Australia, Adelaide
Australian CSF Offer
Foods
What do I get if I invest in Half A Cow?
By investing through Equity Crowd Funding for Half A Cow you will own a part of the business, by becoming a shareholder. That means that you have a stake in the long-term success of the business should a liquidity event take place. To find out more about becoming a shareholder and what this means review our Investor Page.
In addition to becoming a shareholder of Half A Cow Pty Ltd. a range of rewards are available as a thank you to the investors.
What is Half A Cow?
Our mission is to bring great-tasting meat to the consumer, direct from their local farmer and butcher. Our platform enables farmers to sell their cows as “meat”. Farmers become their own brand with their own loyal customers.
By capturing more of the “value add” in the cow-to-meat product cycle, we are helping farmers to become price setters within their local communities and empowering them with an online marketplace alternative to the sale yard system.
Our platform is built from the ground up, to help farmers sell directly to consumers. It solves many of the logistical, financial, and technical challenges often associated with that process.
We have created an attractive sales avenue for farmers, by lowering the risk and complexities which come from moving up the value chain of food supply. This has encouraged early uptake of our platform and allowed us to refine the farmer and consumer experience quickly.
The Vision
The vision is simple. We want as many local farms as possible to be able to sell fresh local meat, to local consumers – across Australia and even the world!
Currently people are disconnected from their food, and long supply chains add to price pressures and environmental concerns. (Cow-lometers!)
The Half A Cow platform allows individual consumers to search for and find a local farm that suits their needs. They can even browse by breed, finishing type, grain-fed, grass-fed and more!
This enables local consumers to really connect with a farm and become loyal customers who will purchase repeatedly through our platform.
Business Model
With our marketplace platform, farmers have their own online store page and sell their meat directly to customers. Each farm is required to use an accredited meat processor and butcher to satisfy Australian meat processing standards.
While we grow, we are deliberately keeping our fees to a minimum to encourage uptake from farmers. This will help us supply more people in more places. We are focused on supporting farmers in their journey to become local suppliers. As our platform becomes stronger, and gains greater public recognition and interest, there is scope to increase our transaction fees, and access other revenue streams such as top of list advertising, paid farm promotions and other advertising ventures.
Our main revenue focus will be on growing our marketplace volume, both in sales events and overall turnover, with the vision of building the Half A Cow platform into a household name for the best place to buy fresh meat at great value.
We are already working with a diverse range of farms across South Australia, as well as a number of established brands. Wholesale butchers have also joined the system and have had very strong sales. This early adoption from a range of different farms and business types has given us great confidence that we are doing the right thing by farmers. With over $100,000 in sales, it appears to be the right thing for consumers too!
Competitive Advantage
The company competes head-to-head with supermarket chains and online "meat boxes". Our Cow, for example, offers a “premium meat box” similar to what many farmers are trying to sell via our platform.
Technically, Our Cow could run their sales through our platform as a "farm”. We could make the process better for them.
Thousands of farms could benefit from our online marketplace at a scale that works for them. We are any farms technology partner.
From a consumer perspective, the method of purchasing we offer is much better since most farms on our platform sell meat at a "flat rate". Most businesses/models will further divide up the ‘cuts’ and mark up each individual item (e.g., steak for $50/kg).
This method of selling is key to making our platform accessible to smaller farms (1 - 50 cows a year), as it’s almost impossible to have consistent supply in volume to provide a “meat box” with less cows.
Selling by “dressed weight” on our platform, individual farmers can make $200+ more per cow after fees, even with the extremely high wholesale beef price.
Business Achievements
- Seen on: Channel 7 news, Stock Journal, ABC Radio, ABC Website
- 100k in sales, repeat orders AND farmers coming back to platform
- 3 months of Development and Consultation with farmers
- 3 months running + ongoing refinement
- Plans for Phase 2 growth are ready
- Over 30 farms already signed up to platform already
Risks
Competitor Risk
Further competition in direct to consumers model could affect Half A Cow’s market share.
Key Person Risk
James Gilbert and James Begg are the key technical people behind the platform. If either, or both of them, were to be unable to work on Half A Cow, it would be difficult to quickly find a replacement.
Market Adoption
Half A cow is growing. If the market doesn't adopt Half A Cow’s products it will cause financial constraints.
Regulatory Changes
Although Half A Cow is working with the PIRSA, regulatory changes could affect Half A Cow's ability to service its customers.
Use of Funds
Build V2 of the platform
Over the last three months we’ve been constantly learning and improving our platform to better suit the needs of farmers and customers. Funds will be used to build out V2 of the platform to improve the user experience and allow us to better scale to a national level.
Market the platform to consumers
We want to make Half A Cow the name in the public space for buying Local Meat from your Local Farmer. Funds from the raise will be used to run specific marketing campaigns and promotions, as well as background brand-building activities.
Sign up more farmers
Nothing puts a farmer off like a slick sales pitch. We have found that the best way to “sell” our service is to be genuine, open and honest. Around Australia, farmers attend agricultural shows and other events where they are exposed to new ideas and farming improvement. Funds will be used to attend more trade shows around Australia in 2023 to sign up farmers to our platform.
About Swarmer
Swarmer is an Australian equity crowdfunding platform connecting businesses and investors. Designed to support start-ups, growth companies and scale-ups we allow everyday investors to own a share in businesses that are the future. We hold Australian Financial Services License (AFS License #507867).
Click through to find out more about becoming a shareholder via Equity Crowd Funding.
