Customers = Revenue
A Dive Into the Customer Conundrum
Frustrated?… you’re not alone!
Where are All the Customers?
We create systems that automatically feed customers into local food communities owned by market garden farmers.
Crisis solved! Well not quite – it’s a bit complicated.
We’re one of the few alternative agriculture marketing designers to focus less on farming and more on FOOD & CUSTOMERS, and might have even been the first with such specific and modern DIRECT & DIGITAL SALES strategies. A few small organizations are also CUSTOMER CENTRIC, plus a few VCs and larger investors, but no one got serious about customers until we started asking tough questions a couple of years ago… and then TRUMP happened.
Now everyone is scrambling to become alternative agriculture HEALTHY FOOD specialists desperately searching for customers. Which means it’s now a race.
While most focused on the farming component, we focused on customers, and are now developing phase two – the CLOSE.
Interestingly, it is NOT ORGANIC making the most noise about HEALTHY FOOD today. REGENERATIVE has the loudest message and highest visibility!
Customers = Revenue.
NO Customers… NO Revenue.
*Experience is critical when predicting trends…
SACRIFICING YOURSELF FOR THE GREATER GOOD IS NOBLE, BUT NOBLE DOESN’T PAY THE BILLS. YOU DO
Drop Guilt About Making Money
It always great to have a jump on the market, but from a community growth perspective it’s disappointing that overall visibility and acceptance of HEALTHY FOOOD is still so low. It’s why we focus on revenue.
Even though regenerative groups make the most NOISE, they failed to attract enough customers to even carry their own weight, and it is reflected in steep prices that customers don’t understand. Regen also took a hit over greenwashing last year that left farmers and investors wondering about its pedigree and papers.
It turns out that…
ORGANIC is still… the GOAT
Even so… some organic farmers still feel uneasy to have so many Alt-AG processes sniffing around their yard.
Currently, ORGANIC the GOAT is still the DOG, with REGEN doing its healthy-earth tail-wagging magic.
Organic farmers are concerned because the last thing they want in these chaotic political times is to have to change their model. It’s clear now though that regen is taking a serious run at the roost. It is highly likely that regen will ramp up efforts when organic least expects, or can afford it – it’s how business works.
Also, no one knows at this point which group the government will support more strenuously. We do know from history though that they choose which calf gets the most milk based on volume and margin.
When the government decided forty years ago to replace WILD salmon with farmed salmon, the wild market tanked and farmed fish became the darling until we discovered recently that farmed salmon is not the healthiest choice. We’re now transitioning back to wild, but it came at a steep price for fishers.
The same could easily happen between organic and regenerative.
Cannabis farmers recently suffered similar setbacks.
WORKS BEST WHEN THE DOG
DOES THE WAGGING
CREDIT: BreakDownPictures
YOU WORK HARD
AND DESERVE TO BE REWARDED
BUT YOU HAVE TO WORK SMART TOO
WHERE ARE ALL THE CUSTOMERS?
Organic organizations got caught behind the eight-ball thinking that regen was just a hippie fad that would wither on the vine. The tone switched in 2023/4 when Cargill and other big corps began promoting that farmers could lower costs by switching from chemical fertilizers to composted manure and other methods like No Till/Drill, and companion methods with plants, cover crops, and rotational grazing of livestock.
It was at this point that SH!T bypassed the earth… and HIT the FAN.
Overnight in late 2024, regen became a force to be embraced… and for some, feared.
Regen opportunists got so excited about getting rich and becoming heroes, they forgot to invite customers to the table, and guess what? No one showed up, so now we have frustrated farmers wondering if they’ll ever make their regen investment back.
BTW, “personalities” in regenerative and permaculture try to avoid being called leaders, because leaders are expected to take responsibility. Pretending to be altruistic, but at the same time apolitical, anti-democratic and also WEB3 where everybody is the BOSS lets them off the hook, as in WHERE ARE ALL THE CUSTOMERS?
The answer is often; Sorry… Not my job.
As you can see in the graph, consumers are eager to find high quality food, and will pay premium prices.
BTW, How many times did you watch my dog ORGANIC do a nose-to-tail TWERK? 😉
NO Customers = NO Revenue
Today’s Alt-AG STALL, negatively impacted the same investors the emerging industry desperately needs to push alternative agriculture past the tipping point on the regenerative/permaculture adoption curve.
A sequence of events occurred over the last decade that funneled Alt-AG customer growth into a negative vortex.
One big question for farmers is; Can regen SCALE? The answer: Maybe, but there are a lot of political and corporate roadblocks, so, we’ll see.
The science has been proven and verified for at least a decade, but still, no one believes in the process enough to invest in it adequately, which means you’re on your own finding customers.
Who Dropped the Customer Ball?
Even though ORGANIC is far beyond everyone in market share, it’s now a side-eye-pause between regenerative, permaculture, biodynamic and all the other Alt-AG processes that have also struggled for decades and have yet to come even close to mainstream adoption. No one is blinking, or moving when it comes to customers.
Who is to blame? Without question educators side-stepped their responsibility to grow the movement in a balanced way that would have seamlessly brought customers into the community.
The challenge however is that attracting customers to a NEW emerging model is prohibitively EXPENSIVE and takes specialized skills and considerable time.
Whoa Big Fella…
A few farms successfully adopted regenerative and permaculture processes and found high income customers for their high quality food.
Today however, the regen Clydesdale team broke from the HEALTHY FOOD community wagon and is running wild barking without bite like they’re the dog… disruptors without a solution – the worst kind.
There is a market, but it has to be prospected because nutrient dense food is well beyond the financial means of most people.
The hook evangelists used; That Alt-Ag is an affordable option for the masses, was baited with HOPE to convince followers to open their wallets.
Most educators had no intention of cultivating customers, and crossed their fingers hoping someone else would do the heavy lifting.
Inexperience fooled them into believing that because they were right about the science, customers would flock like THE FIELD OF DREAMS. It’s a rookie mistake.
Who Holds the Reins Today?
Farmers do, but they’re mostly riding alone. Because of slow regen adoption, most early pioneers are now struggling to catch up with the recent HEALTHY FOOD narrative.
Some global governments have invested heavily in healthy food for several years, and America will also now do so for at least the next three, which means BIG PR NOISE DRIVING MASSIVE VISIBILITY from the government that can be leveraged like solar energy!
We saw a similar GROWTH FRENZY in 2020 during lockdown when governments told everyone to grow vegetables at home, even if you lived in an apartment with a small balcony. Governments invested heavily in advertising and PR, and people responded.
Alt-Ag educators had the best run of their entire history and it seemed like they were going to get rich until the government message ended and society went back to normal, more specifically back to NEW NORMAL, which is today.
The message today is;
Health comes at a price,
and it is steep.
You want healthy food,
it’ll cost you.
sorry
*
Our goal at My Farmer Is My Friend is to focus on customers, and simultaneously fix the damage caused by errant predecessors. Part of our strategy is to develop FOOD IS MEDICINE business models for farmers so they can generate revenue similar to those who got in early. Even though the EU is leading in alternative agriculture adoption, farmers in other countries in general are not doing as well financially.
Most farmers are stuck in a movement that hasn’t moved in an appreciable manner for at least a decade respective of customers, except in very small but wildly lucrative pockets.
We identified those rich pockets, and explored why they generate such substantial revenue.
We then reverse-engineered and now design custom sales strategies to replicate it.
PAID EVANGELISTS without skin in the game want farmers to believe everyone in Alt-AG is amenable to sharing their knowledge and wealth.
Smart companies however, rarely share proprietary information if it jeopardizes competitive advantage, and we agree.
______________
Regenerative agriculture last year, riding on greenwash waves from companies like Bayer and Cargill made it look like there was a customer base, but it was only sales -posturing pumping regen processes that compete with chemical fertilizer companies.
When highly visible Regenerative advocates like Allan Savory, founder of the Savory Institute admit that THE MOVEMENT IS GOING NOWHERE, and agrees it’s being misappropriated by BIG CORP GREENWASHING, you know there is trouble in the hen house.
If you don’t build your own community, no one else will.
Want customers? It’s up to you…
Reach out and let’s explore realistic options together.
VISION at VisibilitySpectrum.com
Affluent consumers are discriminating, and incredibly loyal.
STILL NOT CONVINCED?
DEEP DIVE into the
ORGANIC CONUNDRUM
but this is your last warning. haha
If you don’t get it after the next screen,
HEALTHY FOOD might not be for you 😉
The HEALTHY FOOD Movement
Secret Shopper Opportunity
LEARN MORE through our
Development Site at
VisibilitySpectrum.com
