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Polyface The Farm of Many Faces
Polyface The Farm of Many Faces
Group 10
Pamela Sen
Anshul Ramteke
Shishir Bhoyar
Madhuluck Kumar
Karan Patil
Soumik Reddy
Introduction:
Acreage:
Employees:
6 full-time employees (Salatin with his Wife and Son + 3 workers from outside the family).
Produce:
*The total sale of stewing hen is assumed to be equal to total gross margin
Sales and Distribution:
Salatin sold the products to his customers via three different channels-
1. On the Farm
25% of the Polyface goods were directly sold to the customers coming to farm.
45% of the Polyface goods were available for bulk- purchasing and food delivery services.
3. Restaurants
30% of the remaining Polyface goods were sold to approximately 50 restaurants, small retail
outlets and some other food service establishments.
Polyface is a community oriented, small scale farming. Industrial firms whereas were
specialized, had selective breeding techniques and had the efficiency benefit because of the
industrys automated equipment.
The industry firms were dominated by the large chicken producers. The approximate
chickens housed by the industrys chicken producer were 27,000 as compared to 20,000.
The infrastructure cost for the typical industrial farm was about $4 of the annual sales as
compared to the $0.5 of the Polyface farm. (Polyface considered that leveraging the design
of nature is the most effective way to farm.)
The pastured eggs have 50% more folic acid, 70% more vitamin B12 and also 30% less
cholesterol, 60% more vitamin A, 25% less saturated fat, 300% more vitamin E, 700% more
carotene when compared with the factory produced eggs.
The waste from Industrial farming raised the question about the sustainability of the
industrys waste management system. Polyface composted the internal organs for use as
fertilizer. Industrial farms caused damaged to the environment as large amount of waste
polluted the water, threatened the natural species and deteriorated the land.
In Polyface, an orchestrated pattern for grazing of pastures for different animals was
followed which supported more number of cows than what an industrial competitor could
support by allowing the cows to graze freely. Using the management- intensive grazing
system, Polyface was also able to retain the nutrient content of the soil as compared to
Industrial farms.
Economies of scale and scope of Polyface:
While dealing with the economies of scale, Polyface should increase the production in order to
nurture the demand of the market without compromising on the policy it had been following.
There is need to maintain a balance between the sustainable farming and the increasing
demandof the consumers. The growing economies scale of operations will demand for increased
economic efficiencies while working on the integrated structure. As Polyface has developed a
local food distribution system with the help of Metropolitan Buying Club, it can create
efficiencies and economies of scale in local food market by developing an interface of online
marketing with community based interaction.
Some of the challenges Polyface firm might face in quest of the expansion of economies of scope
and economies of scale-
1. The new market needs which can be addressed with the existing products/services
2. Level of diversification for the firm. (Possibility of new product)
3. Increasing channel of sales and also scope of optimizing price
4. Scope and need for expansion of the existing land area foe increasing the production
Productivity:
The productivity of Polyface is high as the profit margin calculated for it is high. This gives
Polyface a good scope of expansion taking into account that the economies of scale are
constant.
Recommendation:
1. Proper utilization of existing resources.
.
For ex. 125 cows requires 62.5 % of land He can accommodate 75 more cows in hundred
acres of land.
2. Bringing more land for farming use from the 450 acres of woodland
3. Identifying farms using similar policy as that of Polyface.
4. Encouraging interns to buy land for farming and providing them end to end resources on
contract basis.
5. With increased interns and number of cows from the polyface setting up own processing
unit near major channels will decrease the transport cost and the meat will be freshly
delivered
6. Tying up with more restaurants and taking advance and fixed orders.
7. Increase in price of chicken and eggs as they are safer than industry produced chicken.