Farmers, chefs, and NCGT and Cheney Brothers staff met from summer through fall 2016 to trade ideas on products for the 2017 season.
May 2017 — Last summer, Joel Sullivan, Director of Marketing for NCGT partner Cheney Brothers, Inc. (formerly Pate Dawson Co.), had a novel idea for his food distribution business. Observing the explosive growth in demand for locally-grown foods in fine dining and casual restaurants alike – and the growing interest on the part of chefs for ever-more unique produce to highlight in their food – he saw the potential for what he calls “chef-driven agriculture”.
He envisioned a system where an intermediary distributor enables chefs and farmers to collaborate, with the chefs giving farmers input into what kind of specialty crops they are looking for, and farmers growing directly for them. This collaborative pre-planning across the supply chain, with the distributor mediating orders and delivering products, could lower everyone’s costs and risk.
“North Carolina is one of the best states for agriculture because we can grow such a wide variety of produce here,” says Sullivan. M any growers tend to focus on staple crops like sweet potatoes and squash that are familiar to them. However, “the market is saturated in those products,” he says. “The key is diversification. Restaurants will pay for unique and specialty products and many of them can be grown here in North Carolina.”
Last summer and fall, Pate Dawson partnered with NCGT to convene a series of meetings with growers and chefs to begin the conversation. “If we want to explore new produce items we have to get a microcosm of the whole supply chain engaged and committed to make it work,” says Sullivan. NCGT supported the efforts by contributing staff time for Trish Tripp, former NCGT Produce Supply Chain Lead, and Graham Givens, NCGT Supply Chain Scholar. “Trish and NC Growing Together helped advise the program and connect us to growers to get it started,” says Sullivan. Givens interviewed all the participating chefs and farmers during the pilot to capture lessons learned.
“In this case NCGT supported Pate Dawson’s efforts with organizational support and a research component to better understand how the collaborative effort worked for each group involved — the distributor, chefs, and farmers,” says NC Growing Together Project Manager Rebecca Dunning.
It was a positive learning experience — Sullivan says that there were several new produce possibilities explored, and valuable chef and farmer connections made — and one that the company hopes to return to. “If the distributor is facilitating the process, it needs to be completely committed, and driving it with resources. It takes really solid communication with the chefs and farmers. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it,” Sullivan says.
Cheney Brothers, Inc. is a sponsor of the Farm to Fork Picnic, which is a fundraiser for beginning farmer programs at the Center For Environmental Farming Systems and W.C. Breeze Family Farm. The Picnic is June 4 at Fearrington Village.
This article originally appeared in the May 2017 NC Growing Together Newsletter.