Verifying the Feasibility of Marketing Heritage Organic Pork

This project evaluates the feasibility of developing an integrated production and marketing system for heritage organic pork. Hogs supplied into this system will be sourced from small organic farms that utilize heritage breeding stock, including Berkshire and Tamworth genetics, and will be marketed through specialty retail, foodservice, and international markets. In Phase I we verified the economic feasibility of an integrated production and marketing system, at the farm, processor, and market level. Further, we developed an economic model of the integrated system. In Phase II, we intend to further refine the economic model with the goal of reducing risk to our producer-owners, potential project investors, and market partners. We do this by developing thorough economic analysis of farm production expenses and developing a producer based risk management program. At the processor level, we develop a complete set of product specifications and product costs for an array of fresh and further processed pork items. At the market level, we execute a pilot launch of prototype products. Then, we further refine our financial projections using information from the results of our pilot launch. By doing this, we minimize risk to our producers, as well as financial and market partners. In Phase III, we will commercialize the project concept and go through capitalization and business formation. This project develops a new market for small scale livestock producers, ultimately resulting in greater on-farm income, and incremental returns from processing and marketing product. The project will improve the viability of small farm production systems.