Ann Arbor area dining spots buying more from local farmers

September 2, 2008

If Brandon Johns has his way, never again will a semi-truck pull up to the back of the Vinology Wine Bar and Restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor to deliver bulk food from a faraway place.

Instead, Johns will fill his customers' plates with fare similar to what he's been making recently - squash blossoms grown in his own Ann Arbor garden, cheese aged at the Four Corners Creamery in Tecumseh, potatos grown at Tantre Farm and chicken raised at Back Forty Acres, both near Chelsea.

"It's just the natural way to eat. What's best now is what's best now - the closer you get to when it was pulled out of the ground or when it was picked, the better it's going to be," said Johns, the former executive chef at The Chop House who's now head chef and part owner in Vinology.

Last week, Johns took the Vinology staff to tour two Chelsea area farms where the restaurant is getting its meat and produce. He said he wanted to help them connect the food they're serving with the people who actually produce it.

"For me, it was more about the food originally, not the green movement," Johns said. "But it does also make sense in a lot of other ways."

As the push to eat more all-natural, organic and local food grows - and as more stores and restaurateurs like Johns get into the game - small and mid-size farms and their owners nationwide stand to benefit.

"It has the potential of transforming what used to be viewed as hobby farms into profitable businesses in our local economy," said Mike Score, an Ann Arbor resident and agricultural innovation counselor for the Michigan State University Product Center, which provides agri-food business planning services through the local MSU Extension office.

In Livingston County, for example, recent bumps in business have allowed the TMZ Farm near Pinckney to expand. Owner Kevin MacRitchie bought another eight acres last week to add to his buffalo pasture.

"I think there has always been an interest in local foods, farmers' markets, farmers' stands, those kind of things," MacRitchie said. "But with all the meat scares, and with the whole concept of eating healthier and organic (growing), people are pushing local way more heavily than they ever have. ... People want to find a nearby source for their food products, and we can do that for them."

Multiple motivations

Local farmers and restaurateurs say the current motivation to find local sources of food is part health, part economics.

The salmonella outbreak linked first to tomatoes and then to peppers earlier this year is a great example: It took several weeks for investigators to trace the source of the bacteria, which sickened hundreds of people around the country. Locavores say such scares are less likely to happen when consumers know precisely where their food is coming from. There's also a belief that it's more natural, and healthy, to eat seasonal foods grown nearby.

"There is a face behind the company - you have someone to talk to, you know the person making or growing your food, which is huge," said Erica Aylward, who owns Four Corners Creamery and Boulevard Market in Tecumseh with her husband, John. "As we become more global, we also have more risks associated with our foods. When you are within your own local area, there is a little bit more quality control."

And money, of course, plays a big role.

Typically, it's more expensive to buy food in smaller quantities from local farmers than it is to order in bulk from large distributors. But as fuel has gotten more costly, those distributors are tacking on large fuel surcharges to their delivery bills, making the price of food rise. In some cases, it's becoming cheaper - and more environmentally friendly - to buy food directly from local vendors.

That's part of the reason why Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, announced a new commitment last month to buy locally grown produce. For example, Wal-Mart said it used to buy all of its fresh cilantro from California. By also buying it from growers in Florida, the company saved 250,000 food miles - the estimated distance that a food item travels from farm to fork - in one season.

The retail giant expects to buy $400 million in locally grown produce from U.S. farmers this year.

Talk the talk, walk the walk

Rene Greff, who owns the Arbor Brewing Co. in Ann Arbor and the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti with her husband, Matt, estimates the cost of buying local remains at a 20 percent premium.

Vinology's Johns said it can add a few dollars to the cost of a meal.
"Prices will be a little higher, but we are using much better product," Johns said.

Greff said reading the best-selling book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" spurred her to action.

Greff and her husband are vegetarians and sought out local, organic and all-natural food for their home. But they were buying food for their restaurants in bulk from large distributors.

"There was this weird sort of moral dissonance," Greff said.

Earlier this year, they hired a new kitchen manager who is charged with finding local vendors and formed internal committees to study local food sources. In June, Arbor Brewing introduced a new menu that emphasizes local ingredients. In October, another menu will be unveiled.

Currently, Arbor Brewing's eggs, dairy products and chicken come from area vendors. By fall, the Greffs hope all of the restaurant's beef, flour and beans will also be from mostly Michigan farmers. Tortilla chips come from the Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory and pasta comes from Mama Mucci's in Canton.

"Our goal is anything that is available that can be locally sourced, we will get locally sourced," Rene Greff said. "We are systematically going through every single thing on our menu and replacing stuff that is shipped in from elsewhere with local stuff."

With the trend, groups like Eat Local Eat Natural are growing. The Scio Township-based company works to connect stores and restaurants with local farmers.

At Vinology, Johns and business partner Rob Cleveland of Icon Creative Technologies Group grow quite a bit of food for the restaurant in their own backyard. This year, Johns said they'll grow more than enough tomatoes to supply Vinology.

Johns personally goes to farmers markets in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Saline and other area communities every week to buy food for Vinology. So do chefs at many of Mainstreet Ventures' restaurants, according to Kevin Gudejko, director of operations.

"This is all going to be a learning process," Johns said. "But we really wanted to walk the walk."