Attracting customers from seven states surrounding its Pennsylvania base, Hendricks Farms and Dairy, owned by Trent and Rachael Hendricks, leverage the power of diversification of both customers and the products they produce from all-pastured-livestock, growing a livelihood that yields healthy food for their family and customers while caring for their land and livestock.
On sixty acres of mostly pasture about twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, Trent and Rachael, along with their three kids and three hired hands pasture-raise Jersey dairy cows and Saanan goats. Additionally, with the help of several other farms, they produce poultry products (eggs and broilers), beef, lamb and pork. But their cash cows are their raw milk and twenty-five varieties of cheese, some award-winning and each “cave-cured” in the root cellar of their home in Telford, Pennsylvania.
“Milk is our calling card,” smiles Trent. “It’s why our customers come to our farm every week or two for a gallon of raw milk. Then they pick up a dozen eggs and a pound of ground beef from natural, pastured-raised beef cattle.” Besides raw milk from cows and goats and hand-crafted, artisanal cheeses, Hendricks Farms and Dairy offer eggs from pastured chickens, chicken broilers, and lamb, veal, beef, pork from pastured livestock sold directly from their on-site farm stand.
Inspected quarterly by the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture Sanitation Division (milk tests are taken weekly), Hendricks Farms and Dairy settled on raw milk — milk that is not pasturized or homogenized and that contains no additives, but lots of butterfat — for their production for its more healthful properties. According to the Weston A. Price Foundation and their Campaign for Real Milk, “Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin contact, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12 and
vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria … and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, [and] growth problems in children, [among other issues].” So their raw “real” milk also offers a competitive advantage over the mass-produced milk on the market, and it’s what their customers want.
“We first tried to market our products on a small scale in 1984,” remembers Trent, acknowledging that he’s been connected to farming his whole life. “We were too early and too far ahead of the market.” With his family, he continued to raise pastured livestock for personal use while operating a trucking company to haul cattle. “By 1998, things had changed. Customers came to us looking for a more healthy option for milk and other products, so all we did was just step up our operations to meet demand, reinvesting our profits in our rapidly growing business.”
Hendricks Farms and Dairy has endeavored to also diversify its customer base by reaching out to both the premium and budget food buyers, all the while commanding only full retail prices for its quality products, 90 percent sold directly from the farm with the remainder, mostly cheeses, shipped through the mail throughout the United States.
“Being diverse in customers is more important than in products,” says Trent. “We offer different quality products to customers with varying food budgets. We have the basic staples of milk, eggs, and hamburger for those with limited funds and premium cheeses and specialty meats for those who can afford it. When some of the ‘staples customers’ want to splurge, they often buy some of our premium products. As it’s turned out, most of our customers are buying all their protein from us.”
And quality they’ve produced. Their Cowvarti cheese received an award from the American Cheese Society and their Asiago and Ticklemebleu goat cheeses received high acclaim from the American Dairy Goat Association. When asked about their whimsical names given to their cheeses, Trent replies: “We’re creative people who want to have fun. We like making people laugh.” Recognizing what advertising agencies have long known about the power of humor in communication, he adds: “Our punchy and upbeat newsletter has
increased traffic to our farm — and sales.”
“It’s about building relationships,” adds Trent about their hard-won
customer base. With a bit of good-natured humility, he adds: “Our customers know we value them and that relationship is what brings them back. However, should anything ever come up where we had a problem with one of our products, the relationship with our customers would allow us to correct the problem in good faith. They know us as partners, not just producers.”
Judging by their mushrooming customer base of 1,500 customers scattered throughout the seven state region who make regular journeys out to his farm, the repeat and expanding orders by many are testimony to Hendricks Farms and Dairy’s quality meats and dairy products. To keep up with the ever-growing demand, Trent has formed relationships with eight other farms in the area who share his commitment toward raising quality, pastured products. That’swhy there’s an “s” in the farms of Hendricks Farms.
“It’s important to know how to make money off healthy soil,” concludes Trent, who finally shuttered his cattle trucking business in 2003 after solid sales and market demand was well established. “I’m very upbeat with this exciting industry. But there’s an incredible amount of hard work that goes with it. The profits are there, but you have to earn them. My ‘main season’ is fifty-two weeks in a year and I work about ninety hours a week.”
If the traffic to Hendricks Farms and Dairy is any indication, Trent’s
operations will need to create a new calendar year that includes fifty-three weeks.