Value Added: Should You Produce Your Own Specialty Food Products?

Some specialty food manufacturers are, themselves, farmers who raise a raw product and then "add value" to it by processing it into a specialty food products. These are called "vertically integrated" businesses because they engage in two or more stages of production that are commonly performed by separate companies. For example, a dairy that milks its cows and sells its milk in bulk to another company is NOT vertically integrated. A dairy that milks its cows and then processes that milk into cheese IS vertically integrated.
Beyond Fresh and Direct project, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture