has been it's been a ride and the lentil crunchers have turned into for sure our flagship product they saw us through 100 growth last year and we're actually on track to see 100 growth again this year which is pretty amazing to me and we know that that's not a sustainable number but we're going to take it and run with it as as long as as long as we can so um so that's um that's kind of the history uh how how things happened how they came about why why we even started with a value-added ag um project in the first place when there's all of you know there's plenty to do on the farm always why did we think we needed to add something else to that um but but that's sort of where it came from and um and we are achieving some of those goals my son-in-law and daughter um my son-in-law works full-time on the farm with terry now and my daughter works part-time for me here in the plant our son is in college he's learning a lot of really great things that we're hoping he uh he brings back and is ready to apply he is taking not only some production but some things that will apply really here at the plant as well and seems very interested in that so we're excited about about what's coming so i'll just start um with the growing with i mean with the process any questions so far yeah okay oh sorry i was wondering shana um so it sounds like your lentil crunchers are being made over um in the big sandy area with the crackling comma so yeah and i'll i'll get to the the hole that's in both of that but um we take them over there and they actually cook them and then we bring them back to our facility um to season and bag and ship from here so it's a it's a co-packing agreement that we have with them which is actually really common in the industry um and it really makes sense they have um the big equipment to to do the heavy work um and for us to repeat that investment just doesn't make a lot of sense so um so we let them do that part and we do our part and it's working really well so uh we grow last year we grew about um 11 i want to say terry told me 11 000 bushels of lentils that doesn't seem like that's what he told me keep in mind he just broke 18 bones so not 100 sure that's the right number um anyway we grow viceroys small greens and that's what we use in the mixes and for the lentil crunchers as well we chose those because we can grow them well um because at the time that we started there was a good market for the viceroys um and also because they're small enough that they cook up really quickly so um you know if you think about mama coming home with the kids after work and needing to put a quick meal together those viceroys don't take long at all um really similar to to pasta to get those cooked up and ready for a meal so that was part of the reason we chose those um we're using about five percent of our volume right now for our value-added product the rest is still being sold on the commodity market um as we continue to grow obviously we'll use more and more of our own lentils and if we reach a point where we um can't grow what we need for the value-added project then we'll contract with other growers and you know under some growing stipulations make sure that they're doing things the way we do things we'll talk about that as well but that's our plan going forward to be able to be sustainable and continue doing what we're doing uh so once the lentils are harvested on our farm then we take them to colombia green and plenuit where they are clean identity preserved for us so we know we're getting our own lentils back that's important um it's an important piece of the puzzle for us a lot of our marketing is built around our tagline which is our our fields your fork so we really want to make sure that those are our lentils or lentils that we have grown under contract um just to make sure that we're keeping things cohesive and and um following following along walking the walk I guess um doing what we what we say that we're doing so they get cleaned we bring those back in 50 pound bags and we store them here um in our facility until they're ready to go to Big Sandy and get cooked they go to Big Sandy um they get cooked there and then we bring them back here um to finish them up and so then they go into our commercial kitchen where they get seasoned and bagged up and then we um case and ship everything from here so it sounds like a project um it is these little guys have a lot of miles on them by the time they get put in a bag and sent to a retailer somewhere or shipped directly to the consumer from here um but it it works um it's still profitable there's a lot of money in the middle and and so a lot of that money that would uh you know normally go to some other processor somewhere um we're retaining those profits that's what value added ag is all about um we're used to traveling here you know it's it's northeast montana you know much the same as northwest north dakota we we travel a lot we just know that that we're going to put some miles on and so um the back and forth between plentywood and big sandy is not really a big deal for us there's always someone heading that direction and we can and you know make things work um we can also get freight lines into scoby and so we're going to be utilizing those a little more especially back and forth um between scoby and big sandy we'll be utilizing the freight lines and um and moving things that way although there are some um special things that we need to do because it is a food product and there's food safety component involved there um so we'll need to be working that out as we move forward so once we um have the the products here um like I said or the the crunchers back here they're um seasoned and packaged up and we send them out so let me show you some of the products and we'll see how this works with my phone um it might be a little bit of an adventure um so our very first product that we came with actually was um our sweet lentil chili mix can you see that awesome yeah looking good yeah and so um on the back then of each of the packages has nutrition information um it has a list in orange there of a of ingredients that the consumer needs to pick up to be able to finish the recipe and then instructions on how to put it together and and it can it's it's versatile you can use lots of different meats in it I have a lot of people that use um wild game in it elk is fantastic in it so um this was our initial product and the reason we chose this was because terry's mom actually in the 70s they grew lentils um they had a bunch of sacks of lentils left in the quonset and um they had been using them and making this they actually called it lentil stew that wasn't really a marketable name so we changed it to a sweet lentil chili and um and we've had a fantastic response to it so that was our initial product we participate in the main in montana and grown in montana programs and so our products all carry those labels and I believe in north dakota there's something similar um can you help me out with that right of dakota right of dakota correct yeah um and so they they would have a similar program there to to participate so this was our flagship product yeah if you don't mind um so what was the process of like starting that initial product so you had like a family recipe and did you have like the bags and the label or just sort of an evolving process of adding those pieces yeah so it was a product it was really an evolving process so um we looked for some bags our original I wonder if I have one sitting right here do you mind if I wander around the plant a little bit I might as well right since I'm mobile originally we'll do a facility tour here a little bit later just for fun since I can um so originally we started in these um basically just poly bags like this with a label that we put on and they worked in in the beginning for a little while they they don't look super fantastic um and they didn't sit on a shelf real well they weren't super marketable um and also you can probably maybe you can even see I can get really close here this is kind of fun um you can see that those lentils were oxidizing a little bit so the color wasn't really great by the time the consumer got it so this packaging actually has foil lining in it the light doesn't get to it so when they open it um the lentils look just like they showed the same color as they were mostly when they came off the combine that pretty green so we went to Uline it was um I kind of did a search online and I talked to some other people in the industry Uline has a lot of bagging products labels it really just did a lot of searching to find um you know using search terms on google like commercial food packaging and found some some things that would work we worked with our county sanitarian to make sure that we were using packaging that would be FDA and approved you know for use with food products um so and so so I'll talk a little bit about the building then and and how that came along and then the packaging comes along with it we actually started in this building where where we are now it was a restaurant at the time and we rented it was a night or a nightclub so we rented space in their kitchen during the day and I had a tote with wheels on it and I would roll my tote in with these packages that I had found online the the bags to package in and some labels that I had actually printed at home um and our county sanitarian had come in and approved this process and so I would um and I purchased the label um a lot of the spices online um did a lot of research there to to find a company that I felt really fit with us there were a very family oriented company as well I was able to visit with them on the phone obviously a lot of spices can't be sourced within Montana or sometimes even in the U.S. and that we wanted to be really careful about making sure those were a good quality product that had the same assurances behind them as as we're as we're giving to our our lentils in the the whole product so we um work with a company called Spices Inc so we would bring our spices in and I had everything stored in a tote and I would roll the tote out of the back room during the day to make mixes in the kitchen and set everything up and then I'd have to box it all back up and put it in the tote roll it to the back room to store while they had their their meal time going on their night club going on at night and then the next day I would do the same thing and and we did that just to get started to see if this was something we really wanted to continue to do to see if there was a demand for the product before we got really carried away it didn't take very long for that to get really old and not very sustainable so uh we rented space in um an old service station actually that that hadn't been in use for a long time um we we rented the corner that used to be the office and the bathroom area and we renovated that um we had to go in and put up um the the wall board that's required in a food facility um all of the the molding um the base cove along the floor um all of the things that come along um with regulations for a food facility we did all those things in that little corner of the gas station and um and operated out of there I think for almost a year grew our product line a little bit um we added some things like this fudgy mental brownie mix if you can see that it has brownies in it um it has brownies in it has lentils in it so the lentils are in there they get cooked and folded into the brownie mix so it's almost like cooking with applesauce if any of you are familiar with that baking with applesauce you boil the lentils to the really mushy and then you fold them into the mix it's the only time you want your lentils boiled until they're really mushy um so we added to our product line at that time um we added a spicy lentil chicken salad and we added um a couple of wheat products at the same time we got through Christmas um that year and we were ready to grow again and so we purchased a building in town um that used to be a restaurant completely renovated that building did the same process again um went in all new flooring all new walls on base cove um worked with our county sanitarium to make sure um that everything was set up the way that it needed to be so we um we got we've gotten to be very good friends with our county sanitarium I think I have him on speed dial and he probably cringes when he sees my call come in and because he knows it's going to always be something else with that that farver farms bunch there's always something going on um but they have been really good to us and so one piece of advice I would have if you're considering any kind of a value-added ag endeavor that includes food really make um make good friends of your county sanitarium um of your building people your electrical your plumbing you're going to rely on them more than you know um also at your state level whoever your food people are um at the state level make sure that you have a good working relationship with them uh it'll be on the daily really that you're involved with those people and visiting with them about um what's going on in your in your facility so the the hard mechanics of what's happening as well as the food development side of it so um that would be one one huge piece of advice I would have so um last no let's see November of 2019 we decided that we would expand a little more and that it would be great to have a restaurant to go along with our products we could serve our products in the restaurant would be one more way to market them um and the supper club oddly enough that we uh originally started renting kitchen space in had come up for sale so we purchased that and um like I said that was November 2019 and things went really well until March of 2020 when they stopped all together um so long story short unfortunately in April of 2020 we ended up having to close the restaurant um COVID was not good to us really small community only supports uh so many restaurants um there were several of them struggling we were struggling and we made the hard decision to close the restaurant because we had a plan B and some of those other restaurants didn't and so we closed the restaurant and we moved from our small building into the building that we're in now we moved all the processing facilities over here we um remodeled the kitchen and and kind of revamped the whole building to serve our purpose it's not uh traditional in any sense if you think about a food processing facility it has some quirks to it and there are some things that we have had to just sort of make work um but that's okay it it actually has made us be um a little more creative how are we for time wise really good so I think we'll just do a really quick if I can get this turned around um we'll do a really quick facility tour everybody okay with that sounds good awesome okay so this is what was the dining room in our facility um and so so we made this the office space right here by the windows um added some some desk space all of our orders come in via email or via our website so we have our website set up so that orders can come in they come directly either to myself or to my plant manager here they all get printed out on one printer here um so the orders come off of the printer and then they get packaged up here along this line so we have box storage here this is where all of our product storage is so everything is in a um in a tub and labeled we're actually right now working with the Montana um Montana Manufacturing Extension Center um doing some lean manufacturing type of things so that we um have our shelving lined up a little differently um so we have better inventory control sort of a work in progress um but one of the things I've learned and one of the things I can certainly tell you is that it will always be a work in progress um if you are someone who does not like to pivot uh who does not like to change ships mid-stream or um be able to think on the fly work on the fly um probably a value-added ag food project is not for you things have changed more than I thought they would part of that due to growth obviously um which is great part of that due to some challenges that we've had and that's okay as long as you're willing to work with those challenges and make the changes that you need to make so there again this is our packaging um our where we case things up and ship them out that's our line there um and we added a small employee break area and so this is what used to be the bar area of the facility down in here um there was a wall here we took that wall out this is actually where the bar was and there's a storage uh the walking cooler is behind there so we made this our pre-entry area um so when you come in from the the end of the building down here you come into this area um scrub up this is where um hair nets and gloves um lab coats or or scrubs get put on and do an initial scrub and then out of there into uh you come out of here into the production area where there's another scrub um and I thought we would be in production this morning we're actually not so I'm not going to take you into that production area because it is it's been cleaned um and Amy doesn't want me in her kitchen wandering around while it's clean and ready ready to go um in the production area always shoes shoe covers or plant shoes always gloves hair nets either lab coats or scrubs to cover um your street clothing um and then if you were to come out of production area for lunch or for a break or for whatever reason that all comes off and then has to go um back on new stuff when you go back into the production area so there's quite a process um that that goes with that when we were first starting um the rules aren't quite as stringent um when you when you first get going and there are some cottage food laws you can actually do some production under those cottage food laws once you reach a certain point um you need to be following all of the rules largely um largely for two reasons I'm struggling a little here because somebody's knocking on the door I'm ignoring them um for two reasons uh obviously because you want to be following the rules but but the other reason for us to to really want to make sure we're doing things right is these products are going we've actually shipped to all but four states now um and really wanted to make sure that that we're now they're coming in so if I get really sidetracked uh we wanted to really make sure that we're doing things right because these products are shipping all over the nation and we certainly don't want to play a part in having contaminated fruit out there uh and so that has been one of the challenges that we've run into is making sure that we can um keep up with all of those food rules um and that we can follow them and that we can make those pivots when we need to as we grow um I think it's Amy coming into the production area so maybe we'll get to run back there um to make sure that we have everything in line where it needs to there so yeah go ahead yeah with what was that point that you hit that you needed like all that the sanitation and compliance with food safety was that based on gross sales or like volume of sales you know sorry I keep putting the phone right up on my ear that's just what you want to see um it really was based on it wasn't a gross sales thing it was um once we expanded our sales reach so um and your county sanitary and will be a big help there um in telling you at what point you need to be able to to step up your game so to speak but for us it was really about okay um actually from a monetary standpoint we're not even to the point where we need to be doing some of the things that we're already doing so some of some of the rules yes are set by by your gross sales and so some of the things that we're doing we wouldn't need to be doing yet because we haven't hit that gross sales mark but we recognize that these products are going all over the nation and we just felt like we needed to be doing a little better and and making sure that this product that was going all over the nation was going to be representative of what we want um the the food in the U.S. to be representative of we're representative of so we talk a lot about how in the U.S. we have the safest least expensive food supply in the world and and we have the most of it and we wanted to make sure that we were continuing to to play our part in that so that people would recognize that even a small operation like we have um can really help up and help supply those food systems in the U.S. which has become a huge topic lately right food supplies and and food food chain breakdowns and we want to make sure we were not contributing to that that we were playing a part in being a solution to that problem if that makes sense it's a long way to say that but so so once we got settled in this facility um there are still challenges even even once you think that you're that you're where you want to be there are still challenges so um I'm just gonna hold my notes here quick excuse me okay it's really hard presenting like this if any of you ever done this presented virtually like this where you can't see faces can't get a lot of feedback so some of the challenges that we ran into once once we got into this facility then were obviously it was a restaurant it wasn't set up to do exactly what we needed it to do so uh there there was a little remodeling that went on um the air system was something that had to be changed over so um in a commercial kitchen like we have the air exchange there can't be air exchange between the like the office part of the the kitchen I mean the office part of the facility and the production part of the facility in the kitchen where the food's actually being handled so we had to close off the vents in the in the kitchen in the commercial part of where the food's actually being prepared we had to close off those vents from the rest of the facility that meant we had to have a different air exchange for for heating and cooling in the kitchen um so we had to have that done I couldn't even list all of the little things um that had to happen some different you know electrical that needs to to go on um all of that being said just to point out that when you get involved in a value-added project like this there are going to be things that you that you don't think of because you couldn't think of them until you're actually actually into it and doing it so know that whatever investment you make that whatever time you a lot for what you're doing um is going to probably be half of of what you need whether it's the time or or the financial investment um just because there are a lot of pieces to a value-added food project puzzle not to deter you from thinking about that but there are a lot of pieces to it so um licensing obviously make sure you're staying in touch with with your state and and making sure that you're getting all the licensing pieces together um I'm just trying to hit on some other things here that managing growth then has also been one of the things that um I mean we we obviously had good things planned for our business but but we didn't know exactly what that was going to mean as as far as um what that growth would look like and and how we were going to have to manage that so um right everything from ordering extra packaging so so right now um this packaging that we get um used to come in and and of course there's been some things happen a global pandemic that added an extra level of difficulty so that packaging used to come in three to four days and now it takes three to four weeks and at the same time we're experiencing some pretty large growth so it's um trying to decide how how much extra packaging do we order in because how much will we need three to four weeks from now or or the three to four weeks after that um and that obviously comes with managing some cash flow then making sure that you have lines of credit that will match up with that so that's one of the challenges obviously growing the lentils is one of the challenges right making sure um that we have enough lentils to to meet the growth that we're having um and then you throw in things like a drought so this year we grew about 10 percent of the lentils that we that we usually grow um since we're only using about five percent of what we grow right now um we're gonna be okay we're gonna probably be tight coming into next harvest um but that's something we're gonna have to manage forward for um you know luckily for us once the lentils are in a 50 pound bag we can keep those and store those for quite some time um but that's one of the things we're gonna have to plan ahead for obviously is is um as our volume gets bigger and bigger um and that that's where we may hopefully we would love to get to a position where we're contracting with other growers having them grow under our standards um for our product and providing them a premium for their lentils so um someone asked me well why why can't you just go out and buy some more viceroy's from someone um two reasons one we want it to be our product we really do we want this to be our fields to your fork that's the platform that we've built on we do a lot of social media work around that and incidentally I'm gonna say half of our sales right now probably are directly related to social media and the work that we've done there um so so that's that's been a big deal for us and and we really want to maintain the integrity that that we have built there and saying this you know these are our lentils they come from our fields or ones that we've contracted um the second thing there though is we actually we don't desiccate our lentils um are and this is um where the consumer sometimes will dictate how your product changes obviously there you know you can choose to sell a product however you want to and there's always going to be a market for that but overwhelmingly our consumers we're saying um we don't want those lentils to be desiccated now I I know there's a lot of schools of thought there and we do continue to desiccate um sometimes our regular commodity lentils but the lentils that are going to go directly into these bagged products um that go directly into our lentil crunchers are not desiccated we swap those and then we come back and pick those up so anyone that would be contract growing for us would need to follow those same guidelines so um just those are some more of the challenges so um where are we now and actually before I go too far I wanted to show you some of the lentil crunchers just so you have an idea so these are the small packages that they come in right now and we just and I know I'm getting up against my time so I'll be quick here we just introduced some new flavors we have a sweet hickory this is an eight ounce bag this is our dill pickle in an eight ounce bag and then real soon our small single serve packages are actually going to be a two ounce size those will be resealable as well and all flavors will come in that resealable that's also a direct response to our consumers they said hey your single serve size um we don't always eat all of that in one serving and then the bag falls open and we have little lentils all over everywhere so could we do something different and put those in a a resealable container as well so we were responsive to that and I'm scooping lentils onto a paper here all right let me get this switched around so these are lentil crunchers I don't know can you see those yes yep yep yeah so they're just crunchy I mean they're just lentils that's all and then they're they're actually boiled and fried and and then there's some other things that we do to them it's a proprietary process but they end up just being this crunchy little snack you can throw them right in your mouth you can put them in soups and salads and they're actually really versatile and people are coming up with some super creative ways to do them or to use them someone told us that they're going to be putting their dill pickle crunchers on in their potato salad and on their deviled eggs and so that goes right back to again you know our consumers actually sometimes knowing even better than us what what what a product is capable of and what it can do which is why we want to be real responsive to them when we can so where are we now we just hired a new marketing firm using some vapg funds that we received the apg is a value added producer grant and if you are looking at doing a value added food project from your farm definitely look into those grant funds I'm going to say you probably it's probably a bigger undertaking writing that grant and getting those funds then then you'll want in the first year or maybe even two years there's a lot of money available there it's a very meaty program and so you want to make sure you're ready to use that program before you dive into it so this is your three for us with the rental crunchers and the and the mixes and so we finally went to that value added and we got some some money to make a full court marketing press so so we're going to be starting that actually they just sent some information yesterday so you'll see some new things coming at our Farber farms that's fun all settled in the new facility we have a new flavor coming out in January I mentioned we're we're on track to be 100 growth again this year which is super exciting for us we have one full time and we're just bringing on two part-time employees and it won't be very long we'll have a second full-time employee as things start to grow so I think I mentioned that my daughter and son-in-law are both involved in the operation my son-in-law full-time on the farm and my daughter part-time here my son will be working for us when he comes back so a lot of the goals that we had for this we've already achieved and we're just looking forward to some some more growth being able to employ some more people being able to really play a big part in our small rural community by providing jobs but also bringing income from outside of the community that can be invested in in our town in our schools and our churches and our swimming pools and and and those kind of things so we're we're proud of that that we're able to bring income in from outside of our community a couple pieces of pieces of advice to leave you with if you're if you're looking at a value-added ag project particularly a food project be prepared for that vision to change for it to evolve for your consumer to shape that in certain ways be ready to pivot and and be willing to pivot and make some of those changes few of those have been hard for me I thought I had a real serious vision about what I wanted and and things needed to change and it was for the better as ag producers I think sometimes it's easy to to feel like we you know we've been doing this this way for a while and it's working why do we need why do we need to do something different but that's really we have learned the the name of the game in production agriculture this whole process has changed how we do things on the farm our how our rotations work we're more aware of of chemical usage so not only have we had to learn to make changes on the farm but also in the commercial facility here but then also reach out to your resources there are so many resources out there when you start talking about value-added agriculture whether it's the extension offices whether it's the pride of dakota or the main montana programs there are federal resources out there our department of ag here in montana has been fantastic they have been so supportive of us they put opportunities in front of us that we would have had no idea we're even out there there are manufacturing extension centers just start looking reaching out to those resources there are people out there who their their whole job is to help you succeed and and help you make make you go of this project so make sure that you're really utilizing those resources