Between 1,200 and 1,800 chickens hatch every week at Wild Acres Farm in Pequot Lakes with restaurants waiting on the other end of the supply chain.
With operations running ahead of demand by 10-12 weeks, it’s not a production schedule that can change course on a dime. As restaurants closed dining rooms as the state attempted to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Pat Ebnet, Wild Acres Farm was caught in no man’s land. On one hand, he had a farm dedicated to supplying restaurants, hotels, meat markets and food co-ops. On the other hand, he had customers who no longer could support the usual demand. Poultry already being raised in anticipation of the normal market and customer orders were caught in the middle. It’s not quite the same as stopping a production line when the product is hatching on a schedule set up to accommodate demand weeks in advance.
Ebnet said a local outlet provided a relief valve, at least in part, after a simple conversation to ask how a Crosslake family-owned grocer was doing on chicken, he received a call 10 minutes later from Jamie Reed at Reed’s Market. In short order, Ebnet said he has his product on the shelves with 50 chickens. With the gate opened, Ebnet called other local grocers and more product went to Schaefer’s Foods in Nisswa and to the Ideal Market in Ideal Corners.
“They are helping me out, move my inventory, because I hatch every week and I’ve got 10 weeks, 12 weeks of inventory on my farm and in my incubators. And as a farmer you just can’t stop your production. It’s there.” Ebnet said.
Ebnet said the locally grown produce is raised without antibiotics and without cages with room to move. Demand for his product at restaurants, mostly in the Twin Cities area, grew as chefs worked with it and as they moved to new operations, they brought the demand for Wild Acres produce with them. Restaurants now call Wild Acres to produce food for them. Wild Acres also has ducks and turkeys and set up a free range operation decades ago. Ebnet said the price point is a little more because of the way the birds are raised and attention to a better quality product. And, Ebnet noted, they are processing chicken and delivering it to grocery stores the same day.
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Ebnet said Wild Acres hatches between 1,200 and 1,800 chickens every week and anywhere from 400-700 ducks and pheasants in the spring along with turkeys. Ebnet added Wolfgang Puck used Wild Acres pheasants for the Emmys in the early 1990s and they supplied the renowned chef at Spago in West Hollywood. Ebnet said when he was selling his product, he'd stop by and bring a half dozen chickens to show owners and managers to help land the account and he'd show them how the birds were raised and more about the family operation.
“My son and daughter are working the business and they would love to be third generation,” Ebnet said. “So we're hoping that this doesn't take our business out. That is a fear. We have been in the Brainerd lakes area since 1969. We started as a shooting preserve and then we moved into the restaurant industry in 1978.”
The move came when one of the members, hunting at the farm, handed their business card to the New French Cafe in Minneapolis and the farm started supplying the restaurant in 1978.
So how long can Wild Acres go before this economy creates a tipping point that will be too hard to recover from? Three months, Ebnet said.
The farm already has come back from adversity after a barn burned down in 2018. Ebnet said as a business owner you have to be prepared for setbacks and be able to handle them. Now he’s finding work for his employees in additional projects and keeping a spotless farm. All those things they couldn’t get to because of the regular work.
“Because I want them to have their income still coming in,” Ebnet said. “So that they can buy their gas and spend their money locally, too.”
Ebnet recently brought in a refrigerated semitrailer because, even with a growing local market in grocery stores and with restaurants operating with takeout and delivery, he has too much supply to meet the reduced demand in this new normal. They’ll freeze the birds with hopes for increased demand as restaurants eventually reopen dining rooms as the pandemic passes and social distancing eases. Ebnet said he knows those timelines are unknown at this point.
“I sell to a lot of co-ops and meat markets in Minneapolis and their volumes have increased since restaurants have shut down, but it’s still not taking all of my birds,” Ebnet said, adding he’d much rather sell a fresh product than a frozen one, but when something like this pandemic hits, there isn’t much he can do about it.
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Ebnet said as of late March, he was down about a fifth to a quarter of sales. Last year Ebnet said he processed just under 100,000 birds and this year, depending upon how long the coronavirus pandemic lasts, he may do 75,000 or 60,000, meaning a substantial hit. “Restaurants were 95% of my business and there are some restaurants doing curbside pickup,” he said. “And I had one restaurant that was taking 20 chickens a week, and now they're doing 80.”
That restaurant, Ebnet said, started making chicken dinner three times a week but offering it in a different way and their volume increased and also helped. Ebnet said Madden’s on Gull Lake uses his product in the summer, but most of his restaurant clients are in the Twin Cities.
With grocers also stepping up and getting local poultry for their shelves, Ebnet said he’s found at least one benefit to a bad situation and has not had to lay off employees. Wild Acres employs 13 people, full and part time.
“I know a lot of small farmers that deliver into Minneapolis like me and they are in the same boat, we are all in the same boat,” he said. “A lot of them are freezing it up. Now they have to get bigger freezers and rent a refrigerated trailer like I did.”
Ebnet is willing to work with other grocers and appreciates anyone willing to help him out at this time and said his peers are in the same position trying to move their produce.
“And that's the biggest key, and by being able to do some stuff locally we're all working together,” Ebnet said.
Ebnet said he believed Gov. Tim Walz’s plan was the right one to put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 so people, who do get sick, are taken care of. At the farm. Ebnet said they are paying close attention to disinfection protocols and every person who comes to the farm and their vehicles go through a decontamination process, which they’ve been doing since the avian influenza.
“... Hopefully it's sooner than later that we can get back and open these restaurants up and get going, but it's gonna require, you know, some hardship from everybody,” he said. “Just stay home. Let this run its path. And let's get back into doing our normal activities. … And let's suffer for two weeks or four weeks, instead of suffering for three months.”
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Renee Richardson, managing editor, may be reached at 218-855-5852 or renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com. Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchBizBuzz.
