Edible Chesapeake

Local motive
Eco-eateries are out to give fast food a good name
Edible Chesapeake, Summer 2008
By Rina Rapuano 

Discerning diners surely have noticed the love affair that’s heating up between high-end chefs and local farmers. Patrons are likely to see names such as Path Valley, Tuscarora and Toigo on menus to indicate which region or farm is responsible for the day’s lettuce, fava beans or acorn squash, and chefs seem to be competing over who has the freshest and most unique ingredients.  

That’s all well and good for the special-occasion meal, but what about for a Tuesday night when you’re running late—and starving? Thankfully, several fast-food restaurants are determined to think local and act local by using produce from the region whenever possible.  

Chipotle claims to be the grand-daddy of the movement, and the ubiquitous Tex-Mex chain’s goal this year is to purchase up to 10 percent of its staple produce—such as onions, cilantro and green peppers—from local producers. To that end, Chipotle has 16 distribution centers throughout the country, including one in Manassas, Virginia, and at least one local farmer aligned with each of those centers. In addition, Chipotle also has started sourcing pork for its Charlottesville, Virginia, restaurant from nearby Polyface Farms, made famous a few years back by the widely read book on farming and eating, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” 

Chipotle started a buy-local program last year but admits there were a lot of kinks—from making sure local farmers could provide enough onions and peppers to getting enough meat to fill the demand. “We use as much of their pork as we possibly can for our Charlottesville store. Some weeks that gives us 100 percent of what we need, some weeks 90 percent,” says Chipotle’s area director, Phil Petrilli, of the store’s relationship with Polyface Farms. 

Finding local farmers who can consistently provide enough quality produce is as important to Chipotle as it is for its smaller counterparts, such as local eco-eateries Sweetgreen, On the Fly and Chix. These recent upstarts also are committed to using as much locally grown produce as possible, despite the fact that it’s even harder for them to achieve. Nicolas Jammet, a partner of Sweetgreen in Georgetown, says they decided to go with Keany Produce based in Landover, Maryland, over individual local farmers because he prefers to have produce delivered every morning. Keany, which also supplies local produce to this region’s Chipotle shops, sources about 30 percent of its produce from local growers, including butternut squash, apples and sweet potatoes in winter, and strawberries and asparagus in spring.  

“Since we’re a fast-food concept, our menu doesn’t change,” Jammet says. “Having a standardized product is important to us. We pay a higher price for local produce, but we’re OK with that, because the emphasis is on quality.”

That quest for quality is what drives many restaurateurs to go the extra mile to obtain local produce. “When it’s locally grown, it’s going to taste better,” says Gabe Klein, CEO of On the Fly food carts found on street corners around Washington, D.C. “It’s not refrigerated when it’s ripe or before it gets to you.”  

But Colin McCabe, a co-owner and co-founder of Chop’t Creative Salad Co., laments the limitations that going local can present. “As you can imagine, in the summer the percentage of local produce we are able to offer is much higher than in the dead of winter,” he says. 

McCabe’s company, which recently expanded to D.C. from its original New York location, works locally with Coastal Sunbelt Produce, a purveyor that he says has strong relationships with the local farming community. “In May and June, we’ll be getting beets from Arnold Farms out of Arnold, Maryland,” he says. “Year round, our mushrooms come from a farm in Nottingham, Pennsylvania.” 

Chop’t isn’t the only green-minded restaurant that had to dial back the local produce during the winter. “Obviously, when you’re out of season, you take what you can get,” says Klein. For instance, Keany, which distributes to On the Fly, listed sweet potatoes, squash, apples and pears from Virginia among the few local crops available in January. That list is likely to grow as the summer progresses, and restaurant owners are eager to ramp up the local offerings. 

“We just opened up in the late fall [last year], so we weren’t able to take advantage of the local fruit and vegetable markets,” says Chix co-owner Lukas Umana, who adds that he has a deal in the works to procure spring and summer produce from the nearby farmers market at 14th and U streets in D.C.  

Chix currently counts on L&M Produce of Jessup, Maryland, for local tomatoes and sweet potatoes. Its free-range, organic chickens come from Free Bird, a family-owned farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Umana says riding the eco-friendly wave helps newer, smaller restaurants stay competitive by offering something different, but he can’t divorce the restaurant’s “eat responsibly” mantra from his business philosophy—and he’s happy that others are following suit.  

“I would love to see more responsibility from restaurants and businesses in general,” he says. “You can be successful and do things the right way. I’m a firm believer. Hopefully, small businesses can start changing that little by little.” 

On the Fly’s Klein is one small-business owner who has already made the marketplace a bit greener. He says it was at his insistence that food distribution giant Sysco started carrying biodegradable packaging and cutlery for his electric food carts, which landed in downtown D.C. last November. 

“I think that consumers are the ones holding all the power,” says Klein. “All it takes is for people to care and to start asking. If you’re willing to work at it, you’ll find people who have what you want.” And with an ever-growing segment of the population clamoring for better-tasting food from eco-friendly businesses, these restaurant owners are poised to change the landscape for good. 

“A lot of people kind of label it as a trend, but I think it's a direction that the industry is moving in and that people's lifestyles are moving in,” says Sweetgreen co-owner Jammet. “It’s becoming more important, and people are talking about it more. I believe we’re all going to be organic and everything is going to be green.” 

Rina Rapuano is the Assistant Food & Wine Editor at Washingtonian magazine. She also writes for national food, wine and beer publications.