How can Half A Cow Help Your Farm?

Half  A Cow is both an online marketplace, and a fully featured ecommerce solution for your farm. If you’re ready to sell direct to the public, then we can help drive sales, get your products online, and handle payments, cut sheets and more.

Ultimately this will be a business decision for your farm, this is a bit more work than just having the stock agent come with a truck and write you a cheque!

However, by selling directly to the public, and owning more of the “value adding” process, you’re able to earn more for your meat!

Cattle and Sheep prices are historically high at the moment, and we respect that in this environment it may not be “worth it” for some farmers at the moment. However, prices will inevitably fall at the sale yards, while supermarket prices remain strong.

By selling direct your farm is buffered from these weekly local and global shifts in demand. Half A Cow also enables your farm to build a loyal customer base, who buy into the value proposition of your farm. Typically these customers are less price sensitive and are keen to support local businesses beyond a $/kg price.

Our mission is to build an Australia Wide marketplace of hungry consumers, educated on the benefits and process of buying meat direct from the farmer. 

What does the platform do?

What we do

You bring the cows (or sheep, pigs, goats, etc) and we bring the customers!

Half A Cow Online will

  • Provide you with a free online store for your farm
  • Help setup your products
  • Help setup your farm
  • Match our cut sheet system to your local butcher
  • Assist with pre purchase questions via our live chat for customers
  • Provide you with an online marketplace to help sell your products!
  • Mass market our platform and possibly your farm specifically to drive sales, customers and raise the profile of Australian farming

What we don't do

At this stage, Half A Cow is primarily a sales and marketing platform.

  • We don’t buy your cows/sheep etc
  • We aren’t a freight, shipping or transport company
  • We don’t butcher or process your livestock

What are the farmer benefits?

half a cow logo

Your Own Online Store

Half A Cow Online gives each farmer their own online store, so they can sell their own products to their own clients.

Your customers can browse products, purchase, follow your store and more!

Simple Order Management

Our site is custom built to help farmers easily sell an entire cow, whether you want to sell 1/8th, 1/4, 1/2 or even a whole cow us up to you.

Our platform co-ordinates all the parties so you don't have to worry!

No Chasing Payments

There's nothing more frustrating than chasing people to pay. With Half A Cow Online your customers pay upfront before an order is placed.

No more cold feet at the last moment. Once the order is in, you're good to go!

Your Livestock

Whether you sell cows, sheep, pigs, deer... or almost any other animal. Half A Cow is your online Farmer to Consumer marketplace.

Every farmer has a different story  to tell, and a different approach to their farm. Now's your chance to connect with local customers who value your unique approach. 

Set Your Own Prices

Set your own prices for your own meat! Break free of the sale yard system.

With Half A Cow, your customers pay the price you want! You can also offer payment plans and deposit options through our platform.

Your Customers

Set your own prices for your own meat! Use our free online tools to help price your products and keep more money in your pocket.

Local and Natinal Marketing

We’re working hard to become a household name for connecting farmers to customers. We run local radio, facebook and other marketing campaigns to grow our platform and drive sales. 

We’ve had over 21,000 hits to our page in Jan 2023!

Digital Cut Sheets

You won’t be stuck on the phone talking to clients. Our easy to use online system deals with payments, online cut sheets (with pictures) and pickup/delivery options.

These can be customized to your existing butcher.

Farmer Support and Resources

From a private online processor directory, to Australian based website support. We’re here to support farmers for the long term.

We help farmers build their supply chains so they can provide top quality products direct to clients near and far.

What are the farmer costs and risks?

This method of selling direct won’t work for every farm. We’re very open and transparent about that. 

We will strive to work with any farm of any size, but we’d like everybody to go into this knowning all the facts.

General disclaimer, please do not consider this financial advice and always seek your own advice specific to your situation before making any decisions.

Costs

The direct cost to the the platform is currently 3.5% of sales, plus a 2% credit card/payment gateway fee.

There are other indirect costs which you should consider. These may or may not apply to your farm. 

  • Extra transportation costs
  • Potential insurance costs
  • Time cost when dealing with customers
  • Cost of processing and butchering (offset by the price you charge the customer)
  • Marketing (if you wish to promote your farm website yourself

Risks

While there is always risk in conducting a business, there may be specific risks associated with selling online, and direct to the public

  • Customers compaining / not understanding what they are buying. *We do a LOT to help counter this risk!
  • Potentially not selling an entire cow (e.g. if 3/4 is sold)
  • General business risk

What price do I sell at?

General disclaimer, please do not consider this financial advice and always seek your own advice specific to your situation before making any decisions.

In a sense, this is up to you, via our platform, most farmers sell by “dressed weight” at a flat $/kg price. Other farms have put together “product boxes” and have come up with their own pricing around them.

Your price should cover all your direct costs including processing, butchering and transport to the abattoir and butcher. 

Typically, as of 17/9/2022 beef is selling to the customer at $15/kg for “grass fed” beef, however this depends a lot on the farm and their location.

You can see all the prices on our shop page www.halfacow.farm/store

Why partner with Half A Cow?

We’ve build Half A Cow from the ground up to help  farmers build their online brands. In our short history we’ve already helped farms in SA, NSW and Victoria sell thousands of dollars worth of meat.

We’re currently building our second version of the Half A Cow  platform, due for completion mid 2023 which will expand the free tools and functionality given to farmers so it will be easier than ever to launch your farm online and start getting sales.

This platform will represent thousands of hours of testing, customer feedback and farmer feedback, as well as a significant investment of over $100,000!

We want our marketplace to be the #1 destination in Australia and beyond, for customers everywhere to buy local meat from their local farmer!

Join the Half A Cow Marketplace!

Tell us about you

So we can email you
So we can ring you throughout the setup process.

Tell us about your farm

This is what we'll call your farm on www.halfacow.farm
Why should people buy from your farm? What makes you great? Why are your cows, the best cows?
We'll verify this against the national database. We don't need it right away, but we will before you can sell through Half A Cow

What services do you offer?

Too busy to register right now?

Fill out this quick form and we’ll email you a link to remind you to register later.

Speak to an Australian Human

Call James, the founder/director on 0458 343 379 

9:00am – 9:00pm for any farmer or setup related questions.