Sourcing sustainable, local ingredients sometimes can feel like New Year resolutions: everyone sets out with the best of intentions, but often plans get derailed for a variety of reasons. Here are our top 5 tips for how you can source better products for your establishment.

1. Be flexible

By all means, plan your menus in advance. Start thinking in May about what your summer menu will look like. But keep in mind that nature doesn’t work on a strict timeline. Those heirloom tomatoes you’re counting on might be delayed by a few days or by a few weeks, depending on what the weather does. If you can stay flexible, you can even turn it into a great marketing opportunity—educate your diners on why you’ve had to swap in another appetizer for the tomato dish they were expecting, and you’ll be showing off your sustainable sourcing cred in a very meaningful way.

2. Buy at the height of the season

Not only does buying in season mean that produce will be at its most flavorful and nutritious, there’s also an economic benefit. You’ve heard of the term ‘bumper crop’? When things come together in just the right way, farmers can find themselves with a particularly productive harvest and therefore more products than they were expecting. If they don’t have sufficient storage space, they’ll be looking to offload this product quickly, which means bargain prices for you.

3. Get comfortable with frozen meat

This is a tough one for many chefs to swallow. The prevalent feeling is that frozen meat suffers from poor texture and overall quality. However, if you’re looking for a particular type of cut for a dish on your menu—say, hanger steak—remember that producers can only get a few cuts out of each animal. There is only one hanger steak per cow. So if you need 10 hanger steaks a night, that’s 10 animals that need to be processed. A small farmer can’t process 10 cows for you unless they either have homes for the rest of the cuts, or they know if they freeze the rest and put it in inventory, there will be other buyers in the future.

In fact, when flash freezing is done immediately after processing, as most small processors do, it locks in all the flavors, juices and minerals that make up a great piece of meat and the quality is equal to fresh.

4. Start small

Think that local producers can’t handle the volume you need? If you’re buying thousands of pounds of one item at a time and expect it to come from one farm from the beginning, you’re probably right. But why not diversify your sources? If you work with FarmersWeb, locally-focused distributors like Hudson Valley Harvest, or other aggregators, they can generally help you find a handful of local growers who together can supply what you need. Or alternatively, why not buy the hundred pounds that that one local grower can supply you with, and supplement the rest through your regular broadline distributor? As you buy what they have, local growers can produce more—which leads us to #5…

5. Develop relationships with your growers

As you begin purchasing from local farms, keep the dialogue going. Don’t be afraid to politely let them know if you don’t get exactly what you want and why, and they’ll be willing to work towards getting you what you want. If you have a long-term relationship, the farms will also be more than happy to include you in pre-season planning, so they can grow exactly what items you know you’ll need and in the quantities you’ll need them.

There are certainly unique challenges associated with sourcing more sustainable ingredients for your establishment, but once you get the hang of the routine, it can be just as easy and certainly more satisfying than ordering everything from your regular broadline distributor. If you want to know more about how to get started, please feel free to contact us at info@farmersweb.com.

It’s easy to imagine a boxed mesclun salad on a supermarket shelf or even a beautifully plated corn farrotto in a restaurant, but each ingredient begins somewhere. Oftentimes the hard work and dedication that goes in to producing these raw ingredients takes a backseat to the process of preparing a finished dish.

With more and more consumers becoming interested in the provenance of their food, never has the farmer’s contribution been more important than it is today. Which is exactly why Senior Culinary Nutritionist Natalia Hancock feels it’s important that the SPE Certified team -- including our dietetic interns – appreciate the care and effort that goes on behind the scenes.

Last week we visited D’Agata’s Fine Family Farm, CT , Oxen Hill Farm, CT, Hastings Farm, CT and Cook Farm, MA on an eye-opening day out. Typically these farmers are working 12-16 hour days outside. It’s testament to their commitment that they were all happy to take the time to show us around. It’s an experience that the whole team would highly recommend – you can contact each farm to arrange a tour using the websites linked above.

Although raw, non-homogenized milk cannot be sold legally in supermarkets, it can be purchased directly from some dairy farms.

The staff at Hastings Farm were kind enough to let us try some of their farm-made cheese and Greek yogurt. And it was delicious.

Fermented silage is required in great quantities to feed over 20 dairy cows at Hastings Farm.

Artichokes growing in the greenhouse at Oxen Hill Farm.

Fresh produce at Oxen Hill. You can’t beat the smell of fresh strawberries and basil!

SPE Certified Executive Chef Anthony Moraes poses with a new friend.

If you’re interested in learning more about farming, we would strongly encourage you to contact the farms mentioned above via their respective websites and request a small, guided tour.

Our Culinary Nutritionist Andrea Canada, Dietetic Intern Shirley Brouwers and I took ourselves out of the office to visit some sustainable, organic and biodynamic farms in upstate New York. First on the visiting list was Hemlock Hill, a family owned and operated farm in Westchester.

All of the beef, chicken, lamb, geese and goats here are pasture-raised, which is a stark contrast to the confined and bustling streets of NYC.  Hemlock Hill also raises all of its animals hormone and antibiotic free, which is something encouraged by SPE’s Philosophy of Ingredients.

Hemlock Hill has its own farm store, so be sure to stop by if you’re in the area to pick up some locally grown fruit, meat and veggies.

Our next visit took us to Millbrook, NY, to Lightning Tree Farm. Lightning Tree is a certified organic grain farm (USDA approved and NOFA-NY Certified), producing separate grains for both animal and human consumption.

We were shown around the farm by Alton Earnhart, a farmer passionate about growing both organically and sustainably. Alton’s knowledge of historical farming practices and dedication to farming organically is admirable – he also serves up home-grown organic oatmeal to his family for breakfast.

Lightning Tree farm is a shining example of how a grain farm should operate. Its pesticide-free and organic practices produce excellent results. A lot of Alton’s customers drive a long way to buy his products, and with good reason.

Our final visit of the day was to Hawthorne Valley Farm, a 400-acre biodynamic farm in Columbia County, NY. The farm produces organic dairy products, fresh vegetables, hosts its own organic bakery and even has its own sauerkraut cellar.

What first struck me about this farm was the space dedicated to the dairy cows. The cows are outside whenever possible, feeding on the natural grass grown inside a huge pasture. The dairy operation at Hawthorne Valley produces a multitude of cheeses, raw milk and yogurts made on-site.

The farm is biodynamic, meaning that it’s self-sustainable. The fertilizer for the produce comes from the cows themselves, so it’s a guaranteed organic approach.

Hawthorne Valley welcomes visitors and offers full tours, tasting sessions and even summer camps for kids. If you’re looking for an education on biodynamic farming and want to see how real food starts out, Hawthorne Valley Farm is a true experience, run by a dedicated staff who are trying to make a genuine difference.

If you’re in the area or are looking for something different to do this weekend, arrange for a tour of an organic and sustainable farming operation. I guarantee it’s an education that you won’t find elsewhere.