Letter to the Editor in Response to 2.16.11 Statesman
We at Sustainable Food Center appreciate and share GroACT’s efforts towards educating consumers about which restaurants buy from certain farmers. However, there is some concern that many area farmers and ranchers, and the restaurants they supply, were excluded.
A large number of farmers and ranchers sell their produce, eggs, meat and cheese at SFC Farmers’ Markets, the largest certified grower-only market network in the state. Correspondingly, over a dozen chefs who have gone unmentioned in the GroACT list have for years supported our local farmers. For that reason, we feel it is necessary that those supporters of and participants in our local food system also receive a mention. Shawn Cirkiel of Parkside and Backspace, for example, a founding member of SFC Farmers’ Market when it began in 2003, was omitted, as was Andrew Curren of 24 Diner, both of whom have demonstrated – and continue to – a huge commitment to buying food from Central Texas farmers.
Aside from restaurants, we applaud the fact that St. Edwards University Cafeteria made the list, but inclusion of other leaders in the area of institutional food service deserve a mention, too. These include the Seton Family of Hospitals, which pioneered local food procurement in partnership with SFC over seven years ago, and University of Texas, where Chef Robert Mayberry and others have led a local purchasing initiative since 2006 Austin ISD and the KIPP Austin charter school district have been partners in SFC’s Sprouting Healthy Kids farm-to-school program for four years, not only purchasing locally grown foods but also facilitating gardening and healthy cooking education led by SFC.
SFC is eager to see the next version of the Gro-ACT survey, and will certainly lend whatever support we can to ensure the inclusion of more farmers and ranchers, and more restaurants and food service outlets. In the meantime, we agree that individuals should seek out local products and “ask as many questions as possible about where their food comes from.”
Note: SFC submitted this letter to the Statesman on February 16th, a day before the article on local procurement in The Chronicle was released. Readers are asked to bear in mind that this letter is not in response to The Chronicle article of Feb. 17th.
