For the vast majority of restaurants, sourcing produce boils down to ordering from a wholesaler. But a growing number of chefs are working in increasingly close collaboration with producers, from vegetable growers to beef farmers.
The role of cooking is no longer simply about feeding people or creating the best possible version of a dish. Those are important, of course, but sourcing food grown in the most environmentally friendly ways possible and promoting responsible farming are also gaining powerful traction. In fact, many argue, they go hand in hand: cooking with the best organic or regenerative produce from trusted growers can provide the most nourishing, tasty food.
As her career has developed, Helen Graham has come to work evermore closely with farmers. “It’s something I’m really starting to be able to engage with now,” Graham, who was part of a panel discussion on the links between chefs and farmers at the Oxford Real Farming Conference in January, explains. While executive chef at Bubala, a popular Middle Eastern-inspired vegetarian restaurant with two sites in London, the pressure of running both sites and the “sheer quantity” of produce coming through the door made forging close ties with farmers tricky. “It was almost easier to not really engage. I also think there was a pressure to keep costs lower, which meant I wasn’t able to use the produce I wanted.” The restaurant’s success meant customers wanted signature dishes, such as fried aubergine with zhoug and date syrup, no matter the season. “I couldn’t really take that dish off the menu,” Graham says.
Now cooking at several pop-ups and residencies across London, Graham is increasingly engaging with how the produce she uses has been grown. The Oxford Real Farming Conference was “quite eye-opening,” says Graham. “There was a farmer on the panel saying, ‘I’m growing these crops because they’re anti-drought or retain nitrogen in the soil and make my farm workable and sustainable, but chefs aren’t buying it, they don’t know what it is, or how to use it.’ So there’s a real issue there, and that just wasn’t the kind of information I was privy to before – how a restaurant can change its buying habits and better support farmers. Restaurants are so influential in introducing new ingredients and shaping palates, they’re almost tastemakers.”
Graham adds that a chef can have a “direct impact on the environment and farmers’ livelihoods. Farming is so difficult in this country, you can do everything on your farm to sustain your soil but if people aren’t buying the crops, it must be incredibly disheartening, and really damaging to your income. As a chef you’re that really vital missing link.”
Lasse Petersen, executive chef of Llewelyn’s and Lulu’s in southeast London, is similarly intent on supporting Britain’s small-scale farmers. This month he’s introducing a series of talks and dinners called Common Ground, which will discuss the importance of transparency and integrity in the supply chain. The dinners are in collaboration with Shrub, a business set up in 2020 to bridge the gap between farmers and restaurants.
“Superb quality small scale farms didn’t have access to the restaurant industry,” says Shrub co-founder Harry Dyer, whose cadre of around 60 farms hail from the UK (with one exception) and the vast majority being organic or biodynamic. Chefs, Dyer says, provide a strong commercial market for the high-quality produce, and can influence both staff and guests. The rising interest in quality beans and Delica pumpkins, it could be argued, began with chefs.
Petersen admits that for many restaurants sourcing produce from somewhere like New Covent Garden Market is “the easier way”. But for a small business like his, he says, it is more rewarding to seek out like-minded suppliers. Petersen uses around 60 suppliers, and Shrub has helped him access niche produce. Finding “a single farmer who maybe just does cabbages is extremely hard, it doesn’t really work for the farmer and for us, you’re never going to reach the minimum spend.”
Likewise, according to Petersen, chefs these days rarely visit markets themselves. There just isn’t the time. But the likes of Shrub and Natoora have provided opportunities for both farmers and chefs. Petersen now has access to top produce like mustard leaves, a variety of brassicas and winter salads, all grown in the UK by small producers.
At Blacklock, a small group of steakhouses with sites in London and Manchester, close ties with Philip Warren Butchers, which rears meat regeneratively and sources from likeminded farmers across the county, is crucial to the business. “We try to work with fewer people and give them lots of business,” explains founder Gordon Ker, who believes this model allows the restaurant to keep quality high and provide value for money. “We wouldn’t go to a generic wholesaler where the products might not be so good. The meat we buy we believe is the best in the country.”
For producers, having chefs engaged in their produce is a boon, too. Adam Payne of Awen Organics in Pembrokeshire farms 10 acres, a mix of polytunnels, a market garden and agroforestry, where he manages 60 crops and 250 varieties, from two annual crops of potatoes, Italian vegetables like endive, radicchio and cime de rapa, and around 30 varieties of heirloom tomato. The produce is split between veg boxes, up to 25 local restaurants and cafés and Natoora, which sends it to London restaurants.
Where possible, local chefs will tour the farm. “Having chefs on the farm is always really useful for everyone involved,” says Payne. “Some places we supply come just for a look around. My favourite thing to do is walk around with chefs and taste things. They see the value in crops, and expressions of flavour that others don’t. It’s a very rewarding part of growing for chefs.” As is visiting a restaurant where he can taste what they can do with, say, a beetroot. “It turns a really commonplace and often overlooked root into something quite spectacular.”
There’s no doubt using the best British produce costs more, but for Petersen, “you pay for what you get.” He reckons chefs have a responsibility to “make people more aware of what food actually costs. Somebody has to grow it, pick it, ship it, and farmers most of the time don’t have a voice.” He hopes the Common Ground dinner series can help bridge the gap between farmer and the general public.
Does forging connections with farmers create better chefs? Ker sends his team on regular visits to suppliers, including Philip Warren, where they see the animals, the butchery, the ageing rooms and more. “I think it helps them become better chefs. It goes down to engagement and pride. We talk about if Ian [Warren, director of Philip Warren Butchers] has been rearing an animal for three years and cared for that animal, we need to also take that piece of meat with the same level of pride and care. You can say that to somebody, but going through that journey to Cornwall only further resonates with people.”
Graham adds that “it’s possible to make delicious food without having any knowledge of farming and produce. But I think maybe being a good chef these days has a slightly different definition, one who works with integrity and a love and respect for their produce, and knowledge of where it comes from.”
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