Exploring Life & Business with Megan Emelander of Farm 2 Fork

Hi Megan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers. 
My husband Darin and I are farmers (I am also a high school agriscience teacher for the past 20 years) with a passion to keep our farm thriving, which is why we created our business Farm 2 Fork. We have over 70 head of livestock on our 70 acre farm and raise cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens and started retailing our frozen cuts of meat at farmers’ markets in 2020. We soon realized that while at the market, there was a demand for patrons to be able to get a meal while they shopped, and we wanted an avenue to better market our products, which is why we launched our mobile food unit in 2023, Farm 2 Fork. While we still maintain our frozen meat sales, we now offer our farm-raised beef burgers, lamb bratwursts, goat bratwursts, and pork Italian sausage as well as a breakfast sandwich or burrito all cooked fresh at the market and made 100% from the livestock we raise.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In farming, there are always obstacles, from the weather to unexpected surprises along the way; the biggest lessons you can learn from them is to manage your risk and plan ahead. Covid and the struggle to establish USDA processing for our meat was one of our biggest challenges as we were getting started. Getting a processing date for our livestock before they were born (or two years in advance) was not feasible when we were starting out. Since then, the flow of industry has come back to normal, and we have established a relationship with an excellent processor, Jones Farm Meats, who is pivotal to what we do.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
My husband and I are farmers with a passion to sustain our land, the environment, and our local food system. As I mentioned, in the spring of 2023, we worked with our county health department to meet the requirements for a food license and purchased a tent, griddle, and built a food cart to operate under and served our food at farmers markets and local events. We are currently making plans to purchase a food trailer.  As the farmer, we are in control of all aspects of production of the product we sell, from the quality of the forage our livestock receive to the daily care, and this has a direct impact on the quality of the meat and service we can assure to each of our customers. We love farming and love the reaction we get from our customers when they sample our product.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Both my husband and I feel that fresh food is vital to the health of our communities, and local food is vital to the health of our local economies; buy local and buy fresh. As farmers, we instill practices that sustain our land and thereby sustain the bodies of our livestock and our own.