The Rural Voice, 1993-11, Page 29soybeans in poultry feed.
The Mahons also custom mill
organic oats bought by an American
distributor from OntarBio, the
organic farmers co-operative at
Durham.
The economy of oats as a source
of nutrious food is demonstrated by a
farmer who grew oats and wanted to
make a donation to food banks so
had Mahon custom mill them. A
tonne of oats can go a long way,
Mahon points out. At half a cup of
oats per serving it would create
20,000 servings. In fact, he says, if
people were truly hungry, they could
get by eating oats three meals a day,
and do it for about $60 a year.
"There's no reason people should go
hungry."
It was in part because he thought
the economy was on a long-term
downturn and there would be more
people needing inexpensive,
nutritious meals that Mahon got into
milling oats. So far, however, the
customers seem to be professional
people, like doctors, who are
interested in nutrition, not price.
The Mahons are tireless
promoters. Karen hands out free one -
serving samples of Hilton Farms
The Mahons are
tireless promoters of
their oats
Oats wherever she finds people who
might be interested. Recently they've
started a promotion with a school,
giving free oats to fundraising in
return for getting the names and
addresses of buyers so they can be
approached for repeat orders.
Marketing, Mahon says, is the
forgotten part of farming. "It's hard
to get the consumer to take his wallet
out of his pocket." Even with a
quality product at a good price it
takes a good marketing process to get
consumers to buy. He estimates it
takes 10 per cent of the energy to
grow the grain, 20 per cent to process
it into an edible food, and 70 per cent
to sell it.
"I'm sure mail order has never
been tried before with oatmeal but
there's no reason it shouldn't
work."0
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NOVEMBER 1993 25