By Katie Harris

The Surveyor

For years Adam Stein enjoyed fresh pork and beef raised on the Denver family farm he shared with his wife and three daughters, all the while envisioning a day when he’d be able to share their humanely raised, antibiotic-free meat on a grander scale.

It wasn’t until this August, after moving just outside of Berthoud and gaining a core group of repeat customers at the Berthoud Local Farmers Market, that Stein’s vision became a reality. He invested his spare time into fine-tuning a business plan and creating a website, and by early fall Stein’s food delivery service, Field to Front Door, was ready to take on customers.

“The vision was really to highlight what real food should be and make it accessible to people that wanted to seek it out,” said Stein. “I didn’t want price to be a deterrent, and I wanted to allow for convenience.”

With the building blocks in place, Stein crafted six monthly packages to allow customers to choose a quantity and price point that meets their needs. His lowest level package, the Standard Cut half order offers customers nine meat items per month, most of which will provide one meal for an average family of four, for $79.95/month. The top-tier package costs $179.95/month and offers customers 18 items each month, including premium cuts of meat such as T-bones and ribeyes.

All orders can fine-tuning on the company’s website, www.fieldtofrontdoor.com, and deliveries to the Berthoud area are made monthly on the Tuesday of the customer’s choosing. First orders are issued in coolers, which remain on front porches to receive future orders.

Stein hopes Field to Front Door’s free membership and penalty-free cancellation policies will appeal to customers who avoid similar food delivery services due to strict membership requirements.

“It’s free to sign up, there’s no commitment and you can pause your membership at any time,” he said. “We’re trying to address the way people live. If you’re out of town or live outside our delivery area and want to pick up your order you can do that, too.”

Field to Front Door’s membership plans are flexible as well, permitting month-to-month or recurring add-on items as well as package changes without a fee.

“If you’re having a big Fourth of July barbecue you can add on brats or burgers for that month,” he said. “You can customize your plan to your needs. We very much try to solve as many foreseen needs as we can and give customers the opportunity to tell us how and what they will use.”

In addition to his openness to allowing the company to evolve based on customer feedback, Stein has a few plans of his own up his sleeve for future expansion. The entrepreneur plans to add organic produce to the menu in spring, with an emphasis on greens, and said a greenhouse providing year round vegetables for delivery may also be in the company’s near future.

“We’re very much in a growth stage from an offering standpoint,” he said. “Part of the initial vision was to partner with local farmers that are doing speciality things and offer some of those products through our network. Long term we see ourselves being more of a food hub than a farm.”

For Stein, providing Field to Front Door’s customers with a greater selection of fresh foods, while supporting other local farmers through partnerships is a win-win.

“There’s certainly an argument for the health benefits of avoiding grocery store meat, much of which is raised in a feed lot, and there’s the sustainability benefit of creating a smaller carbon footprint when you choose local food that hasn’t been transported all over the country,” said Stein. “There’s also a large economic boost that occurs when you get as many products as possible from local farmers, keeping local business local.”

Another integral part of the vision for Field to Front Door is to donate a portion the company’s income to non-profits, focusing initially on organizations that provide food to local families in need.

“Our plan is to implement a philanthropic giving back component,” said Stein. “A percentage of sales will be donated to various causes and we’d eventually like to allow members to select where they want the dollars from their order to go. We haven’t quite ironed out the details on how we can best serve, but we’re working with various organizations to figure it out.”

As Field to Front Door feels out its first few months in the food delivery business, Stein is looking forward to growing and evolving, both in product diversity and in the company’s delivery network, which currently includes the ten zip codes surrounding Berthoud.

“We want people to know that you don’t have to be an amateur butcher to enjoy real, clean food,” said Stein. “No one should have to sacrifice taste and quality for convenience and a fair price.”