Greater Lansing residents spend more than a billion dollars annually on food and beverages in stores, restaurants and other establishments. Unfortunately, most of these food dollars are spent on products originating outside of the area. Some restaurants in the Capital region want to change that.
Local Supporting Local
Nina Santucci, co-owner of the
Purple Carrot Food Truck – a “mobile dining destination” that specializes in locally grown fare – says she chooses to offer local products because “we want to use the highest quality products. Items that are ripe and fresh and don’t have to travel. Secondly, we like supporting the local community. It’s good to be able to see where something’s grown and meet the person who’s grown it, to connect with our food from top to bottom.”
Santucci makes sure her customers know what they’re getting, and every day someone thanks her for what she’s doing. “We’re a tiny little business, a small speck on the map of Lansing, but I think we’re helping to get people excited about local foods. I can buy a case of tomatoes through Cisco for a quarter of what I pay someone who grows locally. It costs more to do this but I think the nutritional value of local foods balances out the extra cost.”
Growing for Market, a trade group representing local producers, agrees. It points out that food from local farmers tastes better and is better for us. Buying local keeps our taxes in check. (For every dollar in revenue raised by residential development, governments must spend $1.17 on services; for each dollar of revenue raised by farm, forest, or open space, governments spend just 34 cents on services.) And it preserves farmland and open space and supports local farm families.
Nick Gavrilides, owner of
Soup Spoon Café at 1419 E. Michigan in Lansing, says he buys local “when we can and where it makes sense because we believe in the community and supporting each other. Plus the shorter distance that food products have to travel, the fresher they are on the plate.” Gavrilides markets his commitment to local products on the café’s website and on the menu, and says his customers love it.
Alex Wilder of the
Wild Rose Café at 1224 Turner Street in Old Town (where Mama Bear’s used to be) says he buys and serves food from local suppliers partly because the economy is down and he’d rather help the little people who have their own businesses. “We do it more because it’s the right thing to do,” he says.
Wilder’s customers tend to be surprised and happy when they find out they’re eating fresh, home-grown products. “Sometimes they even offer to pay a little more,” he adds.
Franchises with a Local Focus
The
Grand Traverse Pie Company, right downtown at the corner of Allegan and Washington, uses Michigan products and suppliers whenever possible, according to its marketing person, Kim Weise. “We believe in and are committed to the local economy and people,” Weise says. She adds that the company receives a great response from its customers, both in its 18 stores and on its website - which promises more than 95 percent of the ingredients used come from Michigan growers and businesses.
Chipotle Mexican Grill – with stores on Grand River in East Lansing and in the Lansing Mall – includes local produce as part of its ‘Food with Integrity’ program. According to spokesperson Amber Gallihar, “Local produce is a huge movement in the food industry right now. In fact we’re doubling our use of local produce this year.”
Gallihar says her customers love it. “They like giving back to the community and the freshness of the ingredients. And they love knowing that the peppers came from a farm that they know about.”
“It’s nice to see such growth in the movement,” she added. “Supply isn’t always there – we serve so much food that it’s hard to find farmers who can deal with the quantity issue – but it’s getting easier every day.
Schools, Hospitals and Beyond
Patty Cantrell, an expert on family-scale, place-based farms that produce healthy food, points out another benefit of restaurants supporting local producers. “Beyond new sales for area farmers, restaurant use of local foods adds to consumer awareness about how great it tastes and how much we benefit when farms are out there taking care of land and water,” she says.
Cantrell explains that increased awareness by consumers creates other opportunities for farms, such as schools and hospitals purchasing local foods. Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital is one of 76 in Michigan that have pledged to source 20 percent local food by 2020 through the
Healthy Food Hospitals program. “They'll soon be serving tomatoes from a cooperative of small farms that have formed to serve this new, larger volume demand from hospitals,” she says.
Another way that people can support local growers, in addition to patronizing restaurants that serve local fare, is by becoming involved with community supported agriculture, or CSA. In this alternative to traditional farming, growers and consumers share the risks and benefits of food production.
Luckily for us, there’s a CSA farm just a few miles from downtown Lansing.
Michigan State University’s Student Organic Farm, on College Road in Holt, is a 10-acre, year-round teaching and production farm that uses passive solar greenhouses to produce and distribute fresh, locally grown, organic vegetables to MSU’s dining halls and its own members 48 weeks of the year.
That woman from Okemos standing outside the Purple Carrot Food Truck with a Summer Harvest Berry Salad? Those families from Lansing and Bath picking up potatoes, onions, eggplants and cabbage from the Student Organic Farm? The people from DeWitt leaving the Grand Traverse Pie Company with Shepherd’s Pot Pie? They’re all helping to make Greater Lansing great.
Patrick Diehl is a freelance writer for Capital Gains.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of
Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Food being prepared at Soup Spoon Cafe
Nick Gavrilides, owner of Soup Spoon Café
Alex Wilder of the Wild Rose Café
List of local Michigan food's used at Grand Traverse Pie Co
Kim Weis of Grand Traverse Pie
The Purple Carrot food truck
All Photos ©
Dave Trumpie