The dramatic weather couldn’t stop the Food Economy Working Group from hosting their extremely successful Public Meeting on Wednesday, February 24th. The group met at Denizens Brewing Co. in downtown Silver Spring and prepared for an evening of beer drinking and sampling delicious local foods.
Vendors offering samples included The Urban Winery, Bakalva Couture, Cherry Glen Goat Cheese, Moorenko’s Ice Cream, Ricciuti’s Restaurant, Dawson’s Market, Chouquette Chocolates, Woodbourne Creamery, Chocolates and Tomatoes Farm, and Dress It Up Dressing.
The evening began with Food Council Chair Dan Hoffman telling attendees a little about what is going on in the County’s local food system. The presentations then kicked-off with a farmer, Mark Mills of Chocolates and Tomatoes Farm, talking about how he sees his role in the food system as a local farmer.
Sarah Dwyer, Chef/Owner of Chouquette Chocolates and Confections then took the microphone and discussed how her company has grown in its first 6 years from Sarah alone in the kitchen and selling at farmers markets to her products carried in 75 local stores. Her business has also created 15 part-time jobs, up to 25 seasonally, for Montgomery County residents, and employs 5- 10 Cornerstone Montgomery clients living with mental health issues.
Chouquette Samples
Bart Yablonsky, Director of Operations at Dawson’s Market, shared the following: “Dawson’s Market employs over 80 people and has supported over 50 local producers. We have purchased thousands of pounds of produce from local farmers and we have created a community environment that has brought hundreds of people together for network, charity and social events in our café area.” To him, “eating local means supporting our community, knowing where your food comes from and frequently the people making or growing it. It also means fresher product that has used less energy to get to my table.”
Julie Verratti of Denizens
The next speaker, James Ricciuti (Chef and Owner of Ricciuti’s Restaurant), has been in business for 22 years. The restaurant employs 35 people on average and buys as much food as possible within the county. They make it a priority to do business with local companies. To James, “eating local meaning fresher, cleaner food, keeping dollars in the community, supporting your community, and most importantly, better tasting food!”
Julie Verratti, Co-owner of Denizens Brewing Company, spoke next. She talked about the 40+ jobs her company has created and the growth it has experienced since it opened just two years ago. Julie discussed her expansion plans for the upcoming year and how her business, like Ricciuti’s, strives to buy only fresh, local products to serve to guests.
Chef Ype von Hengst and Council Member Carole Sugarman
Finally, Chef Ype von Hengst addressed the crowd. He spoke about how his restaurant chain, Silver Diner, strives for excellence when it comes to supporting the local food system. Ype discussed how growing up in Holland in a small community that produced its own food has heavily influenced his perspective on eating and sourcing, the direct impact that his restaurants make on the local economy when sourcing from local businesses or when they expand to new locations, and the tremendous positive impact of switching to a focus on healthy, locally sourced food has made on Silver Diner’s business model.
It was a great evening, filled with networking, sampling, and learning about the importance of buying local and the tremendous impact food businesses have on our local economy. Dan Hoffman, Food Council Chair, had this to say about the occasion:
“We had a great turnout and a very engaged audience at Food Council public meeting focused on the food economy and that’s no surprise. Montgomery County is a great place to start a food business whether you brew beer or make ice cream. Our residents desire local food products and respect the entrepreneurs that make them.”
According to the businesses that participated, here are the benefits of buying local:
- Environmental factors, such as less fuel consumption, lower carbon footprint, and less road infrastructure strain.
- Greater nutritional value and taste
- The ability to support local farmers
- Being able to personally connect with producers
- The local food chain; local businesses support other locally-owned businesses
- Your money spent goes toward the product, not transportation
According to those same businesses, here are some of the challenges faced when buying local:
- Lack of kitchen space.
- Changing dynamics in the food and alcoholic industry that don’t align with older government regulations.
- Competition from large national producers that can sell at increasingly lower costs.
- Increasing costs to do business such as minimum wage increase, bag taxes (passed on to consumers), paying more for alcohol.
- The difficulties of educating consumers on the benefits of locally sourced, “clean” foods.
- Starting a business costs a lot of money and is highly regulated. Local support is essential in getting a new business off the ground.
- The struggle with getting larger purchasers to buy locally.
What can you do to help make a difference?
- Shop at local, independent stores and markets. Shop at Farmer’s Markets before grocery stores.
- When choosing a product, read the label and pick the one produced closer to home.
- Keep an ear open for changes in local laws and regulations that may affect local producers, and voice your opinion in support of them.
- Research who owns the businesses you frequent and who produces the products you buy.
- Go out of your way to try and buy products made in Montgomery County or the general DMV area.
- Support new local businesses.
- Know what grows when and buy seasonally when possible.
- Remember that its OK to buy products that aren’t locally produced, but do so knowingly and try to buy these items from locally owned businesses.
To see what people had to say, search #EatLocalMoCo on Twitter or Facebook. We did our best to make it a social media-friendly event and attendees really took the opportunity to spread the word for us.
Attendees were invited to taste delicious beers from Denizens, among other things