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LICK CREEK, Ill. — Andrew Banks, who farms with his wife, Sarah Newman, at their 36-acre Five Hen Farm near Lick Creek, jokes that the state’s stay-at-home order and social distancing practices really haven’t changed his lifestyle.
“We already kind of lived in self isolation, and the day to day of the farm really hasn’t changed that much,” Banks said.
Banks and Newman started their farm journey with five Rhode Island Red hens and a chicken coop that was a Christmas gift in 2011 from Newman’s father. That small flock also became the namesake of their farm.
Today, they have 500 laying hens and raise about 3,500 broiler chickens, as well as turkeys, meat ducks and pastured pork.
Those products are sold at farmers markets, at a store at their farm, through their online store and through the LEAF Food Hub, an online farmers market.
Farmers markets throughout the state closed after Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order went into effect on March 21. That was the first hurdle that Banks and Newman had to navigate.
“We were very dependent on farmers markets, and the winter market we were attending canceled their last three markets of the season,” Banks said.
While sales tend to drop off during the winter months, they quickly pick up as spring approaches. The COVID-19-related closures and social distancing focus delayed a needed boost in sales.
“We were coming out of the winter a little bit low on cash, but needing to make our sales,” Banks said.
They decided to open up their on-farm store earlier, and they also saw a jump in their online sales, through their own online site, www.fivehenfarm.com, and through the LEAF Food Hub, an online farmers market that brings products from local farmers together on a single online store, where customers can make orders and then pick those orders up at various scheduled pickups in the Carbondale area.
“We have seen a pretty good response from the farm store, but we have seen about a 2,000% increase in online sales. With LEAF and our online store, it has been a tremendous response by customers for our products,” Banks said.
He said they have been encouraged by that business and expect that some of those new customers may become regular customers even after the COVID-19 event passes.
“They may not have shopped locally or much at all before all of this and now that they are, they realize the value of it, realize that they play a part in the food system and we hope to keep them as customers,” Banks said.
One lingering concern is how to move the massive supply of eggs they now have on hand. Banks and Newman supply eggs to some local restaurants, which closed due to COVID19.
“We are starting to get a little bit backed up on eggs. I feel like we will sell them, but if the shelter-in-place order stays and these restaurants don’t open back up, if that April 30 date gets moved back to May, then we will have to start deciding what to do. The meat can stay frozen, but the eggs do have a shelf life,” Banks said.
He said that is a concern that is on his mind all the time now.
“It’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it, but it’s also something my wife and I talk about almost every day, just trying to prepare ourselves and tossing ideas back and forth,” he said.
Donating the extra supplies of eggs is an option for Banks.
“It’s important that we stay viable as a business, but it’s also important that we support the community that has supported us over the last five years,” he said.
Slagel Family Farms
When it comes to the impact of restaurant closures on local meat producers, Louis John Slagel of Slagel Family Farm in rural Fairbury knows that pain. Slagel Family Farms beef, pork and poultry can be found on many well-known restaurants throughout Chicago.
With many of those restaurants closed or serving reduced menus on a curbside or takeout basis, Slagel has felt the pinch.
“We had been selling the products we raise to restaurants, so unfortunately that is not doing very well at the moment since most of the restaurants are closed,” Slagel said.
But in addition to the restaurant trade, Slagel diversified into selling product to local retail grocery stores and butcher shops, and several years ago, he purchased a butcher shop in nearby Forrest, Slagel Family Meats.
That side of the business has seen a huge jump in sales.
“The butcher shop is a lot busier the last couple of weeks and we sell to two different grocery stores and three different butcher shops and those have all been extremely busy the last few weeks, selling more retail product,” Slagel said.
Last fall, he started an online store — https://sourcetotable.com — and that has seen a big increase in traffic.
“It was fairly slow in January, but we’ve seen a big jump in business. We’ve been shipping product local, to Peoria and Chicago, but we also have been shipping to California, Nevada, New York, Michigan, through the website,” Slagel said.
He looks on those sales as a positive, despite the big hit from the lost restaurant business.
“Our total volume of sales has dropped a lot because our main customer base was restaurants, but if you want to try to find a bright side, the website is getting a lot more traffic,” he said.
Not all of the restaurant business has disappeared. Slagel said some of his restaurant customers were able to transition quickly to a curbside and takeout format.
Smaller restaurants that tend to be more casual and which always offer takeout menus also have continued to keep up their orders.
Slagel’s family, his parents, brothers, sisters and sister-in-law, all work on the farm and in the butcher shop on different tasks. The farm produces beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, duck, rabbit, turkey and eggs.
One old custom that Slagel is seeing make a comeback is the practice of buying halves and quarters of beef and halves of pork to fill freezers.
“People are suddenly interested in buying quarters and halves of beef. It used to be a lot more popular 10, 20 years ago, and then as families got smaller, I feel like it became harder and harder to sell halves and quarters. We’ve had quite a few orders for quarters and halves of beef and halves of pork,” Slagel said.
He’s also seen a surge in new customers.
“We’ve have definitely had more people who maybe aren’t our average customer base reaching out to us because of supply issues,” he said.
Like Banks, one of the long-range gains that Slagel sees is the new customers now becoming regular customers.
“Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I think we might come out of this even stronger because people are going to want to make sure they are food secure and that they know where their food is coming from,” Slagel said.