Bad Farm Products....What do you do with them?

[Finn80]

In my current game I have established a signifigant retail footprint in 6 cites using a combination of supermarkets and convience stores. Demand is such, that the seaports supplying the goods are starting to get shaky with supply, and the competion (40 companies) in the markets are starting to cannibilize such that nobody is going to be making a decent profit margin in the near future.

So, okay...I think.....I'll begin to make my own products and my own supply. Great idea!

I begin my making some farms to produce....say...frozen chicken. Frozen chicken is supplied by (an ever increasing stressed) seaport. My thoughts being I can stabilize my own stores supply of chicken, and combine it with Aluminum (from a seaport) in a factory and create a new product to sell that nobody else has.

BUT my farms start out at level 1, and produce crappy chicken that is far less quality than seaports, and the canned souped comes out far less quality than current local competitors are offering. So I can train the farms up to level 9...but THATS GOING TO TAKE A FEW YEARS, and in the meantime I have ALOT of crappy chicken that I dont want tarnishing my food brand....? What are players doing with the bad farm products, while they are training their farms up?

I've tried looking into using a COO with farming experience to run the farm, but my current COO is perfectly suited skill wise for my companys future markets, and current retailing. The highest farm skill guy out there (unemployed) is only 20 anyways with no other skills...Any suggestions?

[Finn80]

Thanks for the reply,you are correct that frozen chicken is livestock category, but the canned soup idea falls into food. In my first attempted game, I tried to go Corn farms and make all related corn products, but there again the quality suffered, and my company as a whole began to flounder. Because my farms will have to compete with frozen chicken with that of a higher quality from the seaport, I'm afraid the market for sub standard chicken won't be there. One of my future projects in this current game will be to begin making Wine for my stores so Ill be the same spot with grapes down the road.

Are you implying that if I don't advertise the sub standard farm products that my food brand/beverage brand won't be affected?

I've read the post by infoscott, whereas he sets up discount mega-stores in cities where he does not intend to build a brand....and dumps excess supply, and sub standard products. Sounds like a good idea but not sure if thats the best use of my capital at this early stage. Spending more $ investing into something that will lose $ or break even just dosen't sound.....good.

[anjali]

yeah within 2-3 month all seaport stuff gonna be heavily overstretched by AI shops and your profit gonna collaps if ya based on seaports too, so catch a few bucks to open the 1st large farm, easy and cheap to get own supply

farm products is a very cheap way to start with and makes quite good profits eggs are mostlikely at the top of ya most wanted list even at q30 it will bring you steady 600k+ monthlyu alone from the farm ($0.80 per egg) shops gonna make another small profit, shop price at q30 between $0.99 and $1,35 depends on town and local competition
no idea whats ya city setup, i usually start out with 10 cities a 5mill residents so demand is lvl 9 large farm for every livestock product per city, even with smaller towns, ya gonna be happy to run a large farm for every livestock product, as one day you gonna hit the 5mill residents mostlikely and it takes 10years+ to get itto lvl 9 with permanent max training so a smaller town will still by up your full production of lvl 1 large farms. ofcourse dont centralize the farms you not gonna make a penny with the crazy freight costs. keep the farms local (i got everything local exept gold and silver jewelry for an even ressource distribution and reduction in freight costs)

my setup is usually 4 convie shops a 1purchase/2 sales units for every farm product gives me in a single floor shop space for 3 products a 2 sales units no advertisement as i run range brand, on a 3floor shop ya gonna get 9 livestock products in 1 convie shop that way, 4 shops to have proper market presence and to handle the output of a large farm. once i got all farm products setup, i use any spare slots in those convie shops for 3 advertisement units once the quality goes up to run radio,newspaper and tv ads but theres no point in starting to advertise until you got to 48/57 quali, the collected negative lovality will go away quite fast once you are 1 point above city rating and have 48/57 quali due to the 4 shops each product. (lvl 4 egg large egg farms has an out put of 2.2 million eggs q57 with $1.062.000 monthly profit +4x$580.000 profit in the shops thats $3.4m every month for a single egg farm, at lvl 1 you gonna have a profit of about a million / month in total per farm

at the beginning when i start out with farming i let the sales hike with dumping prices for a few days else it gonna take ages to get to decent sales with that low quali products and then set the price for i.e. eggs to about 0.99 - 1.15 in towns with very high ratings that will pop me at 10-15 rating points below city average enough to sell off the level 1 large farm(up to $1.35 or even higher in towns with lower city rating but keep it then 1 point above city rating), once level raises, your product rating goes up and i start to adjust prices every 6 month only if the product rating is above the local competition and keep it alsways 1 point above. well when i drop a little below i dont bother, i only know the price-up .. theres no price down for me. once all cities are served it gonna pull 500 million anual at low product quality and raises to way over a billion anual profit with higher levels.

i also dont produce anything with the livestock as its pointless to produce food w/o proper research and there is simply no left over for the next 10-15 years as all the stuff gets sold in the convie shops.

i also never employ any AI in the head corporation as they are very very capable when it comes to screw up my operations. but else they are only good to let them lick my toilets clean

depends if a play mod or not profitablitliy of livestock from top to bottom (always keeping price around or 1 point above city rating)
Eggs
Carps (will outperform eggs when reaching lvl 4)
Goat
Salmon
Ducks
Fish
Lamb
Rabbit
Pork
Chicken
Shrimps
Turkey
Ham
Beef

[Hans_Lemurson]

I'll second the "sell them cheap without advertising" suggestion.

I would also suggest cranking up the training level on your farm ASAP. A maxed-out training budget only increases your running costs by about +30%, and the first levels of quality come within a year. Upgrading your farms through training is a permanent bonus. There are very few things in this game where spending a finite amount cash will earn you perpetual rewards, but farm-training is one of them.

[Finn80]

Yes I did go "sell cheap mega discount" route in the 7th city while maxed out training my farms. Was surprised to find that moving that much QUANTITY over quality actually made decent profits and did not significantly slow down my vertical intregration plans into my targeted core products.

I had to abandon that game as I recently aquired the sub DLC and lost saves. However, what i'm working on now is a workaround to the existing problem. I've been setting up two subsidiaries one with a farming skill CEO and the other sub a CEO with retailing skill. Then group/internal selling the #1. sub farm products to the #2. sub's supermarkets....I still max train the farms and after I feel I can do without the farm CEO's skill, merge or transfer firms into parent. Its not a "perfect" solution but helps take the edge off starting a level 1 farm.