Hey! So nice to speak with you! Can you tell our readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you originally from and where do you live now?

Hi! I am Delaine Mitchell. I am the owner of Mitchell Creek Farm LLC. I am originally from Fort Worth, Texas. I lived in the suburbs with my family for until I was around 20 years old. Then my husband and I lived in Bedford and Saginaw for the next 12 years. After that we moved to our small town of Alvord, Tx to start our farm/homestead. I always felt like a country girl stuck in the city. I love hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, horses, and all animals. So, when we sold our suburbia home and started from scratch on raw land we were ecstatic.

Tell us one thing you love about where you live now?

There are so many things we love about where we are now, so I will give a broader term. I love the ability to truly LIVE. We have the ability to dream and the freedom to make those dreams into reality.

Tell us a little bit more about what your company does and how it started? How does it help your customers?

If you asked me 5 years ago how I thought I would start this business. Sourdough would not have been what I said. My wonderful sister-in-law Gina Crites got me started. She gave me some of her starter and the experiments began. Once I got the process down I thought it would be fun to go to a farmers market with it and see what happened. After the first event, I was hooked and the dreams of turning it into a business began.

Mitchell Creek Farm is essentially in phase 1. There are many expansions and goals to expand upon as time goes on. Currently our largest success is in our home bakery. We work under Texas Cottage Food Law and create a wide variety of sourdough breads and sourdough baked goods. My personal favorites are the Garlic Parmesan sourdough and the Sundried Tomato Mozzarella sourdough. My husband loves the Jalapeno Cheddar, and our youngest daughter prefers the Rosemary Garlic. This allows us to provide REAL food for real people. No preservatives, non-GMO, fresh baked goods that are made with a passion for self-sufficiency. Sourdough bread is the King of carbs. It contains natural prebiotics and probiotics for easy digestion, it helps your body to maintain glucose levels with more ease (best bread for diabetics), and the long fermentation process allows for an easier break down of carbs. Basically, you can have the bread with less of the guilt.

A few other active entities in our business includes breeding/selling Nigerian Dwarf goats. I call these fuzzy little friends our pasture puppies. Most of our herd is currently pregnant, and once they have babies (or kids) we will also be expanding into sales of the raw goats milk. Then, we also breed and sell chickens, our specialty is in Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens but also have a mixed breed pasture for general egg production. All of our chickens are truly pasture raised while also having constant access to excellent feed when they aren't content with the natural grazing and bugs.

We provide fresh eggs from healthy/happy chickens. Once you have farm fresh eggs you never want to go back. The deep yellow, even brown yolks that are packed full of so much more nutrients than anything you can get in the big box store. There is nearly 40% less cholesterol and about 30% less saturated fats in farm fresh eggs when they are raised free range and given high quality feeds. Don't get me started on the flavor difference, they are so rich and flavorful in comparison. Plus, we hatch chicks for sale in order to help others to start their own flocks and benefit from the homesteading experience.

If someone wants to start a business, what's advice that will help them?

My best advice to someone who wants to start a business is to commit to the process. This means being able to fully trust and believe in yourself and the goals you have made. Stop second guessing who you are, stop wondering if your capable, and stop worrying what everything thinks of what you're doing. You can never please everyone, but you only get one life, so allow yourself to dream big and remember that those dreams don't come true without hard work and dedication. But, if you are willing to put in the work, you can make anything happen.

What was one feedback from a happy customer/client that you won't forget about?

After the first sourdough class I taught, I had multiple clients who were thrilled with the process and excited to have the ability to go home and be able to create their own bread. I had a client reach back out to me about a week after the class. She sent me multiple pictures of successfully made loaves of bread. She talked about how grateful she was for me passing down my knowledge in order to help her. Her family loves the breads and are always begging for more.

Where do you see your company in the future?

This years goal is to gain 2 more successful store front locations in surrounding towns. We currently have 2 stores in Decatur that carry our goods; Wise Roots Farm to Market and The Burlap Barn Boutique. I will keep the store fronts as my main focus and then hire additional event staff for the vendor booths at weekend events.

If everything continues to grow accordingly we have discussed opening our own store/event venue where we of course will sell our sourdough breads and baked goods but expand into some other food items. We are predicting this would be in the 3-5 year plan. My husband is an amazing chef and his vision for it would be to have special menus that change with the seasons and the fresh items available at the time. Basically, the menu would never stay the same for more than a few weeks except for a few staple items. This venue would also be an extension of our farm in the background by providing additional acreage and spaces in which we can teach about farm life and help others to start their own homesteading no matter how big or small that dream may be.

In the next year I also aim to start showing our Nigerian Dwarf Goats and Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens in order to get our farm name more recognition and expand our breeding programs. One of the roosters we sold to another local farm has already been winning in some local shows which is wonderful to see happen.

What is the biggest misconception about your industry?

The biggest misconception would likely be that running a cottage bakery is simple and/or not time consuming. It is incredibly demanding but worth it. There are a lot of early mornings, late nights, and missed time with the family on weekends.

I am constantly working on something whether its prepping dough, baking, washing dishes, cleaning stalls or the chicken coop, medically addressing the farm animals when needed, ordering inventory, working on scheduling events and coordinating employees appropriately, creating marketing materials, keeping my finances balanced with my accountant team, and much more. There is very little down time if you do this in a way that is meant for growth and sustainability.

Yes, it is rewarding and I love that I have been able to make this happen but I'm definitely not sitting back and relaxing at home.

What has been one of your biggest struggle building your business and how did you deal with it?

One of our biggest struggles is figuring out how to spread out inventory if one of the weekend events was slow. I send my employee with anywhere from $500 to $700 in inventory to sell. Some days we sell out completely, some days we come home with a ton of inventory that we do not want to take a loss on. Luckily with the expanding store fronts I can typically recuperate most of it by doing a heavy stocking in the stores but not always. I hate throwing anything away so I will freeze it and use it for my own family but I will not freeze breads and re-sell them as "fresh" later.

Bad weather is also a struggle because it is not always predictable as we all know Texas weather can go from 0 to 60 faster than any racecar. If an event has to cancel last minute, we are left pretty high and dry with a lot of inventory to deal with. What was your favorite music artist and athlete growing up?

This is a tough question. I have grown up with an array of music all thanks to my Dad! I can bounce from Peter, Paul and Mary to Ozzy and wrap it all up with some Bob Marley in a beat. Needless to say I had some crazy mixed tapes and CDs. My favorite athlete was Any Pettitte.

What was your favorite music artist and athlete growing up?

I am a country music person 100%. Some of my favorites growing up were Jo Dee Messina and Brooks & Dunn.

I didn't really have a favorite athlete growing up but my favorite sport is baseball.

Go Rangers!!!

Any shoutouts you want to make?

First shout out is my very amazing husband Andrew Mitchell. None of this would be possible without him having my back 100%. Yes, I own the business and do the baking but he is right there with me rolling out English Muffins after I ball them up, starting my sourdough starter on days he works from home, feeding the bottle baby goats when I have to go to events or get home late, and let us not forget that he built this entire property!

Next would be some of the businesses I partner with to make this business successful.

My sister-in-law/best friend since 8 years old, Emily Mitchell, owns Hazel & Ash Creations. This is her own personal business that does anything from custom dog collars, and leashes, to custom engraving. She helps me by engraving the bread blades that we sell with our farm name.

My father-in-law, Mike Mitchell, he is also starting his own small business with customized wood projects. All of the cutting boards we sell are made by him.

Wise Roots Farm to Market - Watching Michelle Smith and her family create this store and being able to be one of the original vendors has been an amazing process.

Where can our readers follow your work or learn more about your upcoming projects?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JAMcustomshome/ Instagram: @mitchellcreekfarm
Website: www.mitchellcreekfarm.com