Article

Sustainable farming grows on chefs

Farm-to-table forges ahead as one of the restaurant industry's fastest-growing eco trends.

February 26, 2007

As reports of mad cow disease and increasing obesity rates make consumers more conscious of restaurant-menu ingredients, eateries across the board are touting the sustainable-farming label in an effort to reach health-conscious consumers.

The trend, rated as one of the hottest movements in the restaurant industry by more than 1,100 American Culinary Federation chefs, emphasizes organic and locally grown produce, whole-grain breads and grass-fed meat products, and eschews food treated with pesticides, antibiotics and growth hormones.

Sustainable farming is making such a wave in the restaurant industry as a whole that the National Restaurant Association began work on a multi-year plan to guide the restaurant and foodservice industry towards environmentally sound institutional practices and develop policy initiatives focusing on sustainability. The NRA's goal is to identify practices that can reduce costs for restaurants while encouraging the creation and use of sustainable materials and alternative energy sources.

"Sustainability and conservation are important and timely issues, and we hope our new initiative will inspire the restaurant industry to explore business solutions that are both eco-smart and business-smart," said outgoing NRA president Steven C. Anderson.

By far, the fast-casual leader in the growth of the sustainable-farming trend has been Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. The concept, which now encompasses nearly 600 restaurants, sells about 30 million pounds of grass-fed meat each year, more than any other restaurant chain.

"Our commitment to natural and sustainable ingredients began about five years ago," said Chipotle chief executive Steve Ells. "We are very proud of the tremendous progress we've achieved in promoting healthy, humane and sustainable farming practices and believe our efforts have positively impacted the nation's food supply."

About 55 percent of the chain's chicken is naturally raised, as is more than 40 percent of its beef. Ells said he hopes to eventually create an entire menu using only sustainable ingredients.

"We are very much aware that sourcing a completely sustainable menu is an incremental process, dependent on identifying suppliers that share our vision and can best meet our needs," he said. "Our 'Food with Integrity' mission is the cornerstone of everything we do and we are constantly looking to make better choices surrounding the food we serve."

Beyond beef

The sustainable-farming trend reaches beyond hormone-free meat and organic produce as wheat and chicken farmers look to boost sales and revenue.

Even though the wheat farm that brothers Kyle and Travis Nielsen own near Billings, Mont., was successful, the pair didn't feel in control of their own destiny.

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The 15,000-acre wheat farm — purchased from their parents in the 1990s — ranked in the top 1 percent in gross revenues for family farms, but the brothers were at the mercy of the grain companies that bought their wheat.

"Wheat farming is a pretty tough business," Kyle Nielsen said. "You get paid whatever the grain companies want to pay you. It doesn't matter how much your inputs go up, you are still going to get the same amount."

To increase the value of their crops, the brothers partnered with a pair of restaurant consultants to develop Grains of Montana Café & Bakery, a soup, sandwich and burger restaurant featuring freshly-baked bread and sandwich buns. The flour used to bake the bread and sandwich buns at Grains of Montana is milled from wheat grown at the Nielsen farm. The same flour is used to make the dough used in the restaurant's pizza crusts.

The brothers hope to grow the concept from its present location in Billings to more than 300 restaurants over the next five to 10 years. Kyle Nielsen estimates the farm's wheat output could support as many as 250 Grains of Montana restaurants.

A few states away, Stiebrs Farms is promoting eggs from their cage-free chickens.

The farm recently signed a deal with Vancouver, Wash.-based The Holland Inc., which operates 39 Burgerville restaurants in Washington and Oregon. The company would be the first restaurant chain to use eggs from cage-free chickens.

According to the company, Burgerville will get approximately 600,000 eggs annually from Stiebrs Farms in Yelm, Wash. The chickens are certified "humane raised and handled" by the nonprofit Humane Farm Animal Care program, fed a vegetarian diet and are free of hormones and antibiotics.

Across the pond

The sustainable-farming trend is not limited to the United States. At London eatery Leon, the restaurant uses 100 percent organic and sustainable-farming products.

Restaurant co-founder Henry Dimbleby said the restaurant's main purpose was to sell great food using all-natural ingredients that include free-range chicken and hormone-free meat products.

"If you think about the people that eat with us, they care about where their food comes from. They care about the impact they have on their neighbors and they care about environmental issues," Dimbleby said.

Of Leon's products, 70 percent comes from the United Kingdom, and what doesn't falls under fair-trade guidelines. They also use products during their seasonal availability and will gladly remove items no longer in season.

"People love knowing they can't get something for the right reasons and it connects them to things happening with nature," Dimbleby said. "People want to feel more connected. If you can connect them to the world around them you awaken something more fundamental. And, it rushes away the monotonous regularity the big brands are so desperate to create."