Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Recknor. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Ashley , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Growing up as a farm girl in rural Iowa, I always dreamed of owning my own business. As I grew up I was fortunate to travel to many states and cities as a part of the national livestock show circuit and visit many different shops and restaurants. I grew a passion for finding and visiting those cute, one of kind small stores and restaurants. Fast forward a few years and my family used all we had learned in the show cattle industry to create our own beef brand to sell directly to consumers and Purple Ribbon Beef was born in 2016. During our show careers we were fortunate all our hard work and dedication paid off as we exhibited multiple national champions. We used what we had learned in these experiences to guide the beginnings of Purple Ribbon Beef. It was an absolute must that customers receive a champions caliber experience and premium beef. Just like we had done to achieve those national championships.

The original idea sparked during all our travels to the various shows and seeing smaller dinning avenues more on the coasts starting to source local and farm to table. This would have been 2014/2015. Therefore, as we traveled and saw these places, we began to think why not us. We have always sold some shares or bundles of beef but this was an idea that we could really build it into more. In spring of 2016 my father and husband had been managing a farm and cattle for a gentleman that wanted to retire. During the conversations about what was next for us and if we were going to continue with the cattle, we decided this was our chance to focus on the direct to consumer business and started Purple Ribbon Beef. We started out small occasionally attending farmers markets that fall with a very little offering. By the following spring we were a full-time vendor in the Ames Main Street Farmers Market and grew our offering. We have now expanded to online orders and shipping through the central United States, three farmers markets, working three Coops and more.
It has been lots of blood sweat and tears to get to where we are now six years later. We have developed a brand that represents family and premium service and meat.

Ashley , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up on a small family farm in North Central Iowa where we were an hour away from any Walmart. I graduated with a class of 60 students and my grandparents were a mile away and I loved being at grandma’s house. While we grew up showing cattle all across the country, the cattle were not my passion growing up. I loved the social aspect of the shows and traveling, but didn’t love working on the cattle everyday. I enjoyed helping dad with chores here and there and loved showing my pigs. I attended Iowa State University and graduated in Community and Public Health with a minor in Entrepreneurship. During my time at Iowa State, I was very involved in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Community and was a founder and eventually CEO of the student owned and operated café on campus the Barista Café. Entering college, I did not know much about entrepreneurship but had always looked up to those that owned their own business. Therefore, during college, learning more about what business ownership was and the opportunity to hear from so many successful entrepreneurs and have them be mentors for the café is really something that shaped me into who I am today. After completing my undergraduate degree, I obtained my Master’s degree in Public Administration with a Healthcare emphasis. Upon completion of my Master’s I moved back home and married my husband who was working with my dad managing a cattle operation. I started working at Iowa Specialty Hospital and Clinics as their Specialty Clinic Leader overseeing their specialties including pain management, general surgery and orthopedics. During my 10+ years at Iowa Specialty Hospital, I have assisted in growing those service lines and adding more and transitioned to the Executive team in 2020 as the Specialty Services Officer overseeing all specialists and purchasing.
When I moved back home in 2012 became involved in the Clarion Chamber and Development and sat on the board for 5 years serving as the President for a term. During this time, my passion for small businesses only grew and desire to own expanded building upon my experiences at Iowa State. During this time we were also traveling extensively and started to see the farm to table movement on the coasts and a very good friend who traveled frequently started to tell me I could do that with our beef. Through many events that occurred we started Purple Ribbon Beef in 2016 and grew into our own store front in 2018 and opened on Small Business Saturday. We from there grew into the three farmers markets, shipping weekly across the Midwest, offering monthly subscriptions all while focusing on the customer and the beef. As life happens, the business has grown and changed and an amazing opportunity came available last summer for us to purchase a farm closer to the another family farm we owned. Everything aligned and we purchased the farm and moved from Clarion to Britt where we are now located. During this transition we closed the store, Purple Ribbon General Store with visions of one day reopening right on the farm in Britt.
I love that we are able to do this business as a family, focusing on raising beef cattle and providing a premium product to the customer. I love that we are raising our daughter on the farm and is a part of the business and hopefully one day will also want to come back to rural Iowa and own her own business or be apart of the business. We focus on taking care of the land and cattle to ensure they are sustainable and better than we received them for the next generation.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We have over the last six years faced many unexpected problems just as many other businesses do. A few that stick out are the disruption of COVID and how that impacted the food system. During COVID, due to the lack of availability of beef at times in the regular stores we had increased demand for our product. While this is a great problem to have especially since our traditional avenues of selling our meat in our own store and farmers markets faced closures and changes in avenues, this was a problem as we also did not have enough product to supply all the requests. As a small cattle producer, we only had so much supply, and only limited butcher dates and were not able to obtain more. Also, we must plan about 18 months prior to ensure we have inventory as it takes about 18 months to fully raise a beef animal for processing. During this time, while we greatly appreciated the increased interest, it was frustrating not having enough product. Additionally, we were hopeful we could retain the new customers to ensure continued growth. While we were able to retain many of the customers initially, in the fall of 2021 our butcher we had worked with for 6 years had a fire. This was absolutely devastating for them and us. We had multiple cattle that were at the butcher dry aging and about to be cut that were a total lost. Not only the loss revenue from those cattle was problematic, the fact that all local butchers were requiring to schedule dates a year a head sometimes longer. We now, had to call around to multiple places try to find dates to butcher the cattle as we take them in monthly. Some places laughed due to them being scheduled out so far. Overtime, we were able to get on a few places cancellation lists and at the last minute would get a beef in. However, this process was a major disruption to the business and a very difficult time. Initially, the butcher we had been with a long time was going to rebuild but in the summer of 2022 they announced they would not be re-opening. Another, hit that was very hard to swallow. However, the butcher that was not reopening, did introduce us to a new butcher that was in the process of opening a butcher business. Finally, in December of 2022 we were able to process our beef with this new butcher and schedule our much needed dates for the next year and all the dates we needed.
While these transitions have been hard, it has taught us to not give up when times are hard. It has taught us to be upfront with our customers and ensure you have good relationships with all your business partners.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I feel what has helped us build our reputation within our market is building upon the history we had in the breed and telling our story. We are honest with our customers about who we are and are trying to always live up to the expectations. If we fall short for some reason, we make it right. We guarantee our customers will enjoy their meat and will give them their money back if they don’t. We are six years in and have yet to give someone their money back. I also feel the open and honest communication we have had with customers when we have faced set backs in processing and availability of product. Customers appreciate that. Additionally, we show them insights into the farm life on social media and also in our weekly newsletter. This has helped build the customer trust, relationship and confidence.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://purpleribbonbeef.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/purpleribbonbeef/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/purpleribbonbeef
• Other: Email : [email protected]

Image Credits
My headshot photo credit to Ivory House Photography out of Des Moines, Iowa The family photo credit to Images Photography out of Clear Lake Iowa The remaining photos were taken by myself, Ashley Recknor