by A bountiful harvest depends on careful preparation.
Before reaping the rewards of your labor, you must first invest time and energy into keeping your soil fertile, finding the right seeds, and pinpointing the perfect time to plant them.
If you specialize in meat rather than produce, your success depends on selecting the right breeds, providing adequate nutrition, and protecting your livestock from dangers like predators and disease.
But what happens after all this preparation?
Whether you’ve harvested corn, collected eggs, or butchered beef, you’re left with farm inventory — which must be stored properly, marketed, and converted into profit.
In this blog, we’ll explore what farm inventory is and share our top six tips for making the most of your farm inventory.
What Is Farm Inventory?
Farm inventory encompasses all the products your farm produces that can be sold to the public, including produce, meat, dairy, and eggs.
If you’re hoping to turn these farm to fork foods into profit, you need a plan to manage your farm inventory. Let’s look at some of the key strategies that can help you track your stock, market your farm’s goods, and boost your profits.
1. Monitor Farm Inventory Levels
One of the most important things to know about your farm inventory is how much of each product you have.
How many dozens of eggs do you have in your farm’s refrigerator? How many pounds of ground beef do you have on hand? How many gallons of milk are available for sale in your farm store?
If you can’t answer these questions with certainty, then you need the help of inventory management software. This tool makes tracking your stock levels effortless and automatically adjusts your records to account for sales and new inventory.
2. Store Your Farm Inventory Properly
After a plentiful harvest, the last thing you want is for your produce to wither or for your meat to spoil before you can send it home with a customer.
That’s why proper storage and handling techniques are a crucial aspect of your farm inventory management plan. Let’s look at a few tips to keep in mind when storing and packaging your farm’s goods:
- Invest in reliable refrigeration and freezer systems to store your meat and produce in a temperature-controlled environment.
- Use a scale with a printer to clearly label packaged meats with their exact weight and expiration dates.
- If you deliver or ship your farm’s products, follow best packaging practices to ensure they stay fresh in transit to your customer.
Utilizing these tips will protect your farm inventory from costly spoilage issues and allow you to provide the freshest farm to fork products to your customers.
3. Sell Your Farm Inventory by Weight
Now that we’ve covered best practices for tracking and storing your farm inventory, let’s talk about how to sell it.
Gone are the days of selling a half or quarter of beef. Instead, today’s customers want to buy farm fresh goods by the pound, allowing them to purchase only what they need.
Beyond helping you appeal to a wider range of customers, selling by weight makes it easier to manage your farm inventory and reduces waste by letting you track and sell your products down to the last ounce.
Related Read: Selling by Weight: The What, Why, and How
4. Increase Farm Inventory Turnover With Subscriptions
Another aspect of an effective farm inventory strategy is adequate inventory turnover, a measure of how quickly customers purchase your farm’s products.
Since you primarily sell perishable products, efficient inventory turnover is critical in your farm store.
One of the best ways to increase your inventory turnover is to offer subscription services. Subscriptions keep your farm’s inventory moving, supply steady sales, and keep your customers happy by restocking their refrigerators and freezers at exactly the right times.
5. Make Data-Driven Predictions To Optimize Farm Inventory
A smart farm inventory management strategy doesn’t just lead to higher profits and less waste; you also learn more about your customers and can adjust your farm’s operations to meet their wants and needs.
After a successful season, you can review your farm store’s inventory and sales records and glean key insights about your sales trends and customers’ purchasing patterns. For example, you might find that your ground beef sold out quickly, but your customers didn’t gravitate toward your selection of ribeyes and t-bones.
Equipped with this information, you can focus on producing more ground beef to meet customer demand and deprioritize your premium steak products.
To easily collect and leverage your farm’s inventory data, look for a farm store point of sale (POS) solution with robust reporting and analytics features.
6. Invest in a Farm Inventory Software Solution
Managing farm inventory by hand is time-consuming and can lead to costly errors — which is why your best bet is to invest in farm inventory software.
A farm inventory and POS software solution makes it easy to keep an eye on your stock levels, make sales, and even promote your farm’s goods online. Here are some essential features to look for in a farm software solution:
- Real-time inventory monitoring that allows you to see your stock levels at any time, from anywhere
- Tools for selling your products by weight
- Subscription and promotion options to boost your sales and increase customer retention
- The option to sell your farm’s goods online through local pickup, delivery, or nationwide shipping
With the help of the right farm software, you can attract new customers to your farm store, make more sales, and manage your inventory more effectively and efficiently.
Take Control of Your Farm Inventory With GrazeCart
So, what is farm inventory?
The answer is that it’s your farm’s most valuable resource — but only if you manage it properly with the help of a farm inventory management system like GrazeCart.
GrazeCart is a powerful farm software tool that allows you to monitor your inventory levels, sell your goods, expand your customer base, and take your family farm to new heights.
Experience GrazeCart for yourself by starting your free trial today.