FAIRMOUNT, Ind. – The former Honey Creek Legacy of Fairmount, Ind., has been officially launched and renamed Legacy Maker Farms after being acquired April 2 by an investor group led by entrepreneur and Evansville, Ind., native Steven Hershberger, officials announced.

“With this acquisition, we can deliver the quality experience of Legacy Maker products to a much larger customer base,” said Hershberger, who will serve as president and CEO. “At Legacy Maker Farms, we pledge to see ourselves as generational stewards of the land, the knife and the plate, and our commitment to the craft extends beyond remarkably good beef. 

“Through the cultivation of absolute trust, a culture of care, the premium experience and enduring relationships, Legacy Maker Farms is set to bring a more intelligent, empathetic and innovative approach to serving our customers. There’s a traditional way of understanding the consumer. But we’re taking a different approach,” he added.

According to an April 2 media statement, Legacy Maker Farms owns and operates Legacy Maker Meats, a premium beef brand producing “USDA Prime, all-natural beef through one of the most distinctive agricultural operations in the country.” 

Ian Baer, founder and CEO at Sooth & Alchemy, a New York City-based strategic marketing company, which represents Legacy Maker Farms, will serve as Legacy Maker Farms chief marketing officer, and also as an advisor to its Board of Directors.

He told Farm World that Hershberger acquired Legacy Maker Farms because “the dry-aged prime beef was simply the best he’d ever tasted, and virtually no one outside Indiana knew it existed.   

“With his background in consumer products and technology, Steve knew that, with the right team and brand, a 150-year-old, regeneratively-farmed Indiana operation could reach the restaurant, retail, and consumer customers it deserves, nationally,” he said.

Hershberger told Farm World a friend introduced him to one of the previous owners of Honey Creek Legacy who was looking to bring on a new investor, and wanted him to see the operation. 

In fact, Hershberger said the previous owner would write him a $1,000 check and fill his truck with product if he came up, tried it, and did not agree that it was the finest beef he’d ever had in his life: “I’ve had beef in Argentina, Japan, across Europe, and in Texas at the Steak Cookoff Championships in Hico. I’ve paid $200 a pound for Japanese Wagyu. So, his claim was bold.

“I went to collect my $1,000 and truck full of beef,” he said. “At that table, sampling four products from hamburgers to tri-tips to a Bavette to a Ribeye, I indeed had the finest tasting beef I had ever had.” Tri-tips are tender, triangular-shaped cuts of beef from the bottom sirloin, often called the ‘California cut.’

Hershberger said he then asked the previous owner why he wanted to sell: “He explained that the company had struggled to find any degree of success. He told me, ‘We are cattlemen, not food experts. We don’t know CPG (consumer-packaged goods), we don’t know retail, we don’t know data,” he said. 

“We don’t know manufacturing, and we don’t know how to scale a business. We don’t understand brands. You do.’” Hershberger added, “That is how it all began. I know how to build, so it resonated deeply. I also like to make tangible things that bring people together.” 

Baer said the rebrand reflects what the product truly is: heritage cattle, carbon-negative production, “and a level of craft the commercial beef industry abandoned decades ago. Legacy Maker Farms says it all. Our mission is to set a new standard for American premium beef, one that is good for the land, honest about how it’s made, and worth every dollar it costs.”

He added the new beef brand (Legacy Maker Meats) is also a platform for delivering a message essential to Hershberger: How Legacy Maker Farms can use the rituals and experiences surrounding food to rediscover the value and importance of an analog human-to-human connection and communication.

“That’s why one of the brand’s core values is the importance of embracing balanced, healthier approaches across all aspects of life, including nutrition,” he said. An analog is a person or thing seen as comparable to another.

He said Legacy Maker Farms has partnered with Sooth and their award-winning proprietary AI (artificial intelligence) system, Emotional Logic Interface (ELI), to integrate customer insights directly into product development, production, and brand experience: “Rather than guessing what our customers want, ELI gives us assurance that we know exactly what they need and expect from us every time. 

“Our partnership with Steve and the Legacy Maker team illustrates why I started Sooth, and why we built ELI,” he said in the media statement. “Most companies develop products first, then position them as best they can, working from limited, often inaccurate data and hoping for the best. That’s a bad bet, and why most product marketing and new brand launches fail. ELI flips the model.” 

He said every product and marketing decision Legacy Maker makes will be grounded in “verified, predictive intelligence about what customers actually respond to. When a brand’s entire experience, from product to packaging and marketing, is built on that foundation, it works for the customer, not the other way around. We’re honored to be part of this launch.”

Hershberger said, “ELI sits at the nexus between consumers’ hearts and wallets, providing powerful insight into their needs, wants and purchasing decisions. With our marketing, product and broader growth strategy all guided by ELI and Sooth, our goal is to reshape what it means to be a food and beverage company that serves both commercial and consumer customers.”

As far as how his new venture all relates to farmers, he also told Farm World, “We have much to learn from farmers, and that is a key part of our message, and our commitment to the land and the work we do at Legacy Maker Farms. Farmers know how to do the hard work. They’re creative by necessity. Patient by nature. There’s no instant gratification in farming, and that builds something in a person that’s increasingly rare.”

Citing a quote from an unknown author, he said, “A man asked a farmer why his crops grew so beautifully. The farmer said, ‘I don’t force them to grow. I simply remove what stops them.’ That’s the philosophy we’re bringing to Legacy Maker Farms. The product is already exceptional. Our job is to remove what’s been stopping it from reaching the people who deserve to experience it.”