With decades of accomplishments, Kirk Halpern, Founder and CEO of Farmers & Fishermen, is a well-known expert in the meat and seafood industry with over 35 years of progressive and successful experience, leading operations, and strategic decision-making. In 2023, Kirk was recognized as one of the “Most Admired CEO’s” for his leadership by The Atlanta Business Chronicle and has won an array of distinguished awards for his business acumen, industry innovation, and philanthropic reputation as a CEO making a difference. 

In 2019, when Kirk and his son, Ben, who now serves as Executive Vice President, launched Farmers & Fishermen, Kirk pivoted overnight, adding a home delivery service to his company that shifted his focus from restaurant delivery to also include home delivery to help those unable to access nutritious protein during Covid-19. He has continued that service and still serves the Who’s Who of the Georgia restaurant industry, creating one of the fastest-growing, award-winning companies in the nation, supplying their valued food service and home delivery customers with the highest quality meat, seafood, and specialty products. 

Kirk Halpern designed Farmers & Fishermen as an inspiring, purpose-driven company that creates a people-centered, meaningful culture. He believes that if you inspire a team, everyone gains, and the team is more fulfilled. He inspires and hires for coachability and work ethic. During the Pandemic, he figured out a way to keep his employees at work while also reaching out to other small businesses to see how to help them survive during a challenge of epic proportions. His collaborative, swift decision-making preparedness has contributed to the company’s bottom line at every turn, leaving no stone unturned. Kirk’s employee-centered pivot resulted in a successful formula for building staff morale while responding to unparalleled, unpredictable, and challenging times.

A Huge Endeavour

Farmers & Fishermen’s story is one of lightning-speed growth. When the company opened months later, the Pandemic hit. Despite insurmountable challenges from the food supply chain to rising costs on all fronts, Kirk demonstrated resilience, purpose, and a profitable legacy with his strong business model and accelerated sales strategies. Kirk focused on sustainability, created recyclable and reusable boxes, purchased a small fleet of refrigerated Mercedes Sprinters that anyone could drive, and helped other small businesses survive and stay afloat.

Farmers & Fishermen has grown to become one of the fastest-growing food service and home delivery companies in the country, exceeding 50 million dollars in revenue.

The company has been featured and recognized in national and local media, including Good Morning America, QVC, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg. It has also been consecutively awarded for its outstanding workplace culture, which employees measured and voted independently as the best place to work. 

Farmers and Fishermen’s strong P&L strength in less than five years has made it a top 10% tier in the food production and distribution industry. Kirk credits teamwork and laser-focused decisions (as the food industry runs at split-second decision-making). His decades of experience offer his ability to keep the company cutting edge, profitable, and growing Farmers & Fishermen to a record-breaking financial success.

Helping the Community

Kirk’s lifelong priority is his devotion to community service and his positive contribution to bettering other people’s lives. He has demonstrated this for decades through his ongoing non-profit leadership, serving as the Board Chair and currently serving as the Immediate Past Chair of the Board of Directors at Goodwill of North Georgia, helping to get people back to work and purposefully employed.

When Kirk joined the Goodwill of North Georgia board, it was a longstanding organization with solid leadership. He was determined to take the non-profit to the top as a world-class non-profit when he was chair and made it his business to help it grow and prosper. He executed and led a Covid strategy plan that furloughed no one. “Good Will” was a core belief, and he made giving back and Goodwill of North Georgia a front-row focus and concern to help people get back to work. As he went from Vice Chair to immediate past chair, he participated and transformed the board to be more representative of the community, building diversity in the leadership and including the people they served who also shopped in the Goodwill stores. Kirk was instrumental in the entire process.

While Kirk focused globally on the food supply chain and rising issues, sustainability has been a critical factor since its inception. From the recyclable and reusable packaging, which was an innovation that had not been done, to the intensive training of employees for both safety and safe handling of food to working with the needs of restaurants who lived in an ever-challenged customer culture, Kirk looked at the critical nature of the diverse needs of each small business. He believes sustainability must be integrated across the board, working together, and was confident that if everyone wins, that’s the winning formula for true success. This mutually collaborative spirit is uncompromising, demonstrated in his actions, services, and desire to chase perfection and exceed expectations.

Collaboration & Bright Future

A driving principle for Kirk’s business vision has always been collaboration and looking to the future, driving purpose and change benefiting every partner, contact, employee, supplier, community, and more. This type of long-term perspective and strategy inspires Kirk to grow and provide significant value to everyone he does business with along the way. 

That spirit of growing together is the core value of Farmers & Fishermen. This is a prime reason why the company has won a prestigious array of highly respected awards and recognition since its inception. Farmers & Fishermen are feeding a need, and individuals in all aspects of the business know they are valued.

Kirk’s long-term value is also impacted by his ability to think ahead and make instantaneous decisions as the food industry demands. He can then pass along the savings swift thinking and being prepared has positioned him to be to his customers, consumers, suppliers, and beyond.

His non-stop persistence and resilience have been proven daily as Farmers & Fishermen provide small companies with an edge and a way to stand out in the food service landscape. 

Home customers also continue to support the need for quality protein delivered to their door, a combination driven by the epidemic, a need of customers, and a true benefit to everyone from employees to customers to suppliers and small farmers and fishermen whose crops and catches would have been lost had Kirk not thought ahead and prepared with his small fleet of refrigerated Mercedes Sprinters to deliver their livelihoods to customers. 

Farmers and Fishermen’s strong P&L strength is a top 10% tier in the food production and distribution business industry. He credits teamwork and laser-focused decisions (as the food industry runs at split-second decision-making). His decades of experience offer his ability to do so at lightning speed to keep the company cutting edge and profitable and make a difference in integrating sustainable environmental, social, and Governance, which are a vital part of his business strategy and plan.

This spirit of integrated growth has helped many companies grow even when it was impossible due to the Pandemic. Since its inception, Kirk was prepared to help others reach consumers as a restaurant protein supplier who purveyed exceptional quality and would purchase other companies’ products to help keep them in business when their doors shut overnight. Kirk increased his market share with purpose, and that combination of expansion grew Farmers & Fishermen into an award-winning business celebrated by national media as a front-line business that made a difference.

Farmers & Fishermen has grown tremendously with a diverse and non-concentrated customer mix. Kirk has accomplished these successes by furloughing no employees and serving small businesses, thus supporting the food chain supply in desperate need. His company’s foundation and fundamentals are exemplary and robust. He shifted his focus from restaurant delivery to home delivery to help those unable to access nutritious protein during COVID-19. He has continued that service and serves the Who’s Who of the restaurant industry in Georgia.

www.farmersandfishermen.com