Tuesday, December 08, 2009

The Problems of Foodies--"Founding Farmers" Restaurant

Jane Black had an article on the problems the hot new "Founding Farmers restaurant" has with its goal of serving local, sustainable, and organic food.  She catches instances where their performance is less than their promises, but I don't take it as a critical, muckraking piece, rather as showing the difficulties of putting a square peg (the sustainable restaurant) into a round hole (the existing food system).  What happens is the buyer for the restaurant assumes a big responsibility which isn't easily performed, the responsibility of searching out the backstory of every food item purchased.  There might, in bigger cities, be a niche for an organic, sustainable broker, someone who takes on that burden and serves as a middleman between food producer and the restaurant.

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