My good friend and mentor Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money, has an interesting twist on certifications.  His gift is simplifying complex notions into either a formula or phrase. 

             We had a discussion recently about all the food and animal certifications out there, from organic to animal welfare to fair trade and whatever.  He said that certification metrics are related to scale and proximity.

             In other words, as size and distance increase between seller and buyer, the desire (and arguably need) for certification metrics increases.  When an outfit is smaller and closer, any benefit from certification metrics decreases.  He said you don't need a third party to authenticate what is small and close.

             That certainly makes sense but with recent developments in the marketplace and in our own Polyface world, I'm wondering about whether scale and proximity are rigid numbers.  In other words, what's small?  And what's proximate?

             For example, I know many extremely small operations that have "No Trespassing"  or "No Admittance"  signs posted around.  You can't just go visit anytime and walk around.  Stuff is off limits. 

             Is that scale and proximity closer and smaller than ours even though we might be 10 times as big in sales volume but offer 24/7/365 unimpeded unannounced access anytime anywhere to see anything?  I haven't explored this topic with Woody since having that initial brainstorming session, but it does merit some thought. 

            Is transparency bounded by a certain distance, or a certain spirit?  A person in Minneapolis can now receive Polyface product at her doorstep; the fact that she can visit anytime to see anything anywhere unannounced surely merits a spirit of transparency even if it's not objective transparency for her.  Does she not benefit from the folks who live 10 miles away who can in fact objectively take advantage of this level of transparency and then leverage social media to spread the audit message?

             "I found this," or "I saw this" or "they're cheating and here's how" are all proxy votes that can now be disseminated in real time to everywhere on the globe, leveraging the internet as a proxy village voice.  So we may not be proximate in miles, but we are proximate in spirit, in attitude, and isn't that the real issue?

             The fact that most food processors and farmers exclude people with sign in sheets, guard towers and fences makes them distant even to their neighbors. 

             Now to scale.  What is big and what is small?  Polyface is tiny compared to Tyson.  But it's sizable compared to a weekend hobby farm.  Are there metrics, like the distance ones, that honor the spirit of size without an empirical benchmark?  How big is too big?  Have you ever gone into a tiny church and felt conspicuous, unwelcome?  Have you ever gone into a large church and felt warm and wanted?  That's what I'm talking about; it's not hard numbers as much as persona. 

             Characteristics of small FEEL are people answering the phone, lack of bureaucracy (you don't get the run-around), and genuine warmth exuded from the staff.  When you feel a genuine interest on your behalf and that you're important.  We all know what that feels like and for sure, the larger the business, the harder it is to preserve, or to duplicate from founder-entrepreneur to paid team members.

             For the record, by far and away the biggest SIZE issue we struggle with on our farm is expertise to interface with sophisticated payment platforms.  They're complicated and the expertise to punch through the platforms that people get used to using is not easy.  Customers sometimes, I'm sure, feel like we're goofballs, but actually we just don't have the $150,000 in-house person to straighten it all out.  That's not about size as much as it is about small outfits dealing with customers acclimated to big outfits.

             How confident are you with a brand you might buy at Whole Foods, that it's proximate and small in spirit?