We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Jorgensen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

As a small farm we sell direct to consumers from a small farm store right on our farm. This allows us to cut out a middle man and provide a much fresher and quality product that we have control over.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Our farm specializes in raw milk shares. Essentially our members rent a portion of our dairy herd to be able to get the bi-product of our herd (milk). The milk is not pasteurized so the members can get the freshest and most beneficial product from the herd. We raise and sell direct to consumers our own grass fed and grass finished beef (many beef farmers finish on grain, we do not). We also pasture raise pork and chickens. All are raised and sold here at a small store that we run ourselves.
We take pride in raising the animals here and selling them here. We do have to send them out to a USDA processor. Knowing our customers so we can help educate them is a big part of what we do as well. We are able to do that because we are the ones raising and selling the products.
We are able to help other locals that make or produce locally sell their products as well. It’s a great way to support vendors and help the keep their products local as well!
We opened our on farm store in November of 2021 with a goal that we have exceeded by over 75% of the expected sales. Our share members are able to do a self serve to purchase items in our store along with us having some store hours throughout the week where I staff the store and am able to answer questions and interact with customers (that’s my favorite part!).

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

We have been selling sides of beef for as long as we’ve been married (almost 15 years). We both worked off the farm for many years. Once we had 3 kids in daycare my husband farmed full time and also was full time dad with the kids on the farm with him. I worked a corporate job until 2020. I had been wanting to be home more and took a leap of faith, left my corporate job and focused on the milk shares and getting a license to sell cuts of beef and pork. My husband then took a job off the farm. We were able to open a store to sell our meat and add chicken to the animals we raise here on our farm. We have borrowed very little money to open the store and keep meat stocked. We try our best to cash flow all of it with very little debt and overhead. Just this year my husband has went down to 2.5 days a week off the farm, which helps us all be able to be more intentional with our farm work and family time. During that first year I was on the farm full time our milk share members increased over 200%!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Hands down word of mouth. Providing a high-quality product that has very little competition in the area has been our biggest win. Our customers want to tell all their friends and family. We have waiting lists at times for our milk shares and beef is frequently sold out. We have never paid for a marketing campaign.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sunrisefarmanddairy.squarespace.org
• Instagram: sunrise_farm_dairy
• Facebook: J&ASunriseFarms