Jumping forward after working several years at a USDA slaughter facility in Vermont, Jordan was able to learn a lot of skills and got very interest- ed in the USDA and how they operated. Jordan goes on to say, “While working there, I went to the farms and harvested animals and would end up processing them in my dad’s garage. Rachel and I had been doing that for a long time, so we decided to set up little shop there. We really loved what we did, cutting meat was a passion of ours, we spent a lot of late nights and weekends working in there. While working at the plant, I thought to myself, if I can cut this much meat for someone else, why not do it for myself and my family. I could see some numbers and dollar signs and we decided to pursue starting our own family business.
“While working at the plant, I thought to myself, if I can cut this much meat for someone else, why not do it for myself and my family.”
Business was growing, and neither Jordan nor Rachel had time for anything other than work, so they ventured out into the world of employees to keep up with the demand for their services. Moving ahead, quite a few more steps they outgrew their building and in 2012 the Brandt’s transitioned the facility to where it is now located in Croghan. Jordan says, “We were shocked at how much more room we had to work, we could now slaughter inside out of the elements. There was room to hang animals in a cooler.” Now they had a great facility that allowed them to offer additional services and process more product, but they also had a major problem, that being that they didn’t have that much work. Jordan explains, “When we transitioned from Carthage to Croghan, we ended up losing a lot of our up north customers, just because we weren’t going to the farm slaughtering them anymore.” Moving ahead again with the Brandt’s journey, they decided to go USDA certified which opened up another door for more work and it did come but slowly. Jordan says, “Nobody knew who we were really at that time and nor did they know our work. Plus, USDA clients are very particular with how they want things done. So not knowing who we were it took a little time getting custom-
ers, but we were able to get our name out in the industry and business started to pick up.” With growing demand for their services, the Brandts were able to go from three casual employees up to eight full time employees and quickly up to 20 full time staff. As any entrepre - neur knows with business growth comes a little pain and that pain for the Brandts was in opera- tion management. As Jordan says, “I wanted to be a meat cutter and not a manager, and business declined a little as I struggled to find my new position.” Changes were made and business started moving ahead again and they continue to grow to the point that they are looking to expand their workforce and their facility. When we asked if that meant another move for the business Jordan responded, “We are going to stay where we are now, thankfully as part of the growth plan we ended up purchasing a piece of property right next to our current shop and that should give us enough room to do what we want to do now and the ability to scale as large as we want to go after this.” Red Barn Meats currently has twenty-one full time employees and seven part time employees.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE Speaking of friends and family, that is the culture that Jordan and Rachel want for the business. It started as a family business and they strive to keep it that way. Jordan and Rachel add, “Our employees are an extension of our family, and we truly care about each person. Are we going to have disagreements? Well of course, but that it going to happen, we have six children, we know very well about disagreements, and we know how to work through them with understanding. We also understand that that our team has families of their own, they have kids, they have sports, and they want to do stuff outside of work and we encourage that also. So, we try to keep that all in mind as we continue to grow the business, for sure.” Working for Red Barn Meats or any other meat processing plant can have its ups and downs and the day-to-day operations can be mundane or monotonous. In saying that it can also be very rewarding, and their employees take pride in the fact that their products are in stores and restau- rants and that they can tell their friends and families that their meat is from Red Barn Meats, and that they helped in the process of getting that meat to the table to feed their friends and family.
So, moving ahead a few years the Brandts ended up in Carthage, New York, set up a small shop with Rachel doing most of the work while looking after their oldest son, who was two at that time plus the couple had another child on the way. As Jordan says, “Rachel and I worked as a team. I still did all the on-farm slaughtering and brought the animals back to the shop to process. Rachel did all the meat wrapping, the scheduling, billing, order taking and all the phone calls, plus took care of the house and the kids. We usually started around 4am in the morning and would work until close to midnight everyday.”
“Rachel and I worked as a team.”
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
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