12/13/2025
Today’s my 30th birthday🥹 The end of a decade, and the start of a new one. A bittersweet moment, really.
This weekend I’ve been spending my time leaving my 20’s and ringing in my 30’s at the North Dakota Farmers Union 99th State Convention….how serendipitous. The last time I attended State Convention over my birthday was the year I received my Torchbearers Award; fast forward to this year and it’s my first State Convention as Walsh County Farmers Union’s Board President (and my second year as EPIC Coach). I’ve been involved with Farmers Union quite literally my entire life. I was heavily involved in the youth program as a kid, attended camp every year (and still have the best friends in my life from camp to this day), was able to attend so many award trips- from Medora to Twins Games to being able to attend All States Camp in Colorado-which later led to my first paid internship in rural Kansas before I started college at Oklahoma State University.
Annnnd since at the root of it all, Farmers Union is a Co-op and I’m in my feels about my birthday, this seemed like the perfect time to chat about that pesky little “Co.” in The Yield Co. brand name😉
People ask me a lot what the “Co.” stands for in The Yield Co. Everyone just assumes that it must be company….but honestly? “Company” is the least interesting option.
The Yield Co. grows deeper than that.
So here’s the whole story —
why it’s Yield, why it’s Co., and why together they make sense for what I’m building.
THE YIELD
Let’s start with the big one:
Yield.
It’s a farm word. A baking word. A life word.
It’s the root of this entire thing.
Yield means harvest
It’s the payoff for the work.
The season’s offering.
The thing the land (and the dough) gives back after you’ve done your part.
Every loaf.
Every cookie.
Every roll that leaves my kitchen is part of that harvest.
Yield means to give
The dough gives.
The farm gives.
And I give — my time, my hands, my heart, my chaos, and my chronic inability to feed any crowd smaller than an army.
Yield means return
Sometimes the return is financial.
Sometimes it’s emotional.
Often it’s the serotonin hit of opening the oven and seeing a loaf that didn’t collapse out of spite.
Yield means slow down
Sourdough refuses to be rushed.
It forces you to pause and let things rise in their own damn time.
That has basically been my entire personal growth arc.
Yield means the season’s flavors
Strawberries when they’re ready.
Tomatoes when the gardens pop off.
Pumpkin when the wind turns rude.
I bake with what the season yields — literally.
Yield means invitation
It’s not just my yield.
It’s ours — the food we share, the community we build, the stories people tell me about their grandparents, their traditions, their kitchen memories.
Yield is the thing we create together.
THE “CO.”
Now, about that “Co.”
If you think it stands only for “company,” I’m about to ruin — or improve — your whole worldview.
The Co. is a collection of everything that makes this bakery more than one person at a countertop.
Here’s what it really stands for:
Co-create
Every menu, every flavor, every drop day has been shaped by you all asking, tasting, suggesting, and cheering me on.
Co-mmunity
The Yield Co. is built on neighbors supporting neighbors, even when those neighbors live 45 miles apart and only see each other on bread-day.
Co-operate
I’m a Farmers Union kid — cooperation is in my bones.
This whole thing exists because people are willing to work with me, not just buy from me.
Co-labor
This is shared work.
You order → I bake → you feed your family → I get to keep the lights on and the plants alive.
We do this together.
Co-llide
My grief, my farm life, my chaos, my stubborn self-employment streak, and my compulsive baking habits all collided into one business.
Somehow it worked out.
Co-mforth (yes, I know it’s not spelled that way — let me cook)
Because comfort is at the center of everything I bake.
Warmth, familiarity, softness, carbs.
Food that tastes like safety.
Co-nnection
Every drop, every pickup, every DM, every taste test — this bakery exists because of real people connecting over real food.
SO TOGETHER…
Yield is what the land gives.
Co. is what we build together.
The Yield Co. is:
a farm kitchen, a community, a coping mechanism, a little feral, a little wholesome, a whole lot of carbs, and a place where flavors, people, and stories come together and actually mean something.
It’s not “The Yield Company.”
It never has been.
It’s The Yield Co.
Because it’s all of us — the giving, the gathering, the growing, the chaos, the comfort —
co-everything.
And if you’ve been here from the messy beginning — or if you just wandered in because someone handed you a slice of sourdough and you wanted more —
thank you.
Thank you for showing up.
Thank you for cheering when I hit a stride, and laughing with me when something absolutely feral happens in the kitchen (because it will).
Thank you for choosing small-batch, small-town, small-business over convenience.
Thank you for letting my baking become part of your routines, your tables, your holidays, your Tuesdays, your comfort.
The Yield Co. exists because of you — your support, your curiosity, your appetite, your stories, your willingness to invest in something handmade, season-shaped, and deeply human.
This isn’t just my yield anymore.
It’s ours.
A shared harvest of joy, community, nostalgia, and carbs that genuinely taste like someone cared.
So here’s to more:
More loaves.
More connection.
More honest, homegrown goodness.
More of us creating, sharing, and enjoying what this little bakery brings into the world.
From my kitchen to your table —
thank you for being part of The Yield Co.
I couldn’t do it without you, and honestly?
I wouldn’t want to.
So Cheers to me, Cheers to you, Cheers to us, and Cheers 🥂 to everything we continue to Co-…together.
With so much love,
Cate💛🌾
