For those of you weren’t able to get to the Deep Winter Agrarians Gathering July 2017, here are some brief notes summarising the session on ‘Building Relationships, Farm to Plate, and Consumer and Chef Education’ led by Simone Jelley.
This summary is brief but provides a place to continue the conversation.
Simone’s experience with growing and selling edible flowers opened up a discussion on how to build relationships directly with restaurants and consumers, to avoid being exploited by agents.
Inequality between chefs and farmers was discussed, with reference to the importance of knowledge and education. Using farming knowledge, and inviting chefs to your farm to show and teach them what was seasonal when was seen as a useful way to build relationships and understanding. It was suggested that making chefs lives as easy as possible would help in getting them to buy your produce, given that they are also motivated by making a profit. The difference between dealing with high-end and other chefs was also pointed out.