09/01/2026
Here’s the harsh reality of owning a farm store… and stepping onto my soap box for a minute. ❤️
I want to give you a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes of a small farm store and why handmade, homemade products cost what they do.
Let’s start with sourdough bread. 🍞
With the cost of ingredients and supplies being what they are, I make roughly $4–$5 per loaf of sourdough.
But here’s what people don’t always see…
From start to finish, a loaf can take approximately 10–12 hours before it’s baked and ready to sell. That includes mixing, stretching and folding, proofing, shaping, baking, cooling, packaging, and labeling.
Then there’s the electricity to run the oven, packaging, labels, and the cost of delivering the bread to the locations that carry it.
By the time those expenses are taken into consideration, that $4–$5 can quickly turn into $2–$3 per loaf — and that STILL doesn’t include paying myself for the hours of work.
Now let’s talk about jam. 🍓
Let’s use raspberry jam as an example.
A small batch takes about 4 cups of berries, 4 cups of sugar, lemon juice, and jars and makes approximately 6 half-pint jars.
I sell a half-pint (8 oz) for $5.
You can walk into Walmart and buy an 18 oz jar of raspberry preserves for around $4.44.
The difference?
I am the machine.
There’s no factory machine stirring it, adding ingredients, cooking it, filling the jars, wiping them down, and putting labels on them.
It takes me about an hour from start to finish to make those 6 jars.
The ingredients cost me around $15, before even adding the cost of the jars.
So I have approximately $21 invested and sell the six jars for $30.
That leaves me with about $9 profit — BEFORE paying myself for that hour of work.
Now let’s talk about herbal remedies. 🌿
Take something like our Fire Cider.
A gallon of apple cider vinegar alone costs over $20.
Then I add fresh ingredients like:
🌿 Fresh ginger root
🌿 Fresh turmeric root
🌿 Fresh horseradish root
🌿 Jalapeños
🌿 Lemon
🌿 Ceylon cinnamon sticks
🌿 Onion
🌿 Garlic
🌿 Rosemary
🌿 Peppercorns
🌿 Anise
🌿 Cloves
🍯 Local honey
I honestly couldn’t even tell you exactly how much all of those ingredients cost me together, but I can tell you it isn’t cheap.
I sell a half-pint for $15, and chances are, I’m not making a whole lot of money per jar once you factor in the ingredients, jars, labels, time, and everything else that goes into making it.
So here’s the moral of my soap box…
I made approximately $5 in THREE DAYS.
It has actually cost me more money to open the store every day and run the electricity than I have made.
I’m not sharing this for sympathy. I’m sharing it because I think sometimes people simply don’t realize what goes into running a tiny, local, handmade business.
When you shop with us — or any other small, local business — please remember that you’re not just buying a loaf of bread, a jar of jam, or a bottle of Fire Cider.
You’re helping a real person keep the lights on, keep a roof over their head, and put groceries on the table.
We may be the “little guys,” but we put our hearts, our time, and a whole lot of hard work into everything we make.
Every single dollar spent with us is appreciated more than you will ever know. ❤️
So the next time you’re deciding between the big-box store and the little farm store down the road, I hope you’ll consider supporting the little guys.
Because when you shop small, your money means so much more. 🌱❤️
