When is it great to have 48 pounds of something delivered to your front door (other than when it’s your kid getting dropped off by the school bus)? When Philly CowShare is delivering ⅛ of a locally-raised, grass-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free cow whose tender cuts have been frozen, individually-sealed and vacuumed-packed. To your front door.
Jessica Moore, founder and CEO of Philly CowShare was kind enough to give Dish the skinny about her business and the goodness behind sharin’ a cow.
PA Eats: When was the idea for Philly CowShare born?
Jessica Moore: I had been doing something like it informally within my own community since 2005. In 2009 I was in a demanding corporate job and took a leave of absence to find out how to run a business. I wanted to have a job I felt more passionately about. I knew I had passion for good food, community and I believe that good things happen when you sit down at a table together and eat. I just wasn’t sure how to incorporate it all.
How did you, personally, become invested in this project?
My son was born in 2004 at which point I became more and more interested in finding out where our own meat was coming from. Starting a family seemed like a natural point to evaluate our systems of life. I got things with the business started part-time, coupled with the full-time job of being mom to a newborn baby. I found my entrepreneurial adventures really satisfying. I had another baby in March 2010 and started marketing Philly CowShare really hard the following October. The company officially took off in 2011.
Starting something like this seems, to an outsider, like it would be incredibly complicated. How long did it take to get all the parts (like farmers, packaging, delivery, etc.) moving together?
I kind of got things going in reverse. I marketed the business, and then went back and did all of the “building.” It really helped to have an understanding our two customer bases—consumers that buy beef, and farmers from whom we buy our cattle. We started with one cow and eight customers. Things are getting more fluid, but there are still changes to deal with. What ends up becoming a culture and the character of a business is how you deal with that fluidity of change. Situations come up every day. We try to treat situations and customers and people with respect.
Do your farmers find Philly CowShare, or does Philly CowShare find the farmers?
This goes both ways. In the beginning, because we were new, we were seeking people out, but some people know us now! We have a rigorous certification process that farms must go through before we’ll use them. One of our farm managers makes sure that the farmers and farms adhere to all of our protocols.
Why do I, as a working mom, want to take part in Philly CowShare?
There are a couple of reasons. The first is that you know exactly what it is that you are getting. When your share shows up at your house, you’ll know exactly where it came from and how it was raised. Second, you’ll have a freezer stocked full of things you need all the time! With frozen meats in the house already, you’ll have a little less to buy at the grocery store. Also, from a culinary perspective, it’s an experience to have all of the yields of an animal and figure out what to do with it all.
Other perks include having control over how fast you go through all the meat you receive. In my own family, we use 1/4 cow per year in our family that includes four children. On top of all of this, I think the meat tastes good, my money is staying local and it’s environmentally conscientious.
Philly CowShare can help consumers get back to their “roots” while taking on all of the hard work!
What is the most gratifying thing about providing this service to the Philadelphia region?
For me, when I look at the business and all of the effort that goes into it, it’s amazing to think about where it came from. We have moved a significant amount of meat from local farms to people who want to buy it. We have built that highway and have used that highway. I can point to 8–12 farms with people’s names on them and say, “That’s where that share of meat came from.”
When a newbie seeks information from you or signs on for a share, what generally surprises them the most?
New clients envision their ⅛ share, which is 48 lbs. of beef, arriving in a tractor trailer. It comes in two boxes. People’s perception of that 48 lbs. is way off, because they’re just used to buying a couple of pounds here and there!
There is a Philly CowShare plan just right for YOU! Whether you want to get friends in on a split or go it alone, check out all of the options on their website. Have you used Philly CowShare, or do you think you might? Let us know in the comments below!
This article is sponsored by Kitchen Table Consultants.
