Being in the food business for over 35 years, we’ve encountered lovers of local food across all sectors and walks of life, but the chefs we work with want local products for a few simple reasons.
1. Our Chefs Want the Best Products.
Our chefs want ingredients that come from trusted sources and travel short distances. Procuring the freshest ingredients just harvested from nearby farms, ranches, fishing boats, dairies, and cheese caves, sets their dishes apart with incredible quality and unique storytelling opportunities.
Like Snowville Creamery in Pomeroy, OH, whose buttermilk we take to Biscuit Love in Nashville, TN, to make those biscuits rich and fluffy.
At Café 1485 in Newnan, GA, Chef Darin Richard raves about the breakfast sausage, chicken sausage, and andouille we bring from Heywood Provisions, a premium butchery in Marietta, GA. Chef Darin says:
“It’s the only sausage I will use! We have a few recipes that rely on Heywood. Sausage gravy for biscuits, meat lovers’ omelets, and of course we form sausage patties for plates. I also love the smoked andouille.”
These are the kinds of fresh superstar products our chefs pride themselves on offering.
We offer the traceability and transparency that make our chefs confident they are serving the highest quality product to their diners. The stops along the way from farm to table are few, simple and handled with care.
2. We Make Buying Local Easy.
Our Sales and Customer Service teams know local. They are equipped with quick info sheets and regularly updated product lists to reflect the seasonality of local offerings. That seasonality can make coordinating directly with farmers tricky, but it’s also one of the things that makes serving local ingredients so special and exciting for chefs and diners.
Think about spring ramps, summer peaches, and fall heritage-breed turkeys or foraged mushrooms. Those are the local, seasonal specialties that get everyone excited about dining. But hitting the farmers markets every morning or calling around while you’re supposed to be in the kitchen just to track down these ingredients can be a big-time commitment. Making sure the vendors meet your needs consistently adds another layer of work. You need reliable, ready access to local ingredients. That’s where we come in.
Our education-driven approach means we work with small and medium-sized producers to get their products to the spec of our chefs, helping them through crop planning, and brand development.
That means when chefs log into our ordering platform, all they have to do is check the local list and click to pick. Simple as that. Learn how to search for local products on our ordering platform in the quick video below.
3. Our Chefs Care.
They eat too. They’re leaders in their communities. They want to support other local food businesses and invest in the economy where they live and work.
They have personal commitments to sustainability, nutrition, responsible practices in the supply chain, and more.
Just like many of the diners they serve, our chefs are values-driven, and when they cook with the local food we deliver, they’re proud of the impact they’re making. We help them reflect on and share that impact, by supporting them in tracking their local purchases for state Buy Local promotions and procurement commitments. We spotlight their efforts in shared marketing and messaging and share stories of partnerships between them and our farmers and food producers.
Our chefs love local, and our Local Food Connection program makes sure they get it.
If you want to learn more about the local products we offer, our local vendors, and our Local Food Connection program, check out our Local Food Now page!
