Our Mission
Why Buy Hoosier Exists
We built Buy Hoosier on a simple belief: Indiana farmers deserve Indiana customers.
I'm Brett Hahn, and I'm not from Indiana. I grew up outside Philadelphia, married an Indiana girl, and moved to LaGrange County in 2024. For most of my life I didn't think much about where my food came from and ate like most Americans do. That started changing around 2022 when I found The Beef Initiative and bought my first farm-direct beef while still living in New Jersey. When we finally made the move to LaGrange County, I was suddenly surrounded by some of the best farms in the country with no good way to find them. Buy Hoosier is my attempt to fix that, for my family and for anyone else in Indiana who's ready to know where their food comes from.
The Problem
Indiana grows incredible food. Most Hoosiers have never tasted it.
Ask most Indiana consumers where their beef comes from and they'll say “the grocery store.” Ask if they know there might be a cattle farm selling whole, half, or quarter beef shares an hour from where they live, and most have never considered it.
That's not a failure of interest. It's a failure of awareness. The infrastructure to connect farmers with consumers has historically favored large distributors and grocery chains, not the small family farm that doesn't have a marketing budget.
The result is that most Indiana consumers pay more for food that traveled farther, while Indiana farmers struggle to find the customers who are right in their backyard and would happily pay a fair price for something raised honestly.
Buy Hoosier is our attempt to fix that. A free, permanent home on the internet for Indiana farms that sell direct, so that the next time a family in Indianapolis wants grass-fed beef, they know exactly where to look.
Indiana Agriculture
Indiana feeds the world. It can feed Indiana too.
92
Indiana counties
Every one of them has farms worth knowing.
~59,000
farms in Indiana
One of the most agriculturally diverse states in the nation.
#1
in duck production
Indiana leads the nation in ducks. And it's top 10 in hogs, corn, and soybeans.
~$14B
in annual ag output
Most of that money never touches a local farm.
* Statistics are approximate. Sources: USDA NASS Indiana, Indiana State Department of Agriculture.
Part of Something Bigger
The direct-farm movement is growing.
Across the country, consumers are waking up to the idea that food doesn't have to come from a warehouse. Movements like The Beef Initiative have shown that there's real demand for direct relationships between farmers and the people who eat their food, and that those relationships, when they work, are good for everyone.
Buy Hoosier is Indiana's version of that movement. Indiana has the farms, the farmers, and the consumers to make buying direct the default, not the exception.
If you're an Indiana farmer, we want your farm in this directory. If you're an Indiana consumer, we want to help you find your farmer. That's it. That's the whole mission.