Winter Planning

As I look back on more than a year of writings, my unconscious trend is to begin with weather. It is a defining feature of our lives, both conscious and unconscious. For a business owner for whom daily tasks and annual income depend on the weather, this feature is particularly conscious. Yet, the epitome of small talk is “to talk about the weather.” I’ve always sort of imagined that the phrase of “small talk” is the banter of folks as they gathered, and up until one or two generations ago, most folks were either farmers or related to farmers. And farmers talk about the weather.

This week felt like a yo-yo. We started the week with below zero nights, then had a high of 35, and on Friday morning the thermometer in some places read as low as -22 F. The wind makes a huge difference on these cold days, and thankfully on the coldest nights the wind has been gentle and kind.

Another feature of January is inventory planning and inventory learning. You probably have noticed that more and more items have gotten low, then gone out of stock and then disappeared from the website. I like to remove any items that are out of stock so as not to clutter the customer experience. At the same time, every time an item goes out of stock I do some calculations: when will we get more in, did we sell more than we anticipated, how much of the rest of the animal do we have?

My challenge is that our production schedule is an annual planning quandary: how much can we produce vs how much can we sell vs how much can we store? Then we set the plan in motion and in most cases there’s not much we can do at our size to adjust and change course. When my guess from 12 months ago misses the mark the best I can do is take good notes and keep planning.

I’m proud to say that we do have a great selection of winter cuts like Whole Chickens, Beef Sirloin Tip Roast or a Pork Boston Butt Roast. You can even try them all in the Winter Roasting Box.