Overcoming challenges of bringing food from the farm to the table
Organizations seize appetite for going local by connecting farmers, chefs
Getting more local food to more Ontarians is not just a matter of growing the right stuff — the bigger challenge is getting consumers to eat it. And that means serving it up how and where they want it.
It’s a challenge Peter Sawtell and Grace Mandarano of 100km Foods Inc. have been working on since starting their local food distribution company nine years ago.
They saw a growing appetite for local produce — consumers who wanted to eat it and chefs and restaurants wanting to serve it.
They seized an opportunity to connect farmers and chefs, starting with a single truck to make both farm pickups and deliveries to customers. Chefs would place an order on Thursday for delivery on Tuesday. Not an ideal turnaround scenario, said Sawtell.
“It was a big leap of faith for chefs to work with us, but those visionaries like Jamie Kennedy, Anthony Walsh of Oliver and Bonacini, and Owen Steinberg saw the value. And it was our job to tighten things up.”
Today, thanks to support from the Greenbelt Fund along with a growing network of farms and customers, 100km Foods has 10 trucks on the road and employs 25 people.
He’s giving the chefs what they want: deliveries four days a week with product that’s harvested to order.
“When a chef places an order, the food is still in the ground. We send a truck to pick it up, it comes to our facility for packaging, and the drivers come in in the morning to deliver what was growing the day before.”
“We’ve been grinding out the distribution model and ironing it out for nine years now,” Sawtell says. Annual revenues have gone from $243,000 in 2008 to close to $5 million today.
In the food distribution game, a little creativity goes a long way. But it can take a while.
This past summer, Subway restau- rants in Ontario amped up their commitment to serving local tomatoes, onions, green peppers and cucumbers when in season.
“For the most part green peppers and cucumbers have always been local (for Subway) when in season,” said David Capobianco, director of food service for Burnac Produce, which supplies Subway.
“But with tomatoes, we had to work with local growers to produce a tomato that was similar to what Subway needed to use in their supply chains. They needed to perform well, so we tested them in a small portion of Subway restaurants and the feedback was good.”
This year Subway tripled the amount of local tomatoes and used only Ontario-grown onions during their four-month harvest season.
Signage in Subway restaurants touted “Ontario-grown produce” along with the logos of the Greenbelt, which supported the research, and Foodland Ontario.
“Subway is always interested in testing and trying different things, and doing research projects,” said Capobianco. “It feels good supporting the local economy and doing something that’s better for the environment — and at the same time giving consumers what they want.”
He’s confident the program will expand in 2017.
“I hope this will be a learning experience for others in the food-service industry.”