Coronavirus: More buying meat from local farmers during meat shortage

KETTLERSVILLE — Many grocery stores are dealing with empty shelves with the shortage of meat. Some farmers are having trouble meeting demand to get their meat processed. That’s led to some people turning more and more to local farmers.

Matt Buehler says his family’s farm in Kettlersville has seen a significant increase in sales since the pandemic began.

"We're definitely selling it faster than we're getting it in,” Buehler said. “But that's because we had the inventory two months ago before this all started"

The farm sells beef, pork, chicken, and eggs. Matt says they’ve not only been selling more to their regular people and stores but they’ve seen a large influx of brand new customers too.

"We’ve heard quite a few times when they buy meat in the store It all cooks down and evaporates away and what they end up with it would be about the same price as if they buy the meat straight from us,” Buehler said.

This is a third generation family owned farm with four generations working on the farm. They’ve had to adapt over the years but this is a change they didn’t see coming and they hope it’s an unexpected uptick in business that continues even after the pandemic and meat shortage is over.

"We get a lot of positive feedback on the quality I'm sure there will be some people that go back and try to get the cheapest stuff they can get but you help some people stick with you,” Buehler said.

The farm’s meat is available for purchase at several places:

Crossway Farms in Sidney (also online at crosswayfarmmarket.square.site), Miami County Locally Grown virtual farmers market (miamicounty.locallygrown.net), Moulton Country Store, Wagner’s IGA in Minster, and Hog Wild BBQ in New Bremen.

Half and whole sides of beef and hogs are also available for purchase at the farm, call (937) 693-3093 for availability.

The farm has processing scheduled through the end of 2021 so it will have a steady supply of meat for sale for the foreseeable future.

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