As restaurant consultants, we work closely with trusted purveyors, sources, and third parties to run our business and help our clients achieve their goals.
Through our trusted sources, we’ve gotten familiar with, and passionate about, farming in America. As we observed the industry grow, we got in on the ground floor as the farming community moved into Main Street, USA.
From organic farms and farmers markets to co-ops and farmer-owned restaurant concepts, sustainable harvests have become a mainstay for us.
Our focus on Farming in America: Present & Future is three-fold. Here’s a look at what we see from our perch:
1) Celebrate National Farmers Market Week: August 7-13, 2016. With more than 8,500 farmers markets around the country, these easily accessible markets are a great way to support local & regional farmers, ranchers and all sustainable agriculture communities and producers.
2) Support farmer-owned businesses. Let your local farmers market team of agricultural experts help guide your efforts to promote sustainable, farm fresh offerings on your menus for guests to enjoy and be inspired by. For us, one such farmer-owned client we work with is North Dakota Farmers Union (NDFU). Through our partnership, we’ve learned a lot about farming, and American family farms in particular. As we watched much of the restaurant industry cut labor costs and offer foods with additives to extend shelf life, our conversations with NDFU naturally turned towards the future of healthy food supplies. Hence, we developed Founding Farmers, a restaurant brand where guests benefit from a direct link to the source of foods cultivated on American family farms.
3) Farm Futures. As the farming industry grows, we look to the future of sustainable advances and initiatives needed to provide healthy, accessible food sources to all. Call to action: $30.1 million was recently funded through U.S. government grants for 80 innovative research projects aimed at helping to improve food safety, reduce antibiotic resistance in food, and increase resilience of plants – all in the face of climate change and the consequences it could have on our global food supply.
Maintaining a sustainable, healthy, and accessible food supply is rooted in our farming communities, here and around the globe, and crucial to future generations.
As restaurant owners & operators, collaborating with trusted farming sources to provide fresh, high-quality food (and inspiration) to guests is a step toward a sustainable future.
*photo: farming in America, Farmers Restaurant Group