Farm to chef: Increasing farmer and chef capacity for marketing and purchasing agricultural products in western Pennsylvania

Farm to chef: Increasing farmer and chef capacity for marketing and purchasing agricultural products in western Pennsylvania

Summary

The proposed Farm to Chef project will connect farmers with chefs in the hopes of facilitating the selling and purchasing of agricultural products between farms and restaurants. The project will teach farmers how to sell to restaurants, where to find interested chefs, and what products to grow. This Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) project will also teach chefs what type of products are available, where to buy these products, and when to buy them. PASA will design and produce farmer and chef surveys, promote the project to farmers and chefs in western Pennsylvania, design and implement networking and learning opportunities for farmers and chefs, list interested farms and chefs in the Farm Fresh Guide and Sheet, and provide technical assistance. We will evaluate both the successes of our engagement activities and farm sales to participating restaurants.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Performance target: Of the 500 farmers and 200 chefs who learn about the project, 70 farmers will open new markets by selling at least $5,000 of their products to 50 chefs by 2008.

Milestone 1: Five hundred farmers and 200 chefs will learn about the project through newsletters, press releases, presentations, phone calls, mailings, and web sites;

Milestone 2: Three hundred and fifty farmers and 150 chefs will contact us and explain their interest in selling to chefs and buying from farmers;

Milestone 3: Two hundred and fifty farmers and 125 chefs will agree to participate in the project and list their businesses in the Farm Fresh Guide and Sheet;

Milestone 4: One hundred and seventy five farmers and 75 chefs will attend at least two events while the farmers begin using the guide to sell their agricultural products to chefs and the chefs begin using the Farm Fresh Sheet to purchase farm products;

Milestone 5: Seventy farmers and 50 chefs will seek technical assistance during their second year of participation in the project.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Milestones
Task 1. Design and produce farmer and chef surveys. As we are talking with farmers and chefs about the project, we will need to have surveys developed to compile the farmer and chef information. The survey for farmers will collect contact information, products available, and delivery schedule. The survey for chefs will collect contact information, time of day to call, products they’re interested in purchasing, and delivery schedule. Development of these materials will be done by October 2005.

Progress to date: In 2005 we completed the farmer and chef surveys.

Task 2. Promote the project to farmers and chefs in western Pennsylvania. We will utilize our connections with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Penn State University Cooperative Extension, Pennsylvania Conservation Districts, Project Grass, regional restaurants, and the American Culinary Federation to promote the project. We will prepare press releases for regional newspapers, presentation for conference workshops, and notices for newsletters, web sites, email, and U.S. postal mail. We will promote the project from November 2005 to March 2006.

Progress to date: In 2006 the project was advertised in 21 newsletters and 10 newspapers, presented to the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Culinary Federation and an exhibit was set up at the Food Service and Restaurant Expo. Approximately 375 farmers and 125 chefs were contacted by March 2006. At the end of March 2006, 250 farmers and 75 chefs contacted us with their interest in selling to restaurants and buying from farms.

Task 3. Design and implement networking and learning opportunities for farmers and chefs. We will design nine events that will provide information and hands-on learning opportunities for both farmers and chefs. There will be three Farm to Chef meetings held in the region focusing on establishing relationships with chefs, determining what to grow for restaurants and how to prepare items for delivery, and teaching chefs about the seasonality of products. A total of four local food events will be held in the region to promote the purchasing and preparation of local foods. Chefs will develop the menus for the events and local farms will supply the food. The last two events will be field days where farmers and chefs will receive hands-on lessons about selling to restaurants and purchasing from farms. One field day will be held at a farm and the other will be held at a restaurant. The design and implementation of these events will take place from March 2006 to October 2007.

Progress to date: In 2006 we held two local food events (a Summer Farm Dinner and a Fall Harvest Celebration), and hosted one field day meeting at a local farm. A total of 30 farms contributed products to these two events and 10 chefs prepared the food for over 350 consumers. Over 80 farmers attended the field day.

Task 4. List interested farms and chefs in the Farm Fresh Guide and Sheet. As interested farmers and chefs begin to respond to our promotions, we will begin to survey each group. The information we obtain will then be placed in the Farm Fresh Guide. The guide will list all interested farms and restaurants from the 19 county region. The Farm Fresh Sheet will list all the farms interested in selling to restaurants and what each farm has to sell for the current week. The development of the Farm Fresh Guide will be completed and distributed by June 2006. The Fresh Sheet will also be completed by June 2006 and distributed to chefs from June 2006 to December 2007.

Progress to date:
The 2006 Farm Fresh Guide was printed in June and contains the contact information for farms and the products they produce. Approximately 150 farms are listed in the guide. Complimenting the guide is the buylocalpa.org website which lists these same farms and their products. Restaurants use the site to search for farms by location and product.

The Farm Fresh Sheet was not published. After attempting to work with over 50 farms to develop the sheet, we quickly learned that obtaining information from our selected farms would be difficult. Instead of working from the farmer end, we began working directly with chefs to find out exactly what they wanted. Once a restaurant’s initial requests were determined, we sourced their products needs by contacting farmers in the area who produced these products. Farmers were much more cooperative with this approach since they knew that our role was to bring them potential sales instead of just collecting their production information.

As we developed this new process between March and May 2006 (collecting purchasing information from chefs and then sourcing products from farmers), we quickly transitioned from providing information to providing technical assistance. From June to December 2006, we have started working relationships with 25 chefs and over 30 farmers.

Task 5. Provide technical assistance. We will contact both the farmers and chefs participating in the project by phone and email between the networking and educational events to question them about their progress and provide them with technical assistance. On farm meetings will also be scheduled. This task will begin in June 2006 and end in December 2007. We hope to provide assistance to participants from their first deliveries and orders up to the point when 70 farmers have opened new markets by selling at least $5,000 of their products to 50 chefs.

Progress to date:
Beginning in June 2006, we provided technical assistance to a number of farms and restaurants. Some of these initial connections were successful, some were not. As stated in Task 4, a total of 25 chefs and over 30 farmers are currently involved in the project. Below is a list of technical assistance activities:
• Connected Keystone Farmers Cooperative and McGinnis Sisters’ Special Food Stores to help arrange a possible in-store demo of beef and use of their beef with their catering operations.
• Met with Aladdin Food Management Services, Inc. in Coraopolis to discuss local food buying for their Catholic Motherhouse accounts. In March we began contacting farmers and food purveyors to service them.
• Met with Sister Lynn Szymkiewicz to discuss the possibility of other Catholic Motherhouses in the area purchasing farm products.
• Met with Aileen Magnotto of Magnotto’s Shop N Save in Hermitage and a local pork producer to discuss the purchasing of pastured pork for their store catering operation.
• Met with general manager, executive chef and purchasing agent of Levy Restaurants in the David Lawrence Convention Center to discuss their local food initiative. Provided them with contacts for certified organic producers, local dairies and advised them on how they can efficiently implement their local food initiative.
• Met with the director of operations of Sunfresh Food Service to discuss helping them get accounts with AVI food service in colleges who are interested in purchasing locally produced farm products.
• Met with Chef Christy Fox of South Beach to discuss her local purchasing needs.
• Began working with Pennsylvania Culinary Institute instructors to begin integrating local farm products into their curriculum.
• Met with Wholey’s Market in the Strip District to discuss the possibility of sourcing their produce from local farmers.
• Met with Green Grocer, a produce food purveyor, to discuss the possibility of purchasing more farm products for their restaurant accounts.
• Met with Triple B Farms to discuss their interest in selling to restaurants.
• Met with Paragon-Monteverde representatives (Gloria Garofalo and Joel Ankney) to discuss the expansion of their local farm products purchasing. Also coordinated a meeting between Paragon, local chefs and local farmers to discuss opportunities for increased sales of farm products to local restaurants.
• Visited several restaurant businesses in Pittsburgh’s Strip Sistrict with a local goat producer to help her promote her product.
• Met with Chef Vincent Sanzotti, Executive Chef of the St. Clair Country Club and Bill Beinlich of Triple B Farms to discuss the local food purchasing possibilities for 2007. This meeting is in conjunction with an order that I arranged of 200 baby pumpkins for the country club from Triple B Farms.
• Met with Chef Anthony Zallo and Tanya Turner to discuss the possibility of him working with KFCA and another local pork farmer.
• Met with Trevett Hooper, PASA member, to discuss his possible future restaurant opening and his interest in buying local farm products.
• Met with Kate Bayer of Allegheny East Specialty Produce and Jamie Moore of Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, Inc. to discuss what lettuces could be produced and sold to Six Penn Kitchen. Also spoke to Kate about possible relationship with Levy Restaurants.
• Met with Roger Clatterbuck, Assistant Director of Purchasing and Logistics, of Nemacolin Woodlands Resort to discuss their commitment to 10% of local food in their kitchens.
• Met with Chef Anthony Zallo and Steve and Becky Forman to discuss the purchasing of pork for 2007.
• Worked with Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance (a group of 12 farms) to develop accounts payable and receivable forms and new restaurant accounts.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

In 2005 the survey instruments for both the farmers and chefs were completed and distributed to farmers and chefs who are members of PASA. In order to reach a larger audience, press releases are being sent to a number of sources. These sources include the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Penn State University Cooperative Extension, Pennsylvania Conservation Districts, Project Grass, regional restaurants, the American Culinary Federation and regional media outlets.

In 2006 we held two local food events which engaged 30 farms, 10 chefs and 350 consumers. A field day held in July 2006 yielded 80 farmers to learn from an area farmer about selling to restaurants. Representatives from area restaurants and food distributors were at the field day to meet with farmers and discuss business opportunities.

Approximately 65,000 copies of the 2006 Farm Fresh Guide were printed and distributed in Western Pennsylvania. Initially a tool for the Farm to Chef project, this guide has become a “how to” guide for consumers in the region to find farms, restaurants, farmers’ markets, farm markets and grocery stores that produce, prepare or sell local farm products. Along with the buylocapa.org website, over 70,000 consumers were provided with information on where to find locally produced foods.

Through our process of distributing information from farms to chefs, we realized that farmers were not interested in someone calling and collecting their production information and prices. Once we started collecting food purchasing information from area chef’s, area farmers were then invited to meetings with chefs and given the opportunity to sell their products. Farmers were much more cooperative with this approach since they knew that our role was to bring them potential sales instead of just collecting their production information.

As of December 2006, we have started working relationships with 25 chefs and over 30 farmers. These farms have collectively sold approximately $106,000 worth of farm products to area restaurants and caterers.