Farm-to-table (also called farm-to-fork or farm-to-school in some places) is a movement that encourages restaurants and school cafeterias to serve food grown locally. This food is usually obtained directly from producers, such as wineries, breweries, ranches, or fisheries, not just traditional farms. Methods to get local food include direct sales, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, farmers markets, local distributors, or by growing food themselves. Farm-to-table often includes ways to track where food comes from, helping people know its origin. Many restaurants cannot use only local food for all their dishes, so only some dishes or ingredients are labeled as local.
The farm-to-table movement began around the same time as changes in how people think about food safety, freshness, seasonality, and the economics of small farms. Supporters often mention the limited availability of fresh, local ingredients; the lower quality of ingredients shipped long distances; the loss of small family farms; the decline of heirloom and open-pollinated fruits and vegetables; and the risks of relying on a few large food producers and distributors as reasons to choose locally grown food.
Influences and growth
According to Southern Living, Edna Lewis's 1976 book The Taste of Country Cooking is "credited with inspiring the modern farm-to-table movement."
Some of the first important and influential farm-to-table businesses included Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California; The Herbfarm in Washington; Bon Appétit Management Company in Palo Alto, California; and The Kitchen in Boulder, Colorado. Since the 2000s, the number of farm-to-table businesses has grown quickly. "The American Farm to Table Restaurant Guide lists restaurants in more than 30 states and the District of Columbia." In 2015, the National Restaurant Association reported that "four of the top ten trends" involved local foods.
Well-known supporters of the farm-to-table movement include chefs, writers, farmers, and environmentalists such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Michael Pollan, Thomas Keller, John Jeavons, Alice Waters, Dan Barber, Joel Salatin, Barbara Kingsolver, Tony Maws, Kevin Gillespie, Edna Lewis, Ken Myszka, Erik Manning, and others. In November 2023, Tatler described farm-to-table as being part of the beliefs of the bopea ("bohemian peasant") movement, an elite British socio-cultural group.
Fast-casual meets farm-to-table
Recently, restaurant owners have worked to make the farm-to-table movement more accessible by opening fast-casual restaurants that serve locally grown food at lower prices. Sweetgreen, a salad chain that focuses on farm-to-table meals, has grown very quickly since it opened in Washington, D.C., in 2007. Today, it has over 60 locations across the United States. The chain began with the idea of using food from local sources whenever possible. Sweetgreen partners with more than 500 farmers to keep the distance food travels short, requiring each area to connect with nearby farms. In New York, another fast-casual restaurant called Dig Inn has become popular because of its "farm-to-counter" approach. In 2016, Dig Inn announced plans to buy and manage its own farm. While they will not get all their food from this farm, it will serve as a place to teach people about how food grows. Both Sweetgreen and Dig Inn have received significant investment from people interested in food businesses that support local food systems. Consumer interest in these ideas is strong enough that Applebee's has also tried the farm-to-table concept. In summer 2014, Applebee's introduced a special menu item in Georgia: the Grilled Vidalia Onion Sirloin. This dish took six months to plan and was only available for a short time.
Criticism
The farm-to-table movement has faced some criticism. A writer from the Boston Globe says it is a trend popular among young people, similar to how older generations were interested in music and their drug of choice. Some people believe this way of eating is more expensive than other options. Others think that the term "farm-to-table" is not well understood by customers. For example, some foods labeled as farm-to-table are thought to be healthier, even if their actual nutritional value is not better.
Restaurant fraud
Investigations by journalists from the Tampa Bay Times and San Diego Magazine discovered that many farm-to-table restaurants in the area made false claims about their food sources. Examples included a restaurant that once bought food from a farm-to-table provider but now uses different suppliers without changing the menu; a restaurant that said it bought food from a farmer, but the farmer said they never sold to that restaurant; a restaurant that served food that the cited farmer or fisher never grew or caught, or that was not in season or available; a restaurant that claimed to serve food from a provider that had closed years earlier; and food from the claimed source making up only a small part of the dish served. In these cases, the food served was often not local or was "commodity" food, which is cheaper and available even when it is not in season. In some cases, food labeled as "wild caught," "preservative-free," "made in-house," "Fresh from Florida," or "Long Island duck" was not actually that.
These practices can lead to legal action from farmers whose names were used dishonestly, from customers who bought mislabeled food, and from government agencies. Tampa Bay Times food critic and reporter Laura Reiley says the fraud is partly due to the popularity of the farm-to-table trend since 2012, the time restaurants spend working with large distributors instead of farms, and the desire to make more money.