Why this business?

Worm farming or in a more business term – worm composting, is a niche market. The idea is not to sell worms (although worms per the pound is expensive on its own, more expensive than beef), it is to sell worm castings or vermicasts. Vermicastings or better known as Plant Growth Enhancers are much more in need than worms itself. Produce, vegetable, fruits and produce growers use fertilizers (although it is a mistake to categorize worm castings as fertilizers for USDA category marketing policies). Many farmlands have been over-utilized to the point that they have to use pesticides and inorganic fertilizers to continue getting yields from the farmland. The result is that the soil is pushed to the limits in that it cannot provide plant nutrients anymore. And therefore, that there is a looming food shortage (increase in food prices, law of supply and demand). A niche and a human need – vermicasting is a dependency of a prime commodity – food. Being a sub-prime commodity, it is naturally a profitable business.

What is the profit?

To cite an example, Meme started worm farming as a hobby located in her laundry, and now has a warehouse for a large worm farming operation. The price of worm casting is about $800 per cubic yard which takes only about a month to produce depending on the worm population (your employees). However, it is too expensive to be using worm casting as a soil amendment it is a little unaffordable. Instead, convert the cubic yard of worm compost to vermicompost tea to reproduce more bacteria than using the cubic yard of compost, that which can be applied easier and evenly to a much larger area of farmland (around 3 – 5 acres depending on available soil nutrition).

Where is the market?

The market for compost (in general) is local at your nearby farms and gardens because bacteria have to be alive when applied. But vermicasting tea effectiveness should be introduced to growers as it is a less known method of amendment. The market area can be increased by developing a product combination of worm casting product and vermicast tea on-site-brewing (fresh and live bacteria is the key to a successful application plus the availability of soil nutrients, on a wet soil).

How can the business be expanded further from local markets

If freshness and live bacteria is required and remote customers costs transportation expenses, then allowing worm farming affiliates across the region is the solution. The central business entity, this company, will provide the resources – the tools, materials, and information. The affiliate worm farmer pays for the supplied resources and their own operational costs, and royalties, but the originating central worm farming entity is responsible for tools and equipment, development and marketing.

What is the basic process?

Organic waste is left to spoil and when rotten then fed to worms living in a bedding of shredded cardboard (which is also food for the worms). The pH level of the feed and the bedding, moisture and temperature are monitored to ensure optimum conditions for the worms to continue decomposing everything in the worm bin (feed and bedding), and to encourage reproduction, and for the cocoons to mature.

Feeding the worms is the repeating labor but only when there is no more food that can be seen, and while there is no feed the worms will consume the degrading bedding instead. The consumed food and bedding are topped off with more bedding and food while the vermicasting below is harvested.

What are the expenses?

  • Worm habitat (worm bin and climate control)
    • a worm bin designed to let enough air and water exchange, and suitable for harvesting vermicast, and worm feeding
    • Enclosure for the worm bins to keep its temperature
  • Feed
    • Food waste in bulk
    • Plants / crops dedicated for worms (cover crop or plants that grow large dry mass)
    • Bedding (cardboard)
  • Water
  • MARKETING*

Who are the employees?

  • WORMS. Do not sell the worms because they produce the main product; the vermicast. Although worms are expensive on its own there is not enough market to sell worms than to sell vermicompost.
  • YOU. Given the tools and design your worm farm can be built with maybe 2 people (with handyman abilities), once during the first build, and as the business grows and expands. Every about 6 months there would be a big operation for preparing the bedding and feed, done by a single person. The worms are fed every three weeks. Tools and equipment will have to be built or purchased to reduce the labor operations. An affiliate can utilize the tools and equipment at the time being it is not used.

How long does it take to start profiting?

2 months if you want to sell your worms for it has doubled. As I said before, do not sell your employees, the worms. Hold the worms to populate the bin then you can produce vermicompost much faster for your own use. As you hold longer you will have a big population of worms that can produce tons of vermicompost that will be used to make vermicompost tea. There is a lot more profit with vermicompost tea because you can reproduce more bacteria in a shorter amount of time, just add water and reproduction ingredients. Imagine selling water for a profit.

“Worm farming is a niche business, and it is related to a prime commodity – food, and that this solves the looming food shortage problem. Truly niche.”

How do you start getting customers?

Marketing is very important, especially that not a lot of farmers and gardeners are informed about the use of tea instead of compost. There is no doubt that any business is only as good as its marketing strategy. The time and money not spent on worm production operations will be spent on marketing. the worm farming business need to spend money on marketing, but affiliates do not, as customer base will be provided by the central entity.

What is this Central Worm Farming Entity?

The way to grow a business quickly, easily and smart is to use a “cookie cutter” method. Start relatively small and local but with proven methods that can be duplicated easily. If and when this company, tildeWorms, the Central Worm Farming Entity, becomes large enough to require affiliates to cover remote customers, a 2nd level affiliate-entity is invited to participate. When the operations and the customer base become large for the 2nd level entity a 3rd level sub-affiliate is invited to join. A sub-affiliate is dependent on its parent entity, as a 2nd level affiliate is (was, at first, until resource dependency is not required any further) dependent on the primary entity (tildeWorms). tildeWorms always provides the marketing operations for all affiliates. 2nd level affiliates provide assistance and resources to 3rd level affiliates if their entity is already mature. A 3rd level affiliate becomes a 2nd level affiliate when their entity has proven independent of its parent. The cycle repeats until customer areas are covered by entities on their own territories. All entities will be required to have farmlands of their own to produce cover crop mass that will be fed to the worms for self-sufficiency.

Equipment alone is the biggest hurdle as to why farm businesses struggle to grow. With being an affiliate, you have the ability to utilize the parent entity’s tools and equipment when you need it. After all, with worm farming the heavy labor are occasional, most of the time it is feeding and harvesting, plus delivery and sales. Add to this, that not all people have the means and ability to do marketing, and procurement, and business automation.

How to Grow National or International

As stated above, the cookie cutter method is used throughout the participation of 2nd and 3rd level affiliates. They are required to concentrate on the production operations while the central entity is responsible for development, design, business automation, tools and equipment acquisition, marketing and sales, procurement, etc., anything that are not related to production operations and delivery. 2nd and 3rd level affiliates are required to concentrate on optimum production, delivery (transportation) and customer satisfaction. This is similar to the cookie cutter method employed by McDonalds to grow their empire.

Internationally, it may be hard to hard to compete with sub-tropical countries where the temperature is optimum for growing worms. But given the massive population of worms that this company employs (strength in numbers). Also, the use of automation and technical developments in worm farming will allow this company to compete with manual operations in current worm farming methods. However, as stated above, live bacteria may become a problem in cross-country shipment but that could change depending on the country’s policy for when there is food shortage.

Self-Sufficiency Requirements

There are persistent materials requirement in worm farming.

  • Bedding (or carbonaceous feed)
  • Actual food (nitrogenous feed)
  • Other supplements (coarse minerals, etc.)

Bedding can be in the form of cardboard, or peat moss, or wood chips. There could be an endless supply of “free*” cardboard and woodchips, however woodchips have a long exhaustive preparation stage prior to use as a bedding material. Peat moss is almost ready as a bedding but is an expense.

Actual food is food waste from food banks, supermarket, food stores, etc. However, there is a danger of self-sufficiency when there is competition or when there is food shortage (which is exactly the problem being solved by this business). This company and its affiliates must be able to sustain the feed requirement by our own – through farming cover crops and essential worm-feed plants on our own. It must be a necessity for affiliates to have a piece of farm land to ensure feed self-sufficiency.



Unknown facts about worms and related subjects

  • Worms (red wiggler) reproduce 250 times a year in optimum conditions. This factor can be corelated to profits.
  • Plants cannot readily utilize the fertilizers added onto the soil. First, the bacteria have to digest the available nutrients in the soil then it can deliver the “exudes” (poop) as plant nutrients.
  • Worms can reproduce double every 15-30 minutes, compared to worm reproduction or vermicasting production. There are millions of bacteria in a drop of vermicompost tea.
  • Worms exude enzymes that are natural pesticides. No need to use toxic pesticide on farmlands.
  • Worm castings are considered organic per USDA.
  • Worm castings and tea sold boxed and sealed on retailer stores may have a reduced bacterial count. Sealing the container will deprive the bacteria of oxygen. It is better to buy organic fertilizers then apply vermicompost tea in it.
  • Just like worms, bacteria will die-off in drought conditions.
  • The best time to apply vermicompost tea is when the soil is soaked wet but not gushing. Cover the soil to keep the bacteria from being dormant in the winter.
  • USDA has a program “Fertilizer Production Expansion Program” because they understand the looming problem of food shortage and food production.
  • Bacteria is needed more by herbaceous plants, while molds (fungus) are needed by woody plants and trees. Worm castings is rich in both bacteria and molds depending on the feed and bedding given to the worms to decompose.
  • Worm grunting is the act of calling the worms to surface from the ground. There are worm grunting festivals in some parts of the country.

“We can have millions of employees in one area producing a large profit, and we only work one day every three weeks. The best business to bet on is an animal that can reproduce a lot every year – bacteria, worms, etc.”

**If you are interested to be a partner of tildeWorms please feel free to send an email to wormfarmpartner@itsSOwonderful.com

***If you are interested on investing in our initial but feasibility-studied business endeavor, please send an email to wormfarminvestor@itsSOwonderful.com