Farm-to-table, farm-to-fork, seasonal dining – whatever you call it, the movement to use more local produce and meats is alive and well in Georgia’s restaurants. Hundreds of farms dot Georgia’s landscape – some nestled tightly within cities and others spanning hundreds of acres of countryside – all growing everything from carrots and peaches to Hakurei turnips and water spinach.
These local growers aren’t just at your neighborhood farmers markets. They’re also walking in your kitchen’s back door, providing the freshest, just-picked product to make your dishes shine.
While some restaurants have known for years that forming a solid relationship with local farmers can provide a multitude of benefits, recent supply chain issues have led more owners and chefs to turn to local farmers for the products they need.
While every type of restaurant may not have the right business model to incorporate locally sourced produce, cheese or meat into their menu, those that can take advantage of the bounty grown and produced in the state have good reason to foster their relationships with farmers. The focus on eating healthier and tastier food certainly plays a big role in using locally sourced products, but there are other benefits like supporting the local community and economy, reducing gas emissions with shorter transportation routes and less packaging, plus the added benefit of attracting customers who want the freshest food and who care where that food came from.
Sure, there are challenges with local sourcing for farmers and chefs alike. Crops are seasonal, so you can only get what’s ready to harvest. And the amount of product farmers have changes weekly so there may not be enough of one thing or the other. Then there’s the weather, which can make or break a crop.
On the upside, local farmers may be able to grow hard-to-find items that are specific to certain cuisines, giving restaurateurs a real opportunity to carve out that special niche in the marketplace.
Whether you already source locally or want to get started, the key to success in local sourcing is building relationships – and those can start in a variety of ways. Sometimes, all a chef has to do is answer the door.
Peak Freshness
In what could be called a circuitous start, Chris Bach began his life as a farmer after a career in the securities industry – and as he calls it “a head-on collision with life.” After going through a divorce, being let go during the financial crisis, and dealing with major depression and anxiety, a friend coaxed him to “get outside and do something.”
“We went foraging for chanterelle mushrooms in local parks around Atlanta,” he recalls. And it didn’t take Bach long to find his footing. “I felt really good. Exercise and a little sunlight really helps with depression and anxiety,” he says. Then one day he went out by himself and foraged 50 pounds of chanterelles. “I figured I would just knock on some restaurant doors. And all of a sudden I sold 50 pounds of chanterelles for $18 a pound!”
After foraging for about three years, Bach said chefs started asking what else he had.
“I had a big garden and was talking about farming, so I went to the local farmer’s market to see if any of them had extra land, and one had a quarter acre. I threw down some seeds and guess what?” he laughs. “Stuff grew!”
He was soon knocking on doors with his produce and selling to some of Atlanta’s most highly regarded restaurants, including Miller Union, Staplehouse, Gunshow, Tiny Lou’s and The Optimist.
Bach, who has a passion for food and began cooking at 12, believes his strong relationships with some of Georgia’s top chefs stem from his fascination for what they’re doing.
“No one is going to buy anything from you unless they know you care about them and care about what they are doing, what their needs are and what kinds of vegetables they want,” he says. And freshness is paramount. He harvests in the morning twice a week and delivers that afternoon.
Bach currently farms an acre at a time at a farm in Monroe, where he grows seasonal produce like kale, collards and spring onions, as well as harder-to-find items, including special varieties of squash and eggplant, French breakfast radishes and Hakurei turnips.
One chef who takes advantages of Bach’s unusual offerings after answering the farmer’s “knock on the door” is Bruce McQuain, executive chef at The Roe, which opened in downtown Monroe in 2021.
McQuain says the original concept for The Roe was all around sourcing locally – and not just for produce. “We have a USDA-inspected full carcass butcher shop and process whole cows, pig and lamb,” he explains. The in-house butcher, J.D. Felt, sources cattle from Stone Mountain Cattle Company, pork from Comfort Farms in Milledgeville, and lamb from Two Brothers Sheep Company in Greensboro.
“We even render and strain the fat from our butchery for our beef fat fries,” says McQuain. “The fat from those cows in Stone Mountain has a very, very clean flavor, and it has a lot to do with the way they’re fed.” No part of the animal is wasted, notes McQuain. “We use those bones to make our stocks.”
The Roe also makes its own sourdough and croissants in-house, and McQuain says they are looking into sourcing chicken locally as well.
Owned by husband and wife Daniel and Lindsey South and Daniel’s brother Taylor South, The Roe initially opened with a market and served lunch and small plates at dinner. When McQuain arrived in October 2021, he expanded the dinner service and added five-course wine dinners once or twice a month that usually sell out.
“We have permanent lunch and dinner menus, but I handwrite a special menu every day based on what I’ve gotten from the farmers,” he says. “They kind of write our menu.”
McQuain believes that the farmers know their land best and they know what they grow well. By trusting that the farmers are well-tuned to their land, chefs can get the freshest produce around.
“Chefs are an ambitious lot,” he says. “They want to do what they want to do when they want to do it to a certain extent. But the biggest thing about local is that you want to highlight the best of what’s available.” That means using produce that’s in season. “I don’t want to give you things that aren’t at their peak. So we depend on the farmers in that respect. I just want their good stuff.”
Admittedly he says there will be times when he runs out of something, but “I put plans in place for that and try to mitigate that as best I can.”
McQuain works with six foragers and farmers for mushrooms, microgreens and produce. “A lot of our mainstay stuff comes from David and Anita White, owners of It Began With a Seed farm in Lula, like lettuces and squash – he does over 14 varieties of lettuce.”
But McQuain also takes advantage of the specialty items that Bach provides. “Chris adds a lot of specialty things. Last year we were using a lot of his eggplant, shishito peppers, beets, radishes, turnips,” he says. “I’m a big fan. The stuff he brings me is gone in a day or two.”
A Customized Harvest
Letting the farmers lead the way in shaping menus with seasonal products is certainly one approach, but some chefs often go a step farther and work with farmers to grow specific items. That, too, comes with time.
“If you create a really good relationship with a farmer over time,” says Parnass Savang, owner and chef of Thai restaurant Talat Market in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood, “and they’re willing to experiment and pick seeds that you give them – they can grow those for you.”
Savang says building those relationships starts with a shared passion for good ingredients and regular communication. “I used to work with restaurants that were heavily involved with local farmers and local produce, and they were trying to push to have the best food in Atlanta,” he says. “I discovered that that carrot or turnip or those collar greens that were being sourced from local farmers just tasted very different – sweeter and more in depth – and that got me hooked.”
A few years ago when he launched his original pop-up at Gato in Candler Park, Savang needed water spinach for a specific dish and couldn’t find it. “That was one of my favorite things that I had in Thailand, and when I came back from there one year, I never found it.”
Since he had developed a good relationship with Nick Donck at Crystal Organic Farms in Newborn, Savang talked with him about growing a variety of things. After some trial and error, “the one that was really successful for his business and my business was that water spinach. Moments like that keep me wanting to use local produce.”
Working with Rahul Anand at Snapfinger Farm in Stockbridge is another case in point. “I know if I get turnips from him,” says Savang, “he really cares about growing these turnips and is excited about it. And I’m excited about making Thai food that is different from other Thai restaurants.”
In fact, Savang says that he doesn’t see a lot of Thai restaurants working with farmers to source locally. “To be realistic,” he says, “in the winter it’s a little harder. We’re a tropical type of cuisine. We can’t source directly all of the time from local farmers because then we wouldn’t be able to pull off the kinds of things that we do at a Thai restaurant.”
Since so many locally sourced products are seasonal, Savang, who buys produce and meat from 12 different farmers and foragers, adjusts his menu accordingly. “We have dishes that are on the menu all the time, and just like the seasons they change ingredients.” For instance, a fruit salad is always on the menu. It may feature peaches and watermelon when they are in season, then switch to Asian pear and apple during the fall and winter.
Savang is currently working with Zach Richards at Levity Farms in Madison to grow specific things for his restaurant. “He uses an app called Tend [for organic farm management]. You know what produce you need to put down, and the app tells you when it was planted and when it will probably be time to harvest. So I can create my menu and schedule around when that produce will be done.” This allows Savang to schedule the number of days he can test and experiment before the produce comes in, and “then it’s like showtime at the restaurant.”
Building Lasting Relationships
Creating connections between farmers and chefs and restaurateurs can definitely take more effort than waiting for a farmer to knock on the kitchen door. One place to start is Georgia Organics, the oldest statewide member-supported nonprofit that provides direct support to local and organic farmers and works with chefs to increase sustainable and organic purchasing by Georgia restaurants.
“In a lot of our different programs, Georgia Organics is acting as a facilitator and as a resource for farmers,” says Kayla Williams, Farmer Champion senior coordinator. “Georgia Organics as a whole and the Farmers Services team works with a lot of farmers,” they explain, “and their entire program is focused on directing technical assistance through a variety of programs.” Those programs include its Farmer Accelerator Program, Climate Smart Farmer Program and Emergency Farmer Fund.
Williams leads Georgia Organic’s Farmers Champion program, a verification process for restaurants that are committed to sourcing locally and fostering farmer prosperity. To attain the Farmer Champion designation, the process itself requires restaurants to submit invoices from a two-week period twice a year. “They submit their invoices from all of the food purchases,” explains Williams, “and I manually pull out the local food costs and local certified organic food costs so I can see what percentage they’re purchasing locally.”
Once a restaurant verifies that at least five percent of its sourcing comes from Georgia, it becomes an official Farmer Champion. Additional tiers of recognition – bronze, silver and gold – are reached after submitting three quarters of invoices that reflect higher percentages of purchasing from local and organic producers.
“Once they’re in,” explains Williams, “they have access to our programming. The goal is to highlight their work – it’s a kind of marketing campaign.” The program includes decals for restaurants to use with their designated tier, a Good Food Guide restaurants page, an online directory of Farmer Champions, and a printed copy of the directory that restaurants can share with their customers. “We have an awards event every year for the top three farmer Champions who have the highest percentage of local spend and the top three who have the highest percentage of local certified organic spend,” they say.
In addition, Williams says there is a brand activation week, “where all of our Farmer Champions have the opportunity to participate and we feature a specific crop. They buy those crops, then create a special Farmer Champion dish that they sell for a week,” they explain. “It’s a fun, exciting way for the chefs to showcase that they’re a part of the program and showcase their creativity.” This year’s crop? Sweet potatoes.
Both Savang and McQuain are proponents of the Farmer Champion program. While Savang has been a longtime supporter of Georgia Organics and currently holds a Bronze Tier designation, McQuain of The Roe says he just got involved with the organization. “We’re working towards that top-tier right now,” he says.
“We were already buying locally and organically from farmers,” says Savang. “This program solidified that we were doing something good, and the byproduct is that it’s really supporting the community and the food is delicious.”
Not all restaurants can source locally due to the cost or the need for larger quantities and more consistent products, which is hard to achieve with seasonal produce. Plus, Williams says, “there are only so many farms that are able to sell to restaurants because they require more administrative work and an ability for someone to get off the farm at least once a week to make deliveries.”
Despite such challenges, more and more restaurants in Georgia recognize the value and quality of sourcing local food. “It takes a special type of chef,” says Williams, “one who is flexible and focused on prioritizing the ingredients rather than the end product in order for it to be really successful.” And, they add, “The restaurants have the ability to communicate with their audiences and educate the eaters about where the food comes from.”
That not only makes Georgia’s restaurants the face of the farm-to-table movement but keeps the farm-to-restaurant connection growing.
