It’s not uncommon for Bart Beattie to get requests from neighbors and friends who want to buy half or whole hogs, but he is a busy man running the family’s diversified operation of corn, soybeans and alfalfa, as well as a wean-to-finish swine operation. The family also partners in a 10,000-head sow farm, as well as a commercial cow-calf operation.

Although he doesn’t run the operation by himself, his daughters could see that selling individual hogs would be just one more thing on their father’s plate. That is when Mekenzie, the oldest of four children in the Sumner, Neb., family, got the idea that she and her sister, Mattison, should start a business selling pork.

“She [Mekenzie] went on an entrepreneurship retreat, and she came home wanting to start a business really bad,” Mattison says. “She came home and said, ‘Mattie, I have a brilliant idea. Let’s start selling pork direct to the consumer, and I have a perfect name for it: Sassy Sisters Swine.’”

That was two years ago that the idea was born, and the sisters continued to mull it over. Then when COVID-19 hit last spring, they figured there was no better time to dive in headfirst. “It’s probably going to be a rough start, and we don’t really know what to do for sure yet, but we’re just going to have to start at some point and just learn as we go,” Mattison recalls thinking at the time.

Mattison and Mekenzie, along with younger brothers Bart Jr. and Preston, represent the sixth generation of Beattie Family Farms, and they are doing their part to ensure there will be more generations to come.

Both girls grew up showing cattle, and Mattison still does, but biosecurity concerns prevented the sisters from bringing show pigs onto the family’s farm.

Commercial hogs raised by Beattie Family Farms aren’t exactly what judges look for in a show hog, “but we still wanted a way to be involved with the swine industry because of our operation, so I think starting this business is a way for us to still be involved,” Mattison says.

Filling a need

Starting a business during a pandemic may not seem like the best idea, but starting one that supplies pork to a wanting public seemed ingenious as COVID-19 was forcing the shutdown or slowdown of meat processors. The Sassy Sisters could provide a product that was harder to find because of kinks in the traditional supply chain.

Of course, as the large meat processing plants were slowing production, producers were turning to their local lockers and other small meat processors. The Beattie sisters were in the same boat, looking for a reliable, steady processor that could take the hogs to feed their supply chain.

“Definitely the biggest challenge is just finding spots, as well as finding a processor that is USDA-certified,” Mattison says. They currently are working with Diller Locker Co. in Diller, Neb.

Mekenzie says that finding a processor will continue to be a big challenge “because there’s still quite a demand for local pork and local processing. … We decided to go with Diller even though they are a long ways [from Sumner]. They do a really good job of packaging, and they’re also really convenient to get into because they can process like 100 hogs a week.”

FULL CIRCLE PRODUCTION: Mekenzie Beattie (pictured) and her sister, Mattison, bring pork full circle from working in the family farm’s barn to selling and delivering pork products to the consumer.

Mekenzie’s entrepreneurial idea was born out of her involvement in the Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a program that she has been in since she was a freshman. She will graduate in May with a major in agribusiness and minors in agronomy and entrepreneurship. Mattison is a senior at Sumner-Eddyville-Miller High School, and is leaning toward following her sister to Lincoln to major in animal science or agribusiness.

Bart and Shana Beattie have instilled in their daughters the importance of “getting a slice of the real world” by working in the agricultural field after college, but the girls see a possible return to the farm.

For now, the Beattie sisters will carry on their pork business, using their individual talents that meld into a cohesive team. Mattison admits, and Mekenzie agrees, “We fight, we do have our moments, but we have always worked well together.”

Mekenzie brings the business mind, communications and contact with customers to the mix, while Mattison works on the creative side such as logo design, marketing and webpage design. Mattison also creates the promotions for Facebook and Instagram before bouncing those off her older sister for approval before posting.

Word of mouth and the two social media platforms currently are the only marketing and advertising the Sassy Sisters employ. They are hoping a website will become an effective and efficient tool for consumers to order product and for the sisters to manage inventory.

Giving consumers what they want

In their short time as purveyors of pork, the sisters have learned that certain cuts of pork are seasonal, while bacon and sausage are popular year-round. They have also learned that sales bring in customers. “We try to do sales for holidays,” Mattison says. “We had an Easter sale, Thanksgiving sale, we even had a sale for the Fourth of July.”

Mekenzie acknowledges that hams are big sellers for Easter and Christmas, and summers bring a demand for pork chops, shoulder roasts and ground pork. Customers can also pre-order half or whole hogs.

The sisters are a full-service direct marketing company as they work in the barns, make the sales and then deliver the product to the customer’s door.

“One of the pillars of the Engler program is partnership, and that is the pillar that we most identify with in our business. We are a partnership company, we are a sister business, but we believe that partnership goes way more than just us two,” Mekenzie says. “It’s our family and our community and everyone who is backing us up and is the backbone of our business. Having those relationships and fostering them is really rewarding to us.”

Developing and solidifying that customer relationship is important to the Beattie sisters, and they feel it goes beyond merely selling pork, but also selling the agricultural story. They see it as their way of carrying on the Beattie Family Farms’ legacy.

“Just sharing our story and just being honest with customers about where their food is coming from and how we’re dedicated to bring them high-quality pork from a local processor,” Mekenzie says. “We can have that trusting relationship with them and just sharing every day why we do what we do is probably one of the biggest goals and the biggest things we want to get out of this business and a really good reason of why we started it.”

You can find Sassy Sisters Swine on Facebook or Instagram.