Shenandoah Valley Organic, dba Farmer Focus, has raised $7 million, according to an SEC filing, as the Harrisonburg, Va., company expands its offering of “humane” chicken. The filing named CEO Stephen Shepard and Susan Lattmann, the New York-based CFO of the fashion label The Row.

Farmer Focus has previously raised $27.8 million, with backers including Illinois’ Open Prairie; Richmond, Va.-based NRV; Virginia Tech Carilion (VTC) Innovation Fund; and S2G Ventures, which has offices in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago.

In 2023, the company won a $3.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a part of the second round of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP) totaling $59 million. At that time, Farmer Focus said it would use the funds to expand its Liberty chicken processing facility at its headquarters.

Founded in 2013 by Corwin Heatwole, the son of a long line of farmers who “grew up tending to chickens,” Farmer Focus has built a business model it says “puts decision-making back in the hands of the farmer.” Unlike traditional contracts, its model empowers farmers by allowing them to own their flocks, eliminating farmer competition for compensation, and providing fair pay for their hard work.

Shepard has led the firm since 2023, after being promoted from president and chief operating officer. He has nearly two decades of experience, including stints at Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. and Miller Poultry. He earned a bachelor’s degree in livestock and poultry management from North Carolina State University.

“The problem we’re trying to solve at Farmer Focus is that the most recent USDA census, which came out last year, showed that nearly 150,000 small family farms have disappeared since the last census. That’s a problem, and you get better quality from small family farms, and they’re the more sustainable future for the U.S.,” he told Inc. magazine in an interview published this month.

“Currently, 83 percent of the principal owners of farms have to find work off the farm; they can’t sustain a living with the current wages for farmers. Farmers carry over half a trillion dollars of debt, and they’re 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide. It’s just a tough job. So there was a big opportunity in the industry to put focus back on the farmer,” he added.

From a modest start with a mere 300 birds, Farmer Focus has grown to house tens of thousands of birds today. At the end of 2022, the company said its collective had nearly 100 farmers. Farmer Focus products are sold in over 4,000 stores in the East Coast and Midwest, at retailers such as Publix, Kroger, Harris Teeter and Safeway. Its success is also reflected in a waitlist of over 100 farmers seeking to join Farmer Focus.

In 2022, Farmer Focus was named to Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas in the General Excellence category. It also won three other honors in 2022 — Next Gen Award to Heatwole as an industry leader of tomorrow; Top Women in Grocery Award for the leadership of Kathryn Tuttle, the company’s chief commercial officer; and the Editor’s Pick Awards, which recognized the Farmer Focus pre-seasoned chicken product line.

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