First up, thank you so much for showing your interest in what we do at HOW NOW. We’ve had hundreds of people say that they want to be a part of our journey, and it means the world to us and our girls. We know it’s time for change and I’m just delighted to see there are so many of you that feel as strongly as I do!
We’ve been busy the last few weeks, creating our offer document, working with our advisors, and preparing our plans, on top of our day jobs of taking care of our girls and creating and delivering delicious milk. We’ve also had a few new gorgeous babies land in How Now land. Check these cuties out – Casey, Ruby Rose and Gemma.
In the news
You may have seen us in The Age a few weeks ago. Kate Jones wrote this article about us “Killing it with Kind milk”. That article gave us a push into the mainstream that has meant our milk is selling quicker than ever creating a 13% increase in sales, more stockists approaching us (many more from interstate) and it brought many of you into our journey.
The future
One of the biggest things we’ve been working on in the last few weeks is determining what we would do if we stayed on our current farm, and how much it would cost to move. This is what we’ve decided:
For $500,000, we can guarantee our supplement feed (cow granola) and water for irrigating for the next two years. We will upgrade our current farm to make it better for our girls – wood chip walkways for their tender feet (massively important for cows), give them the natural feed they need by planting plenty of varieties of grasses, start our regenerative farming by planting hundreds of trees for shade that will also kick off the ecosystem we need to attract bees and wildlife. The money would also make it a lot better for us, as we can purchase the van we desperately need and get it sign printed so it’s a mobile advertisement, get a driver and some help on the farm. Finally, it will certainly make it better for you! We’d spend some of the money improving the farm’s walkways and paths so you could visit (very strict regulations around farm visits) and when you do that there are some facilities that allow visitors to enjoy the cows and calves up close. Oh and I’m definitely getting a cow scratcher so they stop using me!
If we hit $850,000, we would be able to purchase a containerised processing plant so we can process our milk and any other products onsite, including a packaging line. We would get the staff to help do that. This plant would be fully transportable, so if we move in the future it could come with us.
If we managed to reach our maximum goal of $2,000,000, we’d actually be looking to buy our own Cow Oasis in the future, and kit it out for our girls, for us and for you. It would be in a much more cow-friendly area than Shepparton. Dairy cows don’t like heat, and it has become significantly hotter and drier in Shepparton in recent years, so much so that for lengthy periods through the summer the cows can suffer heat stress, even with the shade and sprinklers provided. Our Cow Oasis needs to be cooler, have more rain, ideally some natural bush, plenty of shade, and be closer to Melbourne.
Our cows will be much happier and the costs of feeding them significantly lower. And of course, we would be much more convenient to our community and customer base. We’ve been looking at possible farms, but we want to make sure we have enough money to do this properly – so will only entertain it if we can raise more than $2million. And whilst purchasing a farm may cost more than $2m we would look at finance options.
We’re almost ready to hit go on the campaign, with the plan to launch in the next fortnight. We’ll share our offer document once it’s ready, so you can have a read, and will let you know when our launch date is locked in.
Facebook Live – Join us
I’m doing a Facebook Live on Wednesday night, 8 May, at 7pm to answer any questions you have, and update you in the lead-up. Just make sure to like our Facebook page to be notified when go live. After that, we’ll send you through our full offer document and give you a chance to invest before we open up to the public.
Thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts, for joining us in creating a kinder way to dairy.
Cheers,
Cathy
P.S When we launch, please make sure to read the offer document and risk warning statement before investing.