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SAN FRANCISCO RAW FEEDERS (SFRAW)

special newsletter

species appropriate | community | support | local | truly pasture-raised | eat wild
Hello Dear SFRAW Community Members,

I am writing today to let you know about some things which may impact you during the month of December and with the start of the New Year at SFRAW.

Due to a confluence of both planned and unexpected business, staffing, holiday and supply challenges that rose to an astonishing and impressive crescendo over the past few weeks, we want you to be aware of a few things we are expecting to occur within the month of December so that you can plan accordingly.

On Monday, after the weekend and past holiday week, we ended up nearly sold out of all of our Grinds/Formulas with plenty of orders to fill. At this very moment, we are working very hard to prepare/produce our SFRAW Grinds/Formulas to fill orders this week with limited production staff/volunteers and staff in training. We expect to get back to a reasonable level of inventory by the end of NEXT week and are actively hiring/interviewing candidates for our production team.

To Review...
This Week:
Limited stock for SFRAW Grinds/Formulas
(plenty of other products including SFRAW Alpaca Meat/Offal Blend, GreenTripe, RAWR, MSF Patty Mixes, etc)
This Week: THURSDAY ONLY! FRESH BULK GRINDS available for BYOC/U-Pack
Next Week: Better Supply Expected & FRESH BULK GRINDS available (stay tuned)
Dec 16th-26th: Branko & Kasie will be out of the country for family concern
Dec 24th-Jan1st: SFRAW will be closed for Winter Break
OPEN 2020 on Jan 2nd (9am-7pm) 
DIY RAW FEEDERS: PORTIONED OUT PRODUCTS VS BULK CASES
When we first started to offer less than bulk case size packs of products such as backs, necks, feet, meaty bones, organs, etc. we relied upon 100% volunteer labor to do this work - members frequently used their own packaging and members were required to fill 8-hours of volunteer time annually (not to mention one month lead times for ordering, and we were only open limited hours with 1x/month pickups!)

Over time, we expanded hours, and have made MANY changes/expanded to meet our member's habits and needs. We removed he volunteer requirement, and made volunteering optional and sweetened the deal by offering an additional 10% off everything that you purchase on any day that you volunteer (members are welcome to volunteer ANY TIME with a 3-hour shift minimum)! With expanded hours or offerings, I needed help and started to hire my first employees (enter Jeff!) - ovr time, we started to rely more on paid PT/FT staff to do this regular daily work. Over time, we've also improved upon packaging/processes & machinery/equipment used, but because I have cared so much about keeping costs low for our members, I *never adjusted our pricing* to adequately cover or reflect basic overhead such as labor, packaging, equipment/supplies, electricity, etc. As you may understand, SF labor costs are expensive even at a basic level for a small "mom and pop", member-supported, vision focused, independent business such as SFRAW, but at SFRAW, in alignment with our mission, we strive to go beyond this to offer incredibly competitive compensation and care programs for our team of dedicated and hard-working employees. Most of our FT staff started with us as teens involved in local high school student programs through SFMade Internships for at-risk youth for which we have been involved with every year since 2012 and with a local sustainability college program before this (Hi Britta! - we are connected now on Instagram!) SFRAW offers paid continuing education/skill & knowledge certifications, commuter & cell phone compensation, free meals/refreshments on-site, very generous employee discounts/stipends, paid vacation/sick time, 401k program, full family medical, dental, vision insurance coverage including pet health insurance coverage.

All year we have been struggling with this issue and how to best proceed to take good care of you, our members while being able to continue as a business and care for our employees in a highly competitive employer sector/local climate. When it comes to considering costs for our SFRAW Members, changes are rare and I resist them as long as possible! For example, we have not altered our membership fees nor implemented price adjustments from 2009 until this year, with the exception of a small adjustment made in 2012 (that's over a decade!)

When considering how adjustments might impact our loyal SFRAW members, we have even "checked out" hundreds of test orders for sample populations of different members, based on past purchasing habits/orders, just to see what any change in pricing would look like for YOU -- for YOUR bottom line. I can't tell you how important this is to me. I also may not adequately express just how much I've (willingly & gladly!) sacrificed to ensure you are all being cared for in this way. YOU are important to me. YOUR ANIMALS health is important to me. It is so so important to me that you continue to feed these good foods to your animals, but I also have to face facts, honor our employees, and remedy the reality of how we have been operating/personally absorbing the cost for this for a number of years when it comes to these "portioned out" DIY products.

SO - during the month of December, we will be focusing our staff's efforts on the production of SFRAW Grinds/Formulas, fresh treats and other goodies such as Red Gold, stuffed tracheas, and our supplemental foods/herbals.

AND - starting in January, our portioned out products will go up in price.
The packaging will be better (working hard on this!) and more consistent in size, so you can more easily order in advance by weight or each item. I will personally be overseeing this myself and I'm very much looking forward to it.

My plan to continue to offer EXCELLENT pricing on these same items is to NOT change the current bulk case pricing. These bulk cases will continue to be a screaming deal for those able to enjoy fresh & frozen bulk cased goods (cases range in size from 10-lbs up to 40-lbs on average, with 60-lbs at the largest - cases sizes just depends on the product as delivered to us). Thus, for those that must get things at a low price point, the bulk cases and big pack sizes direct from our producers will continue to be your best option and continue to be available.

SFRAW OG Members will remember that this is how things were "back in the garage days" from 2003 up until more recently. My hope and vision is that our SFRAW community will come together to support one another with this -- through communicating with fellow members to split cases at home together, share bulk cases with friends/neighbors -- like we used to do!  But if you will need small sizes of these products, unlike the "garage days", we WILL have them available packed up in smaller portion sizes, but this will be at a cost that allows for us to continue to do this in a way that is to our high standards, sustainable and viable, and no longer harmful to SFRAW as an organization.

Yes, for those wondering: SFRAW treat and supplementals production is still eventually moving the the SFRAW Annex nearby -- yes, glitches have come up there (le sigh!) but it's still in the works!
PS - Can't go into too many details here... but one of the other cool things to come with this change to the portioned out products includes eventually moving over to using more "next category" producers using regenerative ranching to grow food in a manner that is even more nutrient dense, more humane, cleaner, and that provides a net +positive+ environmental impact/carbon sequestering methods to actually healing people, the animals and the planet. Yes, these are what we use for the ingredients for all our SFRAW Grinds/Formulas, but not necessarily every product that we offer in the bulk cases meets this standard and we are excited to raise the bar ABOVE and BEYOND the typical organic, hormone/free, range-free, GMO-free, grass-finished.

Lastly, there are a whole bunch of new and exciting plans associated with these changes taking place for new products and services that will be made available to our members in 2020. It's REALLY hard not to spill the beans, but I can't tell you how excited I am for what's to come... 
NO CHANGE! The SFRAW Grinds/Formulas will continue to be manufactured as they are now, in our open kitchen, just as you are accustomed to! YES, we will continue to offer members FRESH BULK GRINDS/FORMULAS with the customary "pack your own" "bring your own container" option available from the bulk bins for an additional 10% off discount.
 
!!! EVEN MORE EDUCATION IN 2020 !!!

MORE
Consultation Appointments available (with me!)
MORE
SFRAW Mentors and expanded SFRAW Mentoring Program including
NEW
SFRAW Mentoring Raw Educational Retreats
MORE
Classes & Workshops
(at the SFRAW Annex taught by yours truly & SFRAW Mentors PLUS invited guests!)
MORE
Facebook Live Events EVERY FRIDAY @2PM with Parsley Pet and launch of the
NEW SFRAW Podcast
 
NEED EXPERT GUIDANCE?
with One-on-One Consultations with Kasie Maxwell Grujcic
Accepting appointments again now through the website here - BOOK

Also: Facebook Live Events with Kasie every FRIDAY @2PM PST (login to view form anywhere in the world!) plus the NEW SFRAW Podcast is on it's way!
2020 FOCUS FOR SFRAW: EDUCATION 
"Leading the curious to the courageous!" 

I have recently expanded our SFRAW Mentoring program by adding new *amazing* SFRAW Mentors to work one-on-one with new SFRAW Members and members wanting to deeping or expand their knowledge and skills when it comes to feeding raw and Natural Rearing. I will be sending out more information about this in a separate newsletter and our website will soon be updated, too.

One of the things that occurred was a new SFRAW Mentor "overnight" intensive where we worked to create the details of the revised SFRAW Mentoring program. It was awesome! The location is at one of our SFRAW Mentors' properties, a stunning small scale retreat center called The Iron Horse Lodge (yes, that's the Iron Horse in this photo) located just outside Yosemite -- it is a SUPER amazing place. We wanted to visit as a group to see how it could function as a SFRAW Educational Retreat location for our members. Details of this have been finalized and we're ready to go! Starting in Jan 2020, we will start to book events here for this purpose with our new SFRAW Mentors as leaders of these events. I'm super excited! 
 
We have new ORGANIC Locally Made (really nice!) SFRAW tote bags NOW AVAILABLE! Don't forget to pick one up next time you drop in.
We very much appreciate your adherence to our normal and standard weekly ordering schedule. These deadlines and requirements have been established so that we can do our jobs to better provide just what you need in a timely manner.

Thankfully, we now maintain a nice, wide variety of products in stock and available on a drop-in basis!  If you miss a deadline to order, please feel free to drop in to shop for products in stock and available 7-days/week. If we're out of the product that you seek, we almost *always* have a solution/substitutions available that will work - frequently this is a cool opportunity to try new things and expand your variety!
PHONE ISSUES: YES, WE ARE OPEN! The recent phone issue has been resolved... NO! We're certainly not "disconnected or out of service" ! (and indeed, phone lines *were working* with normal incoming/outgoing calls, but not at 100%?!)  We switched over to using 100% business LANDLINES a while back, adding 3 lines to accommodate and facilitate what we expected and hoped would be more reliable communication. Unfortunately, we've experienced some frustrating issues over the past few months - hardware issues, outages, broken lines, and recently some software account management glitches. GEEZ! So sorry - trust me, as frustrating and concerning this may be for you, it is even more so for me!!  How terrible and terrifying as a business owner to learn from our good members when they can't get an order in on time, and to think new customers/members think we may have shut down or are no longer in business. OMG - awful!  YES -- we're very much here! So sorry for this.  Please let us know if you experience any problems. We need to know. THANK YOU for not giving up and contacting us through other channels such as IN-PERSON (yes!), email, Facebook/Instagram or texting!
PODCAST! Kasie Maxwell Grujcic of SFRAW - Holistic Healing And Species Appropriate Diet’s For Longer Healthier Lives For Your Pets (Episode 7 of The Organic Paw podcast) Our Founder, Kasie, was a featured expert on The Organic Paw podcast this week - be sure to go check it out! Listen to us break down topics like holistic healing and species appropriate diet on today's episode and be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss future episodes like mine!
iTunes
Spotify
Castbox
Stitcher, etc. Easy to find! Just look up "The Organic Paw" on ANY podcast player to subscribe and download or stream to listen!

About this episode:
 
"The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.” Paracelsus

Kasie Maxwell has been on a journey of healing since she was a young girl. Her connection with animals and their well-being has guided her practices along the way, as well as her own path towards finding answers to a devastating disease that struck her life suddenly, causing her to realign with her purpose and tenaciously find a way to keep going. 

 
NEW DIGITAL PLATFORM AHEAD FOR SFRAW
While we LOVE engaging with our members via social media - Facebook & Instagram, in particular are super fun - we also recognize that the Facebook/Instagram/Google/Amazon "information monopolies" are seriously censoring and influencing important content that is of value and use to SFRAW members. The use of these platforms has become highly problematic when it comes to privacy and freedom of access to information - many of our members refuse to engage there for very valid reasons. I have had a difficult time finding a solid and good independent digital platform alternative, but I think I finally found us a place! So, in January, I am launching an SFRAW community over on this new platform which is independent, private and NOT tied or influenced by algorithms or "the powers that be" that dictate or censor content. This will be a place where SFRAW can re-establish as an online community after so many years on Yahoo Groups and then -- well, some years now, in limbo. We are NOT going to stop the public engagement and all the fun over on our Facebook & Instagram accounts, but for SFRAW Members exclusively, we will have a new digital home -- perhaps where you can arrange to split bulk cases with fellow members, offer to pickup orders for fellow members that live nearby, ask questions, learn and engage in a meaningful and unrestricted (well, ony by our own moderation!) manner!  Hey - what's old, is new! I'm excited about this...stay tuned for full details.
business hours: Sun-Wed 12-5pm; Thurs & Fri 9am-7pm; Sat 9-5pm closed major holidays
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