The Cost of Serving ‘Local’

Providing local produce raises challenges for area restaurants and farmers

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Local.

It’s a term that evokes a feeling of pride, a sense of promoting an ideology that extends beyond a restaurant, delivering a shout-out to local farmers and showing a restaurant’s roots in the community.

But for some restaurants, sourcing local product is an unattainable luxury.

“The local [produce and meat] we forgo usually have price points more than double the alternative,” says Michelle Parrish, owner of Soul N’ Vinegar, a 500-square-foot neighborhood eatery that aims to provide quality, affordable healthy meals to surrounding residents in the East End.

Beyond price, the size of a farm, as well as the size of the restaurant, can make using local products difficult. Restaurants with 100 seats or more experience a higher volume of diners, which in turn requires chefs to source from more than one farm.

For smaller, independent farms that rely on a handful of people, it can be impossible to meet larger restaurants’ needs. Tricycle, an urban agriculture nonprofit with farms in Manchester and the East End, along with many other urban gardens, struggles to work with restaurants.

“What a restaurant goes through in a week as far as mixed greens could be close to what a small farmer like us grows in a season,” says Steve Hammond, policy and communication manager for Tricycle.

That feeling is echoed by Autumn Campbell, co-owner of 2.5-acre Tomten Farm, who works closely with many area restaurants but at times has to deny them produce and focus on direct-to-consumer sales, farmers markets and CSAs — community-supported agriculture in which people buy shares of a farmer’s crops.

“We don’t have the consistency restaurants need on a larger scale all the time,” Campbell says. “I think there is this weird middle-size-farm thing that doesn’t exist here.”

Although restaurants can source from different farms, it’s not easy. It requires chefs to maintain constant communication and relationships with farmers, to be flexible when variables such as heavy rain affect crops, and to be in tune with seasonality. Some find it simply easier and cheaper to order from a large wholesaler.

“I think there could be local produce, and we could afford to buy it … but that requires more than just ordering a lot, it’s based on relationships,” says Parrish, who’s a one-person show at Soul N’ Vinegar. “As a startup we do not have much flexibility, and our focus is on buying the best quality we can afford.”

Craig Perkinson, executive chef of Southbound, texts and calls small family-owned farms such as Broadfork in Moseley frequently throughout the week. The relationship takes work and give and take on both their parts. Perkinson may purchase over-picked produce that could go to waste, and Broadfork may deliver to him if he runs out of something.  

“It takes spending a little more money to print new menus because of what we got in today, and in the summer our food costs always go up [when more locally grown produce is available], but I’d rather give the guy down the street an extra dollar or two, and hopefully he’ll be around the next year like us,” Perkinson says.

Defining ‘Local’

Chefs, retailers and suppliers share what it means to them

“We define local in our produce section as sourcing within 100 miles of the store.” —Colin Beirne, marketing director, Ellwood Thompson’s

“We want to make food that reflects our time and place. I don’t want to buy food if I don’t know exactly where it came from, who grew it, what the conditions and challenges of getting it to our kitchen were.” —Sariann Lehrer, chef and co-owner, The Broken Tulip

“Local is knowing the names of the farmers and believing in the relationships. The money spent drives the local community of farmers to grow the best fruit and vegetables and harvest the best oysters and keep the art of farming viable.” —Mike Ledesma, chef-owner, Perch

“At Whole Foods Market, we define local as products that are sourced within the state where the store is located. Our Richmond store offers products from over 125 local suppliers, including many hyper-local products from the area.” —Kathleen Wood, Whole Foods local forager, Mid-Atlantic Region

“I would say, give or take, about a 30-mile radius or so. I might stretch that out to 60 … anything much beyond that doesn’t support freshness.” —Dominic Carpin, owner, delli Carpini Farm

“Our definition of local varies depending on the time of year and whether we’re talking about produce or proteins. We have not set a strict geographic area, but I would say within a hundred miles of Richmond is typical. In the summer, we are able to [get] produce even closer to home.” —Susan Davenport, co-owner, Tazza Kitchen