Farmers Network Creates "Heritage
Acres" Highway to Missouri Stores
When commodity prices tumbled in the late
1990s, a diverse group of Missouri farmers
began to look beyond the traditional marketing
channels. With help from a SARE grant, they
developed a far-reaching distribution network
to deliver sustainably raised products to
independent grocers and retailers. Now, some
200 Missouri producers send their harvest
under their “Heritage Acres” label
to 42 stores throughout the state.
“We realized, no matter how smart,
hard-working or efficient we were, there
were external forces beyond our control,” said
Russ Kremer, Missouri Farmers Union president. “We
decided to create a cooperative type of marketing
and distribution system where we could pool
our resources and get food to a new marketplace.”
The farmers raise everything from beef,
poultry, pork, and dairy to fruit, vegetables,
and value-added products. Their label carries
the assurance that livestock is raised by
Humane Society “certified humane” standards—animals
are provided with more room, fresh air, and
a diet without additives—and that vegetables
and crops are grown sustainably with few
synthetic chemicals.
Network leaders calculating potential farm
profits for Heritage Acres farmers identified
savings in production costs as well as a
steady sales price. For example, the 29 “ natural” pork
farmers in the network should save about
$10 per hog produced while netting about
$45 more than average conventional prices.
Most farmers sell about one-third or one-fourth
of their harvest to network warehouses and
processing plants. The network itself, which
rents a central warehouse, should break even
in 2005, its third year, Kremer said.
Heritage Acres products have helped 32
rural groceries and 10 independent St. Louis-area
retailers, which were largely left out of
mainstream distribution channels, keep their
doors open.
Now, the stores and restaurants use Heritage
Acres food to “differentiate ourselves,” Kremer
said. The SARE grant helped the project leaders
study successful models in other states,
identify and test potential markets, and
run consumer focus groups. They were struck
by the unanimous support for family farms. “They
wanted food grown by farmers in their community,” Kremer
said.
Community development has been a major
focus of the network, which has created new
jobs with better wages in rural communities,
both at the network’s three offices
and cooperative grocery stores. “We
believe family-farm agriculture and community-based
processing are the foundations of sustainable
communities,” Kremer said.
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