Maine growers court chefs> East of service an issue

ELLSWORTH — By the time Chef Brian Langley finishes his typical 18-hour day at around midnight, about the last thing on his mind is the geographic origin of the lettuce served at lunch.

Like other chefs convening at a conference here Friday, Langley could rattle off at least a short list of reasons why they sometimes serve food grown out of state, even when its local counterpart might be slightly fresher or more appealing to diners seeking local flavor.

“Growers in the Bar Harbor area are growing lettuce and blueberries, but if they’re not coming around, there’s no way I can get out there,” said Langley, an Ellsworth resident and chef at the Oak Point Lobster Pound in Trenton.

The busy summer tourist season is no time to try and spare restaurant staff to brave traffic in search of locally raised food, said Langley. His own need for a reliably available product is illustrated by his use of 600 cases of blueberries in pies each season.

With volume requirements like those, it’s no wonder many restaurants prefer mass quantities of food delivered to their doors, or at least available for pickup at a convenient location — the kind of service corporate food wholesalers can provide, but most smaller, local growers lacking refrigerated trucks or central storage faciities can not.

Yet despite time constraints, distribution conflicts and other issues, Langley was among a number of area chefs endorsing the tenets of the Chef’s Collaborative 2000 resolve, vowing to make a more agressive effort to buy food grown closer to home. Sponsored by the Maine Chapter of the American Culinary Federation, the resolution was presented for signing during one of several sessions at Friday’s conference.

Organized by the Hancock County Planning Commission, the daylong “Promoting Locally Grown Foods” conference was intended to foster a closer working relationship between growers and chefs. More than 80 people from throughout the state attended, including dozens of farmers and small-scale gardeners.

According to Ron Poitras of the planning commission, while up to 7 million people visit Hancock County annually, spending about $40 million for food in the area’s 150 restaurants, very little of that demand is met by local food producers.

The numbers suggest that dollars funneled to producers outside the area represent significant loss of potential income for the local economy.

A market survey of Hancock County area restaurants that the commission conducted last fall found that while 70 percent of respondents buy locally grown food products, only 34 percent of those buy them regularly, and the rest only occasionally.

An overwhelming 94 percent said they wouuld be willing to buy more local food, depending on its cleanliness, quality, price, and availability of a consistent supply. The planning commission set up the conference hoping to bridge the gap between chefs’ desire to purchase area-grown food, and the daily realities that can pre-empt such transactions.

For their part, local growers have their own issues with providing food to restaurants. Deer Isle grower Chris Hurley said that for farmers in his area, distributing food throughout the Blue Hill peninsula is challenge enough, and that the larger Mount Desert Island market is too far to be worthwhile for a single grower.

Hurley said he and some others may join forces to make wholesale deliveries, and to set up a retail outlet.

Jo Barrett of Kings Hill Farm in Penobscot objected to the trend toward restaurants wanting “value-added” produce, such as preshredded cabbage and carrots for use in coleslaw, when small farmers have enough to worry about in growing, harvesting and distributing their crops.

Langley acknowledged that restaurants buy such products to save time, just as they buy from large wholesalers rather than small growers in hopes of better prices and greater convenience.

But despite the challenges of serving restaurants, some local growers find them to be their most desirable customers. Long a fixture at the Ellsworth Farmers Market, local grower Mike MacFarlane said he and his wife Pat are giving up their spot at the High Street venue in favor of focusing on several restaurants that seem to offer a more reliable market for the couple’s products than did individual patrons at their old standby.

Whereas some area growers, including Paul and Mollie Birdsall of Horsepower Farm in Penobscot, said they are forming cooperatives to share tasks such as marketing or distribution, others such as MacFarlane prefer to work alone, favoring the one-on-one relationships they are able to maintain.

Laura Starr of Trenton urged chefs and restaurateurs to offer more alternatives to the standard seafood and blueberry fare they assume tourists want, pointing to the interest she said that the cranberries she cultivates and venison she raises have generated. She suggested emphasizing diversity as one way to promote Maine agriculture.

During a break at the conference, Sen. Jill Goldthwait of Bar Harbor said an aisle devoted to Maine-grown food at the Augusta Shop ‘n Save has piqued her own interest in the topic.

Goldthwait, who gave opening remarks at the conference, commented that she didn’t know what part the state should play in promoting the use of locally grown foods, but said she would welcome thoughtful suggestions on the issue.