Per Mary LaFrance's recent post, I dropped Bill Marshall at Spring House Creamery an e-mail inquiring where I could purchase his dairy products, and this is what he sent back. Anyone know where he can raise $20,000 on short notice?
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Peggy,
Actually right now we're shut down attempting to raise enough funds to be comfortable contracting with a farm for all of their milk. We don't want to ask a farmer to commit to us unless we feel we can hold up our end of the bargain. So far we've raised $30,000 and feel we need another $20,000 to go back into production. Our bank has told us that if we get the $50,000 raised they'll back us for any other amount we need.
We've been down for about 2 weeks and have told our stores we hope to back in the market late next week. We did have 4-6 stores in the NW Detroit suburbs, I think they'll stick with us when we come back. I would love to be in Whole Foods or Trader Joe's but have had no luck with either.
IF we can't get this done I think we're going to "re-set" our farm as a CSA type situation with cow shares, goat shares and other products. We're still only in the planning stage for that eventuality.
Thanks for the interest,
Bill