Cathy LeValley’s farm business tracked her own personal growth – from healthy eating, to wanting to know how food is produced, to growing it herself, to growing it for her community.
Along the way she and her husband, James, started a half-acre backyard farm that was shut down by neighbors, reinvented the business as an indoor microgreens operation, and finally bought a 7 acre hobby farm to give them the potential to increase their production as their markets grow.
Last year they launched Farm Kitchen Foods, a deli-style prepared food line providing a healthy alternative to traditional grocery store take home food to support active and healthy lifestyles. Their “Good Carb” snacks are:
° Paleo & KETO Diet Friendly
° Vegetarian & Vegan conscious
° Gluten-free – no refined sugar
Cathy is a great example of how you can use a backyard farm to launch a value-added business the SPIN-Farming way, inexpensively,low-risk, customer-driven. She’s going far beyond microgreens. Almost any food can be made into snack form. All it takes are high quality ingredients and commercial prep space. Here’s a sample of what she’s cooked up: Buffalo Bacon Cheddar Dip, Brownie Batter Dip, Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip, Cowboy Caviar, and Riced Cauliflower. Best of all, she’s doing it in a food desert, selling fresh healthy food in a place that has not had it in a while. Food choices there are changing along with the perception the community has of itself.
Want to join the community that’s helping to build up local food businesses from the ground up? Meet more members like Cathy who are doing just that by purchasing our learning programs on turning small plots into cash. If you’re not ready to go all-in just yet, get a taste of what starting a backyard-scale farming business is like from our members with a month-to-month membership here.
