Ontario sisters strike farm business partnership

For several years, sisters Kori de Boer and Casie Kuypers were informally part of their family’s original dairy farm in Palgrave, Ont., run by their dad and uncle. When their dad and uncle’s partnership wrapped up a few years ago, they knew that if they didn’t want the dairy to stay small (which would mean not enough farm for everyone) or quit (not a popular option) they were going to have to come up with something different or extra. “Luckily, we had all the puzzle pieces right in front of us. We just had to figure out how to put it all together,” says Casie.

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So, just months before COVID-19 hit, they launched De Boers Market, which sells beef, chicken and an assortment of fresh produce in the summer months.

The sisters know that they don’t have it all figured out. But they do know that like the farm, their business partnership is always going to be a work in progress. And like the farm, it takes conscious effort, willingness and dedication to maintain a farm family partnership that’s not only a win for the people in it but for the business and the generations to come.

All together

I was curious to find out what underlies their partnership, the processes they’ve implemented to ensure it flourishes, the pros and cons, the dos and don’ts. How do they navigate rough patches and awkward conversations? What does a successful partnership look like for them?

Tellingly, Kori cradled her four-month-old son throughout the entire interview. I say “tellingly” because both Casie and Kori juggle young children, a dairy farm and a new on-farm market. So, if the partnership dynamics and parameters aren’t tight, they realize that things could fall apart quickly.

Until the summer of 2019, the primary business was the dairy farm made up of Kori, Casie and their dad. (Their mom used to be a big part of the farm as well, but she passed away in 2011.) Both their husbands are also involved when they’re not at their other jobs.

“My husband, Jason, is a butcher by trade so he’s an integral part of the market operation,” says Kori.

“And my husband, Tom, is a mechanic, so we’ve pretty much got all the bases covered,” Casie jokes.

They didn’t just luck out on complementary-to-the-farm careers with their husbands. Luck was also on their side when it came to the new business. Unlike thousands of other businesses at the start of the pandemic, the timing of their launch was right. “By early 2020, about six months after we opened, no one could go to — and then no one wanted to go to — a grocery store anymore,” says Kori. “By that point, we already had regular customers. During the early part of COVID, we literally put their orders outside the door in a cooler for pickup. It gave us a really good push at the start.”

Initially they ran the market out of the old renovated milkhouse, but just before Christmas 2023, they opened their new store. “This year has completely exceeded our expectations,” says Kori.

“It’s overwhelming, but we tell everyone that it’s pleasantly overwhelming,” quips Casie.

Four summer students worked for them this past season and one has stayed on part-time to help after school.

So, it looks like all the external, technical boxes are checked off. But what about the internal, untechnical stuff like everyday, personal business relationships — the ingredient that can make or break a business?

Finding their groove

The north star that guides their partnership may seem at first a pessimistic approach, but the sisters are realists.

“It sounds bad, but we plan around failure,” says Casie. “Don’t always assume that everything is going to be fantastic, all sunshine and roses. People shouldn’t cut corners in a partnership. Make sure that everything is laid out and set in stone because you don’t want to get into a situation where something comes up — not necessarily that you get in a fight — but there are other reasons that it can fail. You want to have a solid foundation that will help you handle that well without putting the other person out of business or without everything completely crumbling.”

Because, unfortunately, a failed partnership isn’t just a failure for one person. It means a failure for everyone involved in the partnership, including, possibly, those in relationships with the partners.

Does this start-with-the-end-in-mind approach offer a more comprehensive view of partnerships — a proactive “hindsight is 20/20” perspective? And is this a more common approach with today’s generation? Kori and Casie think it is.

“Many people our age have seen partnerships with older generations where, unfortunately, things weren’t laid out properly. Seeing the downside of things makes you think a little more when it comes to you being in a similar situation,” says Casie.

Kori says that it’s crucial to have a comprehensive partnership agreement in place. “I think the most important things about a partnership are communication and documentation. Verbal agreements are great until there’s an issue or a conflict. If stuff is not written down properly then you end up with more problems.”

When it comes to communication, the sisters always aim to improve. “Something we’re trying — and I admit that we’re trying to get better at — is having meetings,” says Kori. “Sometimes they’re formal quarterly meetings and sometimes informal weekly meetings. I mean, we talk every morning about what needs to get done each day and we both have our to-do lists, but I think having frequent formal meetings would be beneficial. It’s a chance to be transparent and discuss goals, wants and requirements. Meetings help us prioritize those wants and needs rather than someone buying something and later saying, ‘Oh hey, I spent $5,000 on this. Hope you’re okay with that.’”

And what about those awkward moments when the siblings need to discuss something bad?

The sisters exchange grins and Casie says, “We’re siblings so we’ve spent our lives figuring out each other’s communication styles. For example, I like to argue it out and then come back in a couple hours with a better hold on the issue or some ideas on how to solve the problem at hand.”

Casie continues, “I know when to just give Kori a minute and just drop it and we’ll pick it back up in a couple hours. Five years ago, we didn’t get along as well as we do now, but experience over time and learning and growing up has helped us figure it out.”

“I think you have to grow together,” agrees Kori. “You have to be strong enough to get through the hard times and learn that things can be better and figure out how to make things work. Because right off the bat, at the beginning of the partnership, things probably aren’t so smooth because it’s like a ‘getting to know you’ phase.”

Good communication was a theme the sisters returned to several times throughout the interview. “It’s a boring answer and it sounds cliché, but communication is the one key thing that underlies a healthy partnership,” stresses Kori.

Related to good communication is respect. “We’ve found that what works best is being mindful of and deferring to people’s areas of expertise,” says Kori. “For example, in the cut room, it’s obviously Jason who’s the boss there. Animal welfare is more my area of expertise and Casie went to school for engineering so machinery and fixing the robot milker is more hers.”

“I think there were a lot more arguments before we had our children because we were working together all the time so then everyone thought that they were in charge of everything,” Kori says. “Now little things aren’t as big of an issue anymore because we have our own responsibilities or parts of the business that we’re in charge of.”

Kori says finding out who is more fitted technically or personality-wise to a role or responsibility has been part trial and error, but also an unexpected beneficial outcome of their growing families. “When we started having children a lot of the jobs got shifted around. For example, when I had my first child Casie took responsibility for the baby calves and my husband took some time off from his job to help on the farm, which morphed into him taking over breeding. When babies started coming into the picture, we had to figure out how to split up the workload because we’d be down a person for a while. Basically, those years helped us find our niches.”

Where pros and cons overlap

The types of farm conversations that drive a business forward hinge on “what ifs.”

What if we tried this? What if we replaced that? But what happens when there are several competing ideas? How do you narrow down which one(s) to try?

Kori and Casie believe that these idea conversations lead to an interesting Venn diagram intersection where the pros and risks of a partnership meet.

“It’s ironic but having so many ideas and different opinions is definitely a pro for us, especially for the butcher shop,” says Casie. “Jason’s a butcher, but he was never on the retail side, so it’s all new to us. We’re learning as we go and it’s been a benefit to have other people to bounce ideas off. At the same time, you’ve got to be careful because, if not handled properly, too many people with too many differing ideas can make things tough.”

Kori says good practice is everyone taking a step back to think over ideas. “Don’t argue when you’re fired up. Sleep on it, then come back to a new discussion tomorrow.”

Another atypical pro-risk intersection for them has been balancing starting and growing a business and family at the same time.

Kori says the mingling of family and partnership was one of the first things they wrote down on their pro list when preparing for this interview. “Having a partnership allows us time off with our kids while the business keeps going,” she says. While the new storefront means more work for the moment, the upside is that they’re all together at the store as a family most Saturdays. She and Casie alternate weekend milkings and they try to each take a week off in the summer to get away.

“On non-partnership farms, or if it’s just a couple, you never get away unless you can find someone to do chores for you,” Kori says. “While we can’t go on vacation together, our partnership means that we at least get to take some time off individually with our kids and husbands. Even if it’s as simple as just having a Sunday off, it’s nice to get that little bit of a break.”