Amy Hay
speaker
108 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jan 2025
Amy Hay’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
So we were growing our herd and we also had, um, we were working with, um, some friends and things at the coast who traditionally they, they grew speckled parts, which is a Canadian breed. Um, and they were unfinished if you like, and then they would take them to this sales barn. So they ended up finishing them for us. We'd buy them from them instead of them taking them to auction.
Um, and then we would process them and sell as beef. So, um, It worked like, I don't know, 50% gross to the point where we had an order book. We were doing two a month and then three a month. And then we had orders for five a month, up to 10 a month. And it got to the point where we went...
Over our local representative's head, who was just being a pain in the ass and went to the head office in Saskatchewan and said, look, for the last 11 months, even with our hands tied because you're foreclosing on us, I have an order book of eight months ahead and I'm bringing in 50K a month regularly selling beef. What's happening? And they actually said, we apologize.
And they halted proceedings and they reinstated the mortgage. Like it was it was just insane. So it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. But within that time, obviously, Google, I was searching for, you know, how to sell beef online and help with selling online. And the companies I came across, they talked an amazing game. And I was like, yes, you can save my ranch. You can save me.
And then I get hit with how much it was going to cost. And it was like, yeah, no, no. Like, there's no way I can give you $18,000, $20,000 when all this is happening. So it was do it myself. Like, we're pretty smart. And we put together a solution that really did work. And a lot of that was starting an Instagram account. That was literally the turning point.
But then after all of this happened and everything is hunky-dory and we would post about our story and we would post, you know, we're first-gen ranchers, blah, blah, blah. I would get messages and direct messages from farms all over the States going, how do you do it? Like, how do you do what you do? Like, how did you do this?
To the point where I was, I kind of joke and say, I was handing out my phone number like candy and I would have hour or two hour long phone calls with someone in Oregon and someone in Ohio and someone in Montana to the point where I said to my husband, maybe I should do something with this. And this was in 2022, like November, 2022, I was like, I should do something with this.
Like we could help so many farmers do this and it be affordable. Like it's not going to cost $18,000. Um, and that's when sell beef direct was born. So we launched in January, 2023 and it's changed a lot since then, but it's doing pretty well.
We don't sell individual cuts. And I actually warn my students, like the farmers I work with, I mean, if that's something they really want to do, fine. But it's hard work because it's inventory. Like, you would have to itemize every single item in a carcass and upload it to a website and then find that item and ship it or, and it's too much like hard work.
So we sell quarter size and whole and we, our ranch, we do packs that we have a 10 pounds of ground and we have, you know, like a steak pack or a steak and ground pack, but we don't sell in, no, you can't just go online and order a steak.
It doesn't work for us.
So something that I kind of speak about a lot on my social media is we are pretty remote and our neighbors and our local area are not our customers because everyone has an uncle who has a steer and gives them a side for Christmas or they have – a couple of acres and they take, you know, a couple of yearlings a year to finish and they keep one and sell one. So my local area is not my customer base.
So we actually drive five hours away to deliver our beef.
My husband does. Yeah. That's just what works for us. But we go once a month. Yeah.
Half is, but no. So for us, our most popular item is a quarter cow. We sell more of them than anything else. Our next most popular item is 10 pounds of ground beef. We can't keep ground in. Yeah, people love it because it's so versatile. Burgers, chili, pasta, lasagna, meatballs. What's, you know, what's for dinner? Like kids love. We can't keep ground in. It goes out so fast.
Was that based on hanging or was that based on yield?
So we, um, a lot, I mean, a lot of what, what I teach is you have to train your customer. So all through your website and your social media, you're not selling beef. You're, you're educating and telling people things that they, I mean, they don't know what they don't know. So, um, we always do, do hanging weight and it's never hindered us, but we do explain it.
that you have this forum that you have to get them to the point of comparing apples for apples. And I actually have a student, he did an exercise and he priced out his carcass if you were to buy all those cuts at Walmart. So not like Trader Joe's or a butcher, but Walmart. And his carcass from him, if you bought a whole cow, would be like five grand. Whereas
and that was hanging weight, like eight bucks a pound hanging weights. Um, if you then he priced it all out, that carcass at Walmart was $6,800. Yeah. But people don't know that. People think I'm spending $8 a pound hanging weight. That's way too expensive. And it makes my heart hurt when farmers are literally charging $3.50 or $4 per pound hanging. I'm like, I can't raise a cow for that.
It doesn't work. But even at $8, if you actually do the homework and find your comparisons, it's cheaper. Hmm.
Showing 61–80 of 108 · page 4 of 6
← Previous
Next →