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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Front & Center: Beth Robinette helps local farmers and ranchers connect with customers

Beth Robinette, with the horse Sunka Wakan on her family’s Lazy R Ranch, helped launch LINC Foods, a cooperative that connects local farmers and ranchers with commercial and institutional customers. (Michael Guilfoil)
By Michael Guilfoil For The Spokesman-Review

At Cheney High School, Beth Robinette was a “drama nerd” who imagined a career on Broadway.

But instead of setting out for New York after graduation, she enrolled at Western Washington University and discovered a new passion – promoting healthy, locally produced meats, crops, eggs and dairy products.

Perhaps Robinette was unconsciously channeling that famous line from the musical “Oklahoma!” – “The farmer and the cowman should be friends” – when she helped launch LINC Foods, a cooperative that connects local farmers and ranchers with commercial and institutional customers.

Since its modest inception in 2014, the co-op’s annual sales have grown steadily and may approach $1 million next year.

During a recent interview, Robinette discussed her family’s Lazy R Ranch, yodeling, and the business lesson she learned doing improvisational theater.

S-R: What do you recall about growing up on the farm?

Robinette: I remember being chased by a cow when I was 3 or 4 – my mom dragging me across a field with my little sister in a carrier on her back, throwing me over a barbed-wire fence and hurdling after me. We’d probably gotten between the cow and her calf. To help me get over that, my dad used to bet me $1 million I couldn’t touch a cow. And I never could. (laugh)

S-R: Are cows inherently aggressive?

Robinette: Only at calving time, when they’re very protective. My mom got rolled down a hill once and needed a year of physical therapy. My dad was thrown over a corral by a bull and hurt his back. Agriculture is one of the more dangerous professions, but we manage for docile animals. Crazy ones don’t stick around the farm for long.

S-R: Did you have a favorite class at Cheney High?

Robinette: I loved English, and was really into theater. I didn’t identify with the kids with big belt buckles who drove combines. My people were the freaks in drama club.

S-R: Any memorable roles?

Robinette: My favorite was Annie Quakenbush, the barkeep in a melodrama called “Face on the Barroom Floor.”

S-R: What career did you envision?

Robinette: I thought I’d probably work on Broadway, or do creative writing. I won a slam poetry contest when I was 14, and got to open for Garrison Keillor at the Opera House.

S-R: How about college?

Robinette: I went to Fairhaven, an alternative school within Western Washington University where you design your own degree. Mine was called “Empowering Family Farms: Profiting from sustainability.”

S-R: That doesn’t sound like a ticket to Broadway.

Robinette: No. But I knew I’d come back here eventually. As soon as I moved away from home, I realized how differently other people my age had been raised. I had a really bucolic, idealistic childhood. My grandparents had a big garden, and my mom cooked dinner every night. Cafeteria food was very different from what I was used to eating. Then I read Michael Pollen’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and it was a wakeup call telling me I had an opportunity to do something on our farm that could have a super positive impact on the world.

S-R: Did you return to the Lazy R after college?

Robinette: Yes, mainly to take care of my grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s. My grandpa had passed away a couple of years earlier, and it turned out the ranch wasn’t as profitable as the family thought it was. The year I moved home, we actually lost money. So I took care of my grandmother for three years and gradually helped my dad manage the business, while my husband, Matt (Bellmer) – my high school sweetheart – got a job at Spokane Schools’ Newtech Skills Center.

S-R: How was the transition from student and daughter to actively helping manage the ranch?

Robinette: That was really difficult. First of all, I wasn’t prepared for how exhausting it would be caring for my grandmother. And second, my dad (Maurice Robinette) was used to operating alone. I was 23 and thought I knew more than I did, so it took a while for us to get in our groove.

S-R: Was there a turning point?

Robinette: When we moved away from the commodity market and into direct marketing. That was an awesome feeling.

S-R: How is your grass-fed beef different from what people typically eat?

Robinette: Feedlot cattle are fed barley, corn, potatoes, white bread – all kinds of things – and that makes the meat super fatty. Grass-fed beef is much more heart-healthy, like salmon.

S-R: How is the business doing now?

Robinette: We’re not rolling in the dough, but I make a salary and we have a hired guy.

S-R: What’s the outlook?

Robinette: As people become more health-conscious and environmentally aware, I hope our 60 to 80 customers will visit the ranch year after year and see how pasture health is changing over time because of our management. Our slogan is, “We ranch like your future depends on it.”

S-R: How big is the ranch?

Robinette: We have a little more than 800 acres on five noncontiguous properties.

S-R: What do you like most about your job?

Robinette: That it’s different every day. I love working on the ranch, but also doing systems-level work with LINC Foods.

S-R: How did LINC Foods come about?

Robinette: After I moved back to Spokane, I earned an MBA with a focus on sustainable agriculture from Bainbridge Graduate Institute. I took classes online, then spent four days each month on Bainbridge Island. That’s how I met Joel Williamson, who co-founded LINC Foods with me. His family used to raise roses commercially, and Joel was in the same MBA program, so we’d carpool. Because we both knew lots of farmers, Gonzaga University invited us to help them buy locally produced food. We created LINC Foods – or Local Inland Northwest Cooperative – to connect institutions with area producers.

S-R: How has it evolved?

Robinette: The first year we did about $30,000 in sales, making deliveries – mostly mixed vegetables – out of the back of a Scion. Today we have 49 farms in the co-op, we own two trucks and have five employees. Last year we did $250,000 in sales, and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that we’ll do $1 million next year.

S-R: What’s your job title?

Robinette: None of us have job titles. We all do everything. But I focus on addressing the needs of the farmers – helping with technical support and food safety.

S-R: What’s the best business lesson you’ve learned?

Robinette: When I was doing a lot of improv theater, I learned to get comfortable with failure. Everything I’ve done has involved trying to do things in a totally new way, so invariably I mess up. I’ve learned to have grace when I fail and admit my shortcomings.

S-R: What are you most proud of?

Robinette: It’s so easy to feel there’s no way to fix the world we live in because things are so broken. But I completely reject that. Both at the ranch and LINC Foods, we’re trying to prove there are ways to build systems that serve people and the planet, and are economically viable.

S-R: Anything you wish you’d done differently?

Robinette: Sure – everything! (laugh) Isn’t that the way it works?

S-R: What sort of person is best suited for a career like yours?

Robinette: You have to be comfortable with physical exertion. I love it – I get a kick out of being a strong lady. You also have to be pretty independent, and cool with being alone for long periods – not plugged into your cellphone.

S-R: What challenges lie ahead?

Robinette: I’m concerned about the implications of climate change on agriculture. That’s scary stuff.

S-R: What’s your secret talent?

Robinette: Talent is a strong word, but I can yodel. I play my guitar, sing old cowboy songs and yodel.

S-R: How do you relax?

Robinette: Hanging out with my cows, counting grass species.

S-R: When you look back years from now, what do you want to see?

Robinette: That I created a lifestyle and business model many future generations of my family can enjoy. It’s not my land – it’s theirs.

Writer Michael Guilfoil can be contacted at mguilfoil@comcast.net.