Bright lights cut the inky early morning darkness, engines growl and brakes sigh as trucks slow to pull onto exit ramps. Trailers filled with meat, fish and fresh vegetables traverse narrow alleys across America. They silently navigate the empty streets accompanied only by the occasional dump truck or police car.
When a truck reaches its destination, the backdoor of a dark restaurant or the desolate loading dock of a large hotel, they go largely unnoticed except for the occasional purchasing agent, leaning bleary eyed against a refrigerator door with a cup of coffee and worn clipboard. In a well rehearsed exchange of pleasantries the driver and stocker unload pallets of ingredients onto the damp concrete, each box inspected and weighed before an obligatory departing handshake.
As the trailer pulls away the sun barely peeks from behind a grey cinderblock wall, illuminating the collage of hastily stacked boxes; a crate of white peaches from chile, corrugated wax boxes adorned with chinese lettering filled with greens, a styrofoam cooler crawling with lobsters and long cylinders of cyrovaced beef tenderloins. The clock ticks as the stocking agent frantically races against the sun, loading the contents of each box into clear plastic tubs and into the refrigerator before they spoil. He tosses aside damaged products for credit and meticulously rotates the new products behind the old inventory.
A few hours later, when the chef arrives, nothing is left of the early morning scene. The boxes and crates have been broken down, the floors are swept and all of the products have been stored. The stocking agent is long gone, retreated to a basement office where he pours over stacks of invoices and sips his third cup of coffee.
An antiquated pickup, stained with rust and mud, squeezes between a valet line of European luxury sedans. To the unexpected delight of hotel guests the chef makes a grand appearance, greeting the rancher by name and helping him unload a few pounds of spring lamb. Later on a kid with dreadlocks and sandals wanders through the kitchen looking to sell a few pounds of local chanterelles he harvested in the mountains earlier that morning. At first incredulous, the chef sifts through the box, and then hands over a few dollars.
Just before lunch the chef removes his soiled apron and puts on a freshly starched white jacket. He stops by the accounting department for a couple of hundred dollars before heading to the Friday farmer’s market. Casually perusing the crowded isles he stops to smell an heirloom tomato, nibbles an edge of arugula before giving an approving nod, and occasionally probes the piles of plums and nectarines for ripeness. Attracted by his regal white jacket people stop to murmur, stare and ask questions; “What’s for dinner?”, “How do you cook this?”, “Where do you work?”.
Even as the chef loads boxes of local produce into his car he is caught in an awkward paradox - a community advocate for something he believes in but cannot himself fully practice.
Every purchase the chef makes is carefully documented. Should he lose track, and spend too much on local products the calls will begin. They will begin politely, but could eventually become confrontational, resulting in the chef losing his bonus or even his job.
Ultimately the chef is allowed to purchase only 5% of his ingredients from local farms and ranches, the rest must be procured through “the program”. A thousand miles away, forgotten in a filing cabinet in an expansive corporate office, there is a contract that looms like a storm cloud in the back of the chef’s mind. Essentially it is an agreement between the company that employees the chef and a third party who is assigned to monitor product costs. In order to achieve the greatest bargaining power this company represents hundreds or even thousands of hotels and restaurants, negotiating contracts with vendors who can provide them the most consistent products at the best prices. In return for favorable pricing the vendor is guaranteed a high volume of business. One single group controls over 3 billion in annual purchasing power, and can negotiate vendor contracts far more aggressively than any private restaurant or hotel could fathom. For each major category: meat, fish, produce, dairy and dry goods, the chef is assigned a corresponding vendor. As long as the chef is smart and keeps his mouth shut, he can get away with ordering few token products of his choice from neighboring farms or specialty vendors. Hopefully this 5% window will provide him enough local ingredients to spatter over his menu and allow the marketing team a toe hole in their promotional pursuits. In fact, you would be surprised how many restaurants play this deceptive game under the noses of food critics and consumers alike.
“Local Field Greens with Frost Hill Farm’s Cucumbers, Cilantro, Avocado and Citrus-Coriander Dressing”
When we read this it sounds honest and sustainable. It isn’t immediately clear whether just the cucumbers come from Frost Hill Farm or if maybe the cucumbers, cilantro and avocado all come from the farm. Or maybe they each come from local farms and the restaurant simply didn’t have room to list them all on the menu. We assume that local means from the town or county, but in some people’s minds it could come from a neighboring state - not to mention that we have no idea the size of the farm or growing method. The restaurant will spend $3 on ingredients for each salad they sell, in truth only 10 cents, the price of the cucumbers, will go to local farming families and directly stimulate the community’s economy. The rest will filter through layers of vendors and distributors before portions are returned to the hotel through tactfully negotiated rebate programs.
The same storm-cloud that looms in the mind of the chef also haunts his vendors, its fat corporate fingers ever tightening, squeezing every ounce of profit from a line of emaciated farms and distributors as they struggle to survive. Some of those savings are kept by the product procurement company in the form of service fees, but the rest is returned to the corporation as immediate cost savings and rebates. Ultimately a company could save 25% or more on raw ingredients. For a large company this could easily represent millions of dollars in cost savings over just a couple of years.
Maybe this is just smart business, after all, does it really hurt for a company to save a few cents a pound on ground beef in today’s ever more challenging economic environment? First of all, even just a few cents must be accounted for; where was it saved? Was it saved on the size of the lot that was used to raise the cow? Was it saved on the feed? Was it saved by letting a few sick animals slip by inspection? Was it saved by racing the animals through an automated slaughter facility? Was is saved by the use of dubious cheap labor labor? Was it saved through the use of hormones, antibiotics and chemicals? Was it saved at the expense of ethics and morality? In truth it is likely all of these things.
These are questions we have to ask not just for ground beef, but for every product that ends up on our tables. Where is it coming from?
What about the small farms and ranches? Simply put, from a corporate standpoint they don’t exist. Their yields are too small to compute, too costly and inconsistent to even bother with. Sure Bob’s tomatoes taste good, but will the customer really notice if we use 5x6 gassed tomatoes from Mexico instead? Will they understand why our burger costs a dollar more than down the street? The corporation will placate the chef’s ego with small concessions. They will feature a few local products on the menu and in their advertising campaigns. They will proclaim their desire to be sustainable and support the local community, but at the end of the day it is all about money.
Sadly there are currently no laws regulating the use of local ingredients. There is no effort made to enforce truth in advertising or validate claims of local products on menus. In short there is nothing to stop companies from exploiting the public through little more than slight of hand and vague claims- all the while making it near impossible for true farm to table restaurants to be successful.
With thousands of hotels and restaurants already using buying programs, and hundreds more joining each year, consumers can no longer take anything for granted. Buying programs aren’t just found at cookie cutter chains, they dominate the entire hotel and restaurant world. Even seemingly family operated hotels and restaurants, from the least expensive to the most acclaimed, often have a concealed corporate buying agenda.
As consumers we have the rights to know what you are paying for. In a world where small farms are disappearing at an alarming rate, and food borne illness is rampant, we can no longer accept vague answers and questionable claims- we must demand to know where your food comes from today.
