Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Reimagining A Commodity

You're a Wisconsin dairy at a time when milk, a commodity, is at historically low prices.  Many mom and pop farmers are struggling.

What do you do?

If you are 1871 Dairy, you copy the microbrewery trend, and become a micro dairy. They first started by providing fresh, organic, grass-fed milk to high-end Chicago restaurants.

Now, they are opening a micro dairy, where they will build a small milk processing plant in downtown Chicago, far away from the actual Wisconsin farms.

They will offer small-batch, exotic flavored milks, creams, yogurts, etc. such as adding blackberry-basil or banana-almond butter to fresh milk.

In this way, they have added value, and elevated milk from a commodity to a unique, premium  product for which they can charge more.

Are there creative twists that you can add to pain-vanilla portions of your business, to create awesome value for your customers, which will inspire and delight them?