Angela and Josiah Meck have always wanted a place to sell their pasture-raised meats to the public. But finding a partner to scale up their direct-to-consumer meat business has been hard.

So, they came up with their own solution: opening a grocery store. The couple will soon cut the red ribbon on The Farm Store in downtown Pottsville, Pa., a project that was proposed less than a year ago but has moved at breakneck speed to reality.

They plan on selling meats from their Honey Brook Farm, as well as products from 40 other nearby farms and businesses, something Angela admits was a tough sell. “But we've told them the idea, and by far, people have said, ‘That's a really great idea,’" she says.

Unexpected break

The couple bought their farm in 2019 from Angela’s grandfather. It’s been in her family since 1913 when her great-great-grandfather started it. Up until 1961, it was a dairy farm that bottled its own milk, but as the family transitioned off the farm, it was leased to a neighboring producer.

The first year, the couple continued leasing out the land, “but we knew we needed to do something with it to make it economical,” Angela explains.

They didn’t have the capital to buy equipment to get a crop operation going. So, they bought seven steers with the thought of selling meat to people they knew. Then, COVID-19 hit.

“We had a lot of demand,” Angela says. “Everyone wanted them, and we ended up selling more cattle than what we had, and that’s where it all started.”

Raising animals wasn’t the first choice for Josiah, who worked on dairy and beef farms from age 13. He received an ag systems management degree from Penn State.

"It was a learning curve,” he says. “I honestly wanted nothing to do with livestock. But I real quickly realized, as a first-generation farmer, I wasn't going to make any money growing crops.”

The beef was a hit, but customers wanted more. They soon added pigs, chickens and turkeys to the mix. They pasture-raise 700 chickens, 60 turkeys, 100 hogs and 50 beef cattle a year.

“It’s hard to keep track of it all,” Josiah says with a laugh.

The meats are marketed direct to consumers, including whole birds and chicken parts; wholes, halves, quarters and cuts of beef and pork; and whole turkeys sold frozen, or raised and slaughtered for Thanksgiving week. Animals are slaughtered at a nearby USDA-certified facility.

Need to grow

As demand has grown, the couple have worked to increase sales.

A few years ago, they opened a modest on-farm store with a few coolers and freezers where customers can buy products a few days a week. But Josiah says they wanted a place to wholesale their meats. Nearby Pottsville, the largest city in the county, seemed the most logical place to find a partner to sell their products, but they couldn’t find a grocery store willing to partner with them.

“And the only way to combat this is to open our own place,” he says.

Working with the city of Pottsville, the couple found a former bank building with two parking lots as the place to open their grocery store. “It was still very much a bank when we got it,” Josiah says.

The couple say they have partnered with 40 farms, bakeries and other vendors to sell their products. It’s a simple concept, Angela says: The farm buys products from the vendors and will then resell them in the store.

The city provided some financial support, but the couple still had to take out bank loans and funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to get the idea off the ground.

They won’t be running the store day to day. They have hired a manager who is in the process of hiring employees. “This is an easy way to market our product six days a week without having to be there,” Josiah says.

The market will be open year-round, six days a week.

"The reality is a lot of our products will be available year-round," Angela says. “Meat and dairy and bread will be, but produce will be limited in winter with the exception of apples and root vegetables. And we also have a number of producers with high tunnels.”

Big break

Their grocery store concept has gotten a lot of support from the community.

They recently won a $100,000 prize from the Ignite Schuylkill business competition. Twelve business concepts competed for the prize this year. As part of the competition, the couple also attended once-a-week business classes.

In June, a panel of seven judges cut the number of business concepts to seven. The remaining competitors, including Angela and Josiah, wrote revised business plans describing startup costs and other details.

By late summer, four businesses remained in the competition. Angela and Josiah were up against a proposed hotel, a proposed restaurant concept, and a business owner who planned on converting old shipping containers into affordable housing units.

Judges evaluated the projects based on countywide impact, the number of local people it could employ, whether it could open in a year and other factors. “Our whole project really hit hard on all those criteria," Josiah says. “Pottsville is a food desert, so that helps a huge part of the community.”

The couple presented their final plans to 200 people. In the end, they were declared the winners.

“It was a relief. We felt great, and we were really excited. Getting $100,000 for starting up a business is a huge help,” Josiah says, adding that the money will be used to buy startup inventory.

Gearing up for opening

Opening day is right around the corner, and the couple is still renovating the old bank building.

Teller counters have been demolished, a conference room converted into a commercial kitchen, and the space made wide open for shelving and refrigeration. The couple hopes to open the store the second week of October.

Angela admits that opening the store will put additional stress on the farm as she anticipates meat sales will double, which will force the farm to increase production to keep up.

"It will be challenging for sure, but it's exciting," she says.

Along with handling the farm’s marketing and social media, she has a part-time job working for a local mining company. Angela has a degree in mining and civil engineering from Penn State, and the couple lived in New Mexico and Arizona for several years so she could pursue her career.

Coming home to the farm, she says, has provided needed stability for their four children: a daughter, 9; and three boys ages 7, 3 and 1 month old.

“We weren't set on coming home and coming back to the farm, but it has worked out. I can’t imagine being anywhere with all the things that have happened over the years," she says. "We've had our family back here. They all kind of live nearby, and just seeing them here and seeing my grandfather's generation … say how happy they are that we have it … that's really reassuring.”

And while raising animals wasn’t in the cards originally, Josiah says he’s just happy to be doing what he loves. His advice to other farmers interested in doing the same thing: "Don't think about it; just do it. We have grown on the request of our customers, not based on what we see our future being. It's not steered us wrong yet.”