Farm to Table Restaurants Essay

Farm-to-table (farm to fork and farm to school) is a socio-environmental movement promoting restaurants to serve the local foods in the United States' cities. In CA, the farm to table restaurants delivers food to customers at school cafeterias and acquires their products from either a producer or in-house production. In-house production refers to the internal self-production of the raw products needed by the restaurants by having private farms where they grow the crops needed. This is a move aimed at improving the environmental and health standards of the society by providing fresh healthy foods rich in minerals and vitamins needed for body development. As a result, I conducted an assessment on CA farm to table restaurants that included A.R Valentien, Artisan, Assemble, and Bumble and Chez Panisse. These restaurants offer the farm to table food services to customers and are among the best farm to table restaurants in California (Chaijan, Jongjareonrak, Phatcharat, Benjakul & Rawdkuen, 2010).

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Some of the common phrases or characteristics these restaurants apply to distinguish themselves in the market include provision of locally produced seasonal foods, owning of private or individual farms and attending to it to produce the needed farm products, possession of an n-house bakery and finally contracting an organic farm producer who supplies fresh farm products to the restaurants. In addition, some of the services common in these hotels that distinguish themselves in the market are that they serve cocktails, wine, dinner, lunch and Monday night supper to their consumers. Among the farm to table restaurants, there exist different farm to table sourcing. According to Murphy (2014) this is evident from this model of food service industry cannot be sustained on a large scale. Independent producers also target these restaurants in their market segments, therefore even with enough resource, the restaurants cannot stick to one product sourcing (Murphy, 2014).

Therefore, some of the different methods of farm to table sourcing levels include the large and small-scale in-house production of the farm products by owning privatized farms and outsourcing of the farm products by contracting an organic farm producer to supply the products to the restaurants. Among the farm to table restaurants, some best and efficient practices can make the restaurants to be in gold standards. Since in-house production of farm products for the restaurant is not entirely reliable due to the season and time taken for maturity, the restaurants can opt for an integration of the in-house production and outsourcing of the farm products that will enable them to stay competitive and stocked throughout the year (Chaijan, Jongjareonrak, Phatcharat, Benjakul & Rawdkuen, 2010).

In my analysis of the restaurant's farm to table model, I would give the restaurant a score of 80%. I break down the score segments into social, economic, environmental and cultural aspects each containing 25 score points. These criteria for evaluating the restaurants on social economic, cultural and environmental aspects enable the consumers to be safe health economically and socially safe when consuming foods from these outlets. First, this model is important; I used it to evaluate first the social impacts, and considerations the restaurants are taking to encompass consumers from all social standards. Since obesity is high among the African American decent, these outlets will play a great role in helping this kind of population to learn about dietary habits. In addition, due to the high supply of junk food and their cheap prices compared to the farm to table foods, the citizens prefer relatively cheap foods (Murphy, 2014). As a result, I evaluated the aspect of food affordability across all social and economic divides. On the environmental aspect, I assessed the restaurant's farms and farm products on the level of chemical usage of plants whose genes have been genetically altered in order to last longer and yield more produce. In this case, too much application of fertilizer or chemicals like insecticides harms the soil (soil pollutions) and the content of the produce. This will then alter the taste of a particular food that might lead to infection or poor body growth when taken. The restaurants were assessed in terms of the cultural aspect if they met the needs and preferences of different cultures. However, this is where most farms to table restaurants failed in since their foods were modern and slightly general with the application of canned spices that led to lack of cultural or traditional tastes. Therefore all the four components of my criteria had 25 score points (Murphy, 2014).

According to the studies and lesson learned about the farm to table restaurant, I would not advise wholly for other restaurants to adopt this model since it is quite expensive at the start. Owning a farm and cultivating it until you get the first products takes quite some time that a restaurant cannot wait for. In addition, the demand for organic foods is high compared to the expenses or prices attached to them. On an economic point of view, if restaurants adopt the farm to table model by incorporating in-house farm production from farms and owning of a private bakery, where will the large organic farm producers take their produce to since the restaurants are their direct buyers? Answering this question is not easy when incorporating external considerations on the restaurant's side. Therefore, this model cannot be applied uniformly among restaurants in the CA despite its ability to attain a mass scale. It will force the restaurants to engage partially in the farm to table model due to the aim of cost cutting and to serve as backups in case of food production shortages (Murphy, 2014).

Some of the advantages of the farm to table model are that it is a reliable source of food production for the restaurants. Apart from securing the food production security, it is cost effective since it cut costs of purchasing when the restaurants contract an outside supplier of farm materials. Another advantage with this model is that the farm is managed well according to the environmental and food standards to ensure the products are safe for consumption compared to outsourcing the of food products whose chemical content and plantation medium is not well known. However, this model has some disadvantages. These include unreliability due to the seasons of harvests, risks of crop loss and the economic expense of constructing private farms. This model cannot be applicable on staring restaurants with small capital since establishing an in-house farm is expensive. Farm produce has a timeframe of maturity before harvesting. Therefore, this model will not be enough for food production due to the time taken by the farms. Therefore, the restaurants rely on other producers of organic farm products (Chaijan, Jongjareonrak, Phatcharat, Benjakul & Rawdkuen, 2010).

References

Chaijan, M., Jongjareonrak, A., Phatcharat, S., Benjakul, S., & Rawdkuen, S. (2010). Chemical compositions and characteristics of farm raised giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) muscle. LWT-Food Science and Technology, 43(3), 452-457.

Murphy, K. (2014). Farm-to-table living takes root. New York Times, 12.