Dear Supporter & Friend,
For the past 7 years, Cochon555 and Taste Network have led the movement to educate a nation about heritage breed pigs and this movement has been a gateway conversation to better, safer eating. With your support, we feed a nation more heritage pigs than any other live-event in history. Since 2008, we have promoted responsible agriculture with three little words "heritage breed pigs", through buying one whole heritage pig from a family farm every three days to currently harvesting over 1 Billion impressions in the media annually with a 20 city-tour. The challenges that face family farmers are on the front burner and we have created a foundation called Piggy Bank.
- Piggy Bank is a solution.
- Piggy Bank is a movement.
- Piggy Bank is an entry point for new farmers.
- Piggy Bank is open access agriculture.
- Piggy Bank needs your support.
We are eating our way to a more diversified landscape - and when possible, we choose to consume heritage pork raised by honest family farmers because it tastes better and is healthier for us. Bottom line, we do this because we need a culinary landscape with safer food choices that will benefit our youth tomorrow.
You have attended events, cooked, sponsored, called, emailed, wrote letters, poured wine and spread the word. To each of you, Thank You from the bottom of our hearts! We are a community that believes in having a choice as much as a voice. Now, thanks to you, there is an authentic opportunity to put more farms in business. With your support, we can drastically tilt the scales in favor of family farming by increasing the startup rate of pig farmers and helping farmers in time of need.
How does Piggy Bank work? The foundation launched in September 2015 with the goal to gift breeding stock to new family farms. The physical Piggy Bank farm will have 10 heritage breeds living side-by-side and this foundation stock will produce 600 offspring each year. The offspring (breeding stock) will be gifted to farmers because genetics are very expensive. Piggy Bank will give farmers genetics in exchange for a business plan and these plans will be shared online for a global community. Additionally, Piggy Bank will support existing farmers who need genetics to diversify bloodlines or to recover following a disaster. Pigs that do not land on pasture will be sent to culinary schools for culinary research. Fast forward five years, a thousand gifted pigs are living on pasture producing offspring, hundreds of business plans are online, the idea of open source agriculture is all over. Piggy Bank has set a foundation for a new honest, responsible, transparent, family farming movement.
“The more pigs we gift each year and the more business plans we post online, the deeper the resources for new farmers. The model creates ‘business plan currency’ where farmers requesting free breed-stock will submit a business plan in exchange, there is an incredible value of creating a database of business plans written by family farms for family farms. It doesn’t exist anywhere, and best of all Piggy Bank is a model that can be duplicated for any endangered species. Every gifted pig has a purpose in the marketplace from developing an open-source culture to correcting our failing food system. The model can undoubtedly add value at all levels of the food chain while educating a global audience of farms, kitchens, culinary schools and more importantly, decisions-makers.” ~ Founder, Brady Lowe
We need your help today. Your support does so much, all funds will go to building the first genetic sanctuary for heritage breed pigs - i.e. a modern day Noah's Ark. The first goal is signing up 250 Foundation Donors in the coming months. The Foundation Donors will receive a letter of contribution to add to their 2015 gifting portfolio, and reduce their taxable income. Additionally they will be listed as an idividual or business on the website.
The Founding Donor contribution is $1,000. The biggest victory every year will be raising $250,000 from our Foundation Donor community whom will be invited to celebrate the victory for at a private Founder's event called EPIC. Additionally, the Cochon555 US Tour will be hosting dinners before events to raise $75,000 and during all events, the Pop-Up Butcher Shop will raise $60,000. Cochon555 will be giving a percentage of ticket sales to Piggy Bank in addition to widespread support of all campaigns. There are plans for Kickstarter campaign in 2016 and lots of partners are looking to offer rebates on select purchases.
January is a critical month to evaluate the response from our community. If you want to support Piggy Bank, we hope you can mark your calendars today to help us before end of 2015 (reducing your taxable income) or sometime in early 2016. This initial response will help us set our pace for getting the materials to build the farm and quarantine facility. With widespread support, we could have our first pigs in the spring.
- Piggy Bank will change the landscape for family farmers.
- Family Farms will learn more, dream more and grow.
- Our children will benefit from Piggy Bank.
- Piggy Bank will inspire additional seed and livestock banks.
- Piggy Bank will create an ecosystem of sharing genetics for information.
- We call it open source agriculture.
- Your support will change the future of food.
I’m writing today to ask you to step up once more, by making a donation. Your support as a Cochon555 ticket holder, to telling five people about Piggy Bank to being an annual Foundation Donor, you are supporting a healthier, safer food.