March 2017 — NC Growing Together’s newest partner is the Charlotte-based Piedmont Culinary Guild (PCG). The PCG is working to connect the food chain in the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina by providing a gathering place and hub for innovative chefs, farmers, food artisans, culinary educators, and other professionals committed to building a local food economy.
“PCG and NCGT are a natural fit,” says Laura Lauffer of NC Growing Together, who attended a recent PCG member event to explore connections between the two new partners. Each group brings their unique connections to the table: NCGT provides a critical link to producers – including seafood producers through NCGT partner NC Catch, and meat producers through NCGT partner NC Choices – as well as a connection to NC Cooperative Extension. Piedmont Culinary Guild provides a connection to the chef and restaurant community in Charlotte, an area where NCGT can provide business networking and capacity-building support for local producers. “We have the same goals and working together we’ll be twice as effective,” says Lauffer.
PCG’s Food and Wine Symposium in March 2017.
NCGT is co-sponsoring Piedmont Culinary Guild’s Producer-Buyer Connections event on April 30, which will focus on making connections between meat/seafood/dairy producers and chefs/restaurants. For more information, please visit the PCG website. If you are a Charlotte-area producer, buyer, or chef and are interested in attending the event, please contact Laura Lauffer at ldlauffe@ncat.edu or 919-444-1478.
This article originally appeared in the March 2017 NC Growing Together Newsletter.