Laughable idea has made long-term, profitable sense

Twelve years ago, when someone suggested to Mendy Sellman that her family should sell the meat and poultry raised on their farm directly to customers, she laughed at the idea. Now, after years of turning the once laughable notion into a growing, successful business, the Sellman family is in the finishing stages of opening their own retail store on their farm near Galion in Crawford County.

The new store will allow the freezers that have stored meat products in the basement of their house for more than a decade to be moved to the neighboring store, giving customers a storefront where they can purchase Rus-Men Farms’ beef, pork, chicken and turkey, rather than waiting in the family’s living room for orders to be filled. That’s a welcome change for Mendy, her husband, Russ, and their three children — Emely, 21, Jesse, 17, and Elaina, 13 — who are all involved in the business.

“The goal with the store is to serve our existing customers better and help increase sales,” Mendy said. “Within five years, I see us doubling the beef and the pork.”

After 12 years of selling their meats from freezers stored in their basement, the Sellmans are in the final stages of finishing this retail store on their farm. They believe the dedicated location, called “The Farmer’s Wife,” will help increase their customer base.

The chickens and turkeys will be the hardest to expand though, because raising them is more labor-intensive, and the “dirty birds” aren’t the family’s favorite things to raise. Currently, Rus-Men Farms raises about 35 steers, 40 to 50 hogs, 750 broiler chickens and 100 turkeys annually. All the meat from the animals is sold directly from the farm.

And while customers haven’t complained about entering the Sellmans’ home to buy meat products, the family is certain they have probably lost some business because some people aren’t comfortable with the idea. Hence the plans to build a small retail store on the farm, which have been a two-year work in progress.

“I am so excited about our store. I think a storefront makes it more official,” Mendy said. “Because of the low overhead we’ve had running the business out of the house for 12 years, I think the new building is justified. I’ve already come up with a name — The Farmer’s Wife.”

Now they just need to get the building finally finished. The initial goal was to be open this past July, and now the plan is for Christmas. The trouble at the moment is all the building contractors the family has hired are local farmers, and like the Sellmans, they are in the fields harvesting, and not working on buildings.

“You’ve just got to get your running shoes on and be persistent,” Mendy said.

When they first started exploring the idea two years ago, they really didn’t know where to start. The Sellmans eventually learned they needed to work with the Environmental Protection Agency, county health department and local township to get the store built to proper specs and acquire the necessary paperwork.

They decided to pay an architect to draw up plans for the store.

“I realized I was in over my head when I talked to the county health department,” Mendy said.

The decision removed some of the stress from the project.

“Being as we’re the first people around here to do something like this, nobody had a clue how to help us,” Russ said. “If we wanted to do this a long time ago, we probably could have pulled it off, but my rule-following wife wouldn’t do it.”

She just wanted to be sure everything was compliant.

“Reputation is everything,” Mendy said. “Patience with the people in authority is key. It’s not that they don’t like us, they just don’t understand what we want do to.”

And their patience has been tested. Regulations required them to buy a $3,000, 1,000-gallon tank to store all wastewater from the store, even though all the product is frozen and nothing is prepared there. The only thing going into the tank will be soapy water, Russ said. The family can’t even dispose of it themselves. They have to contract with someone to come pump the tank and dispose of the soapy water for them.

“I don’t even care anymore. I say just do it if the plans call for it,” Mendy said. “I try to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing.”

“You’ve got to,” Russ agreed.

Commitment to their customers

Direct marketing is not for everyone, Mendy admits. It takes an outgoing personality and an abundance of creativity.

“You can’t be afraid to talk to people. I’ve dealt with a lot of people who were animal-rights people or maybe didn’t eat meat until they came out and saw what was going on and were alright with it,” she said. “And there’s all kinds of fun stuff you can do with marketing.”

Mendy designed the label used on the family’s meat products. Their pork and beef are processed by Link’s Country Meats in Crestline. The poultry is processed by Pleasant Valley Poultry in Baltic. All products sport the Ohio Proud logo.

Her personal favorite is the t-shirt design she created with “Who’s your farmer?” on the front and the family’s farm information on the back. The t-shirts have been given away to customers and have been wildly popular, while serving as billboards for Rus-Men Farms. The family also donates to benefit auctions and advertises in the “Town Money Savor,” a local paper. They tried radio once, but didn’t get any results from it. Web outlets, such as Facebook and localharvest.org, also have been helpful.

“I’ve never taken one college course in sales or marketing,” Mendy said. “You just figure it out. I’m a consumer too.”

Local consumers make up the majority of Rus-Men’s customer base. People are searching for local foods, and the Sellmans are happy to provide. All the animals they raise come from local sources, and their beef and pork are processed in the county at Link’s Country Meats in Crestline. The chicken and turkey processing, done by Pleasant Valley Poultry in Baltic, is the only thing outside the county, and that’s just because nobody in Crawford County processes poultry.

The strong demand for their meats means they are often sold out of product, but customers are understanding. For example, because they raise the chickens outside, and they won’t survive the winter, there are no birds to process from November through April.

“We’ll be totally sold out of chicken by mid-January at the latest, and by March people will be driving us crazy asking if we’ve gotten more chickens yet,” Russ said. “Our first batch of 100 to 150 chickens will be sold before it’s even half grown.”

The quality of the products, plus Mendy’s efforts to share information about different ways to prepare them, has helped gain and keep customers.

“We are educating the public about their food and how to cook things,” she said. “It’s fascinating, and I feel like it’s a complete honor to educate people about their food.”

Demand has been steady, even when the economy went south.

“When the economy fell off, we looked at each other and thought, “We’re going to be in trouble,’” Russ said. “But it hasn’t fallen off at all.”

That customer loyalty has made the Sellmans even more committed to serving their customers.

“You’ve got to show your customers as much dedication as you expect from them in return,” Mendy said. “I had a woman in Columbus offer to buy all the meat we produce, but I didn’t do it because I love my local customers too much, and I’m not going to turn my back on them.”

As long as that commitment stays strong from both sides, the family will be happy to continue producing meats for their local clientele.

“We don’t care if we ever get rich from this, we just want to take care of our family, have fun and keep it rolling,” Russ said.