Eat right, buy local, be green

County restaurateurs, farmers joining forces

By E.B. FURGURSON III, Staff Writer

Craig Sewell is leading the local vanguard of a global movement in food - only regional, sustainably-grown produce and meats are served in his Annapolis cafe and catering business.

The chef/owner of A Cook's Cafe has a simple mantra: "How we eat determines how the world is used." And his Web site shouts proudly: "Buy Fresh and Buy Local."

His outlook is being copied, to varying degrees, by others. Consumers are beginning to demand local products, both to improve the quality, and reduce the impact of the food they eat.

Food industry purveyors, like Hearn Kirkwood, which supplies vegetables and meats to food outlets out of its Savage headquarters, are constantly hearing chefs push for more local products.

Local farmers are beginning to see the green too, on the bottom line and their impact on the planet.

There are various buzzwords that describe the movement, including "slow food,"

People dedicated to consume locally are called localvores. That's a new term, but Googling "localvore" generates 33,000 hits.

Type in "slow food" and you get more than seven million.

Organizations like Future Harvest, dedicated to sustainable agriculture, are cropping up to encourage new food thinking.

The slow food movement began in Italy when McDonald's proposed opening a store in the main piazza in Rome. Now an international organization has grown from that perceived gastronomic affront, dedicated to preserving local food traditions and a closer connection to the land and locally produced food.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture, charged with, among other things, keeping farmers working on their land via marketing and other programs, has recognized that trend.

This winter it held a series of forums for growers, grocers, food service buyers and smaller operators like Chef Sewell to grow together.

"We have gotten quite a lot of chain stores interested in promoting local produce," said MDA Marketing Services Chief Mark Powell.

Convincing normally wary farmers to make the investment to grow more produce and sell locally to restaurants, or even hospitals or schools, is a challenge. For instance, the labor costs for produce production, compared with working corn or soybeans is a huge consideration.

He said growers see local produce becoming a factor down the road.

"But this is happening now," Mr. Powell said. "The demand is significant. We are telling farmers there is an opportunity here, this is no flash in the pan."

Mr. Sewell began changing his business' focus in the past year. By November, he had successfully made the switch.

For him, the move to use only local food addresses several issues:

Higher quality food is far fresher, having been picked locally instead of two weeks ago and shipped 5,000 miles.

Keeping local farmers in business keeps land in agriculture instead of being used for more development.

Keeping trucks off the road helps reduce pollution contributing to global warming.

"I know the farmers, and the quality. It actually increases my food choices from season to season," he said. "Sure, I can order tomatoes this time of year, they are called 5 by 6 tomatoes. It's a 20-pound box packed in rows five tomatoes this way, six that way. They all look the same. And they taste like cardboard."

At the open house buyer-grower meeting held a week ago, he met local growers Sara Colhoun, of Ivy Brand organic farm in Edgewater and Bobi Crispens of Crispens Farm in Crownsville.

"I have worked with a restaurants and a caterers before," said Ms. Crispens, who sells at a stand by her General's Highway farm and at the Anne Arundel County Farmers Market on Riva Road.

"I hope to begin doing it more."

Most of the produce grown at Ms. Colhoun's organic farm is for the "community supported agriculture" program she runs.

CSAs are another trend in the buy local movement whereby people buy a share of the farm and get baskets of food throughout the season.

Ivy Brand sells some excess at the Riva Road market, too.

"But we are thinking about selling to restaurants. Mr. Sewell said he was thinking about buying a share," she said.

The Ivy Brand operation currently grows on 5 acres using intensive, raised bed methods. That size farm venture can establish relationships with individual businesses and provide niche products.

That is just what Mr. Sewell looks for, small producers growing quality products.

At the restaurant, he is using fresh baby lettuces, herbs, baby carrots, heirloom tomatoes and more from Davoncrest Farm II, across the bay in Trappe. His bacon, eggs, butter, turkey and tenderloin beef comes from Smithfield Farm in Baltimore County, where all the animals are hormone free and wander fields feeding the way they were supposed to. Free-range chicken come from Murray Hill Farm in Pennsylvania.

"It's about relationships. I know these people and how the go about growing their products," he said.

Growing the buy local theme is running up against the industrial model of food production. The food purchasing systems used by many restaurants, primarily the chains that dominate the restaurant industry, is built on massive quantities and distributions systems.

Transportation questions are another concentration for smaller growers and smaller restaurants, too. A big distributor, like the produce companies working at Maryland's major distribution center in Jessup, won't take orders for a box of this or a few bunches of scallions.

Mr. Sewell has one farmer on the Eastern Shore, whose neighbor works in Washington. The neighbor makes deliveries to a Cook's Cafe on the way to work, and tends to a few small accounts in Washington once he gets to town.

That won't work for local farmers trying to sell to a grocery or restaurant chain.

But the demand is growing.

Hearn Kirkwood, headquartered in Hanover, is beginning to get a lot of requests for local, local, local, said Ed Hunter, director of produce procurement.

"There is a big push coming from fine dining establishments and also from college food service," he said.

"And I tell you it is starting to have an impact, a positive impact."

He also was at the buyer-grower meeting.

Most of the local products they use are in what the industry calls hardwares - squash, apples and the like.

They buy some stuff from Anne Arundel's Papa John's Farms in Gambrills.

"It's growing, there is more and more interest. It is a godsend for smaller farmers," Mr. Hunter said.

That and a good mix of rain and sunshine, is just is what's needed for farmers looking to hold on.

Published 02/10/08, Copyright © 2008 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.