Simple Roots Maui is dedicated to providing their community with the highest quality pasture-raised chickens. Over the years, they've rapidly grown their business while maintaining their commitment to regenerative farming practices.
As their business grew, Simple Roots Maui was looking for a solution to their overflowing spreadsheets and complex order and payment process. After trialling different e-commerce solutions that didn’t fully meet their needs, Alissa stumbled across Local Line, a farm-focused e-commerce platform.
“Our mission is to have a lasting impact on the health and well-being of our children, our community and our children’s children. That they might know simpler times, connection with their food and a wholesome way of life where true joy and health may ultimately be found.” - Korey, Simple Roots Maui
Alissa and Korey, along with their business partner Erin, run Simple Roots Maui. Korey and Erin focus on farm operations, while Alissa focuses on sales and marketing.
“Prior to farming, I was working as a police officer and wanted to find my exit. We started getting into backyard gardening and had a small flock of laying hens, which quickly snowballed. Then we connected with our now business partner, Erin, and she jumped on board, and we decided that we were going to start raising pasture-raised chicken,” tells Korey.
Simple Roots Maui is the only pasture-raised chicken farm on Maui, operating since May 2022. Today, they’ve scaled to 1,200-1,400 birds also own a small dairy herd of cattle and sheep. The bulk of their sales are direct-to-customer with a monthly pick up, but they also sell whole birds to a handful of local restaurants.
Alissa and Korey have made a point to integrate all aspects of their farm into their local community. "The majority of our 12 person butchering team are either friends, customers, or volunteers. They come help, learn how to process chickens, and then they get to leave with a fresh chicken!" shares Korey.
Before Local Line, Simple Roots Maui explored several generic e-commerce platforms, which ultimately all fell short of their needs. They most recently were using Squarespace, which was missing some crucial features including the ability to sell by weight and set up highly specific subscriptions workflows. Ultimately, they decided to abandon Squarespace, Google Forms, and Spreadsheets and migrate to Local Line.
“We used another e-commerce site that didn’t work out for us. We realized we really needed subscriptions and price by weight, and those two weren’t available for us,” explains Alissa. With their rapid growth from the beginning, it was clear that their existing system was unsustainable for the long term.
It wasn’t until Alissa discovered Local Line—the all-in-one farm e-commerce platform tailored to farms, food hubs, and ranchers selling direct-to-consumer that they found a platform that fit all of their needs.
“At the time, I know you guys were working on adding subscriptions. Since we knew it was coming, we were willing to give it a go because of the price by weight already available, and that was huge for us.” - Alissa, Simple Roots Maui
Exporting pick and pack lists right from the orders table and the ability to sell by weight have been game-changing for Simple Roots Maui. Both features help streamline their workflow and ensure accurate pricing and fulfillment for their customers–increasing their bottom line. This is especially helpful as Simple Roots adopted a unique business model, which gives customers the ability to customize their orders on the spot. Customers can decide the size of the whole chicken they want; then, the team will adjust the price and finalize payment as needed.
By offering farm subscriptions for their chickens, they’ve seen tremendous growth and success. Their customers appreciate the convenience of scheduled orders, with many opting to customize their deliveries or skip as needed. The majority of their orders come through subscriptions or pre-orders, but they also send automated price list emails to customers to notify them when orders are open, and these usually sell out within two days!
In addition to leveraging Local Line’s variable-weight pricing and subscription features, they’ve optimized their inventory management and now manage their products in one place. Simple Roots Maui also uses Local Line’s robust reporting and analytics tools to track order lists, payments (i.e., cash, credit card), sales, and cash flow. This reporting feature simplifies their bookkeeping, ensuring accuracy and efficiency in their sales and payment processes.
When it comes to finding the right farm software tool, embrace change for the better. Though daunting, Simple Roots Maui stepped away from their former and frankly time-consuming process (order forms and spreadsheets) and adopted Local Line’s farm sales software (e-commerce with pick and pack list exports) to streamline their business.
Local Line provides the essential tools to run a successful farm and it can be tailored to fit your business needs. For example, Simple Roots Maui easily adjusted their subscription payments to cash to account for varying product weights on final pick up orders. Unlike other e-commerce platforms, Local Line works for you and not the other way around.
Another piece of advice is not to let a lack of experience hold you back. Even though Alissa and Korey had no prior experience in running a poultry farm, their passion for their business drove them to learn and grow. They educated themselves by reading books, watching videos, and learning from their community, which helped them succeed.
“Just start where you are. Find somebody who you know is willing to trade for the goods you can offer, and grow with you.” - Alissa, Simple Roots Maui
Simple Roots Maui showcases the power of community, perseverance, and the willingness to learn and grow. Their success story inspires anyone embarking on their farming journey and those seeking to scale their farm revenue with farm software solutions.
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