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Kakadoodle Farm's Marty Thomas Says Focus Should Be on Growing Consumer Base
Farming is a risky business. All kinds of calamities, from flood to drought to fire to wind to falling market prices, can hit out of nowhere. To engage in this vital business requires a whole lot of resilience.
Marty and MariKate Thomas of Matteson, a south suburb of Chicago, must have an extra level of that resilience.
Over the past few years, the second-career farmers had been steadily building their egg sales at their Kakadoodle Farm while creating an online e-commerce hub that sells products from farmers around their region as well as their own.
Their plans, though, have been interrupted by an almost unfathomable pair of crises this winter.
First, they lost their entire flock of chickens to an outbreak of avian flu, making them among the unlucky few small farms to be decimated by a contagion — one that has sent egg prices soaring — that has mainly affected big, crowded factory farms.
While waiting out the 120-day quarantine required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they turned their attention to their work turning an old barn into a distribution center for the e-commerce business, a project for which they had received a promise of a $200,000 USDA grant under the Resilient Food Infrastructure Program.
That is, until the recent notification that the Thomases were among the many farmers across the nation stymied by the abrupt and unexpected freeze on reimbursements imposed by the administration in Washington, D.C. These decisions put farmers at critical financial risk — especially if, as required by the program, they spent their own money to perform work with the reasonable expectation that the federal government would meet its contractual obligation to pay them back.
For the second time this year, Kakadoodle was in the news (there's a link below to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times). The second strike has prompted the Thomases to reopen the GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $47,000 from the generous local food community to deal with their avian flu setback.
But the good news is that the couple is not only maintaining a positive attitude, but is seeking to ignite a conversation about how we can build resilient, self-sufficient local food ecosystems — without relying on government aid — by expanding the consumer market for healthy, sustainable, locally produced food.
Marty Thomas (who is a Local Food Forum subscriber) shared an essay with his thoughts. Please read it... and then share your own thoughts with us about how (and whether) his vision can be made real.
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by Marty Thomas
Early on, I though it was interesting—when farmers get together, the conversation often revolves around “how to get free money to do the thing.” As an entrepreneur pretending to be a farmer, I always found that curious. Why not focus on finding consumers who want to buy the thing? Like every other business, in every other industry, needs to do.
With that mindset, we’ve always been intentional about ensuring Kakadoodle isn’t overly dependent on government funding or programs. Don’t get me wrong—we appreciated the support and it certainly has helped to propel our business forward, but we did so carefully. And now, with the funding freeze, that caution feels more obvious and important than ever.
This all sucks. Bird flu. Spending Freeze.
But I can’t help but wonder—what if this setback is actually an opportunity for us all?
Instead of relying on government assistance, what if we double down on building a food system that stands on its own—driven by a growing market of local food consumers?
A system where small farms thrive by producing high-quality products that people want to buy at prices that sustain them. That kind of system can’t be built on government programs—because when subsidies or funding disappear, so do the markets propped up by them.
So what we need then are new consumers entering the local food movement—people who understand and value the difference, but are not willing to go out of their way to get it. And that shift is already happening.
We can all feel it, right? Empty egg shelves are a stark reminder of just how fragile our food system is. The key now is reaching and capturing this growing group of local food consumers.
And that’s exactly where we’re focused. With government funding frozen, we’re doubling down on Kakadoodle’s original mission—attracting a new generation of modern local food consumers. Perhaps this group is the spark that ignites something bigger—a decentralized, resilient food system that can stand on its own.
With all that said, the reality is clear—no egg revenue and a funding freeze mean we need to raise a significant amount of money to make it through 2025.
The GoFundMe has been a huge help, covering the next few months without egg revenue. But if the spending freeze continues, we’ll need to raise even more to get through the rest of the year. While our GoFundMe page shows we reached our goal, that was to recover from the bird flu—not to offset the impact of the funding freeze.
So please, if you’re able, continue supporting us through GoFundMe. Or, if you're in our delivery area, the best way to help is to do some of your grocery shopping at kakadoodle.com
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I started this publication almost four years ago, and called it Local Food Forum, in hopes that it would generate some lively discussions about the issues facing our efforts to build a better food system. While Local Food Forum has had impacts, this has not turned out to be one of them.
But it's never too late to start. What do you think of Marty Thomas' vision for local food growth? Do you have ideas of your own to get us closer to that better day?
Click the button below and please send me your ideas. I will publish them.
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