Sowing Success: Our New White Paper Highlights Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Purchasing Local Food

In honor of the 25th anniversary of Farm to Fork, our groundbreaking local sourcing program, we’ve synthesized our many lessons learned into a white paper, Sowing Success: Local Food Purchasing Insights from 25 Years of the Farm to Fork Program.

“Farm to Fork is a foundational program for our company and created a ripple effect in the industry when we launched it in 1999,” says Fedele Bauccio, cofounder and CEO of Bon Appétit. “Now every food service company is working to source locally, which I think is vital for the resilience of our food system overall. This white paper reflects 25 years of important lessons about the collaboration and commitment required to make local sourcing truly successful and sustainable. I have always felt that our industry had a role in making the food system better, and I think Farm to Fork is more evidence that it does.”

In research done by the Bon Appétit Fellows, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to identify what factors determine a successful local sourcing program. We found that the most successful local purchasing programs emphasize ongoing engagement and relationship-building between buyers and producers; and emphasis on ingredients with year-round availability; and working with the variations of your region rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

“The program started small, and over the years we’ve been able to build a thriving culture around local purchasing and build longstanding relationships between our chefs and the producers they buy from,” say Shira Kaufman, Farm to Fork sourcing specialist and a researcher on the paper. “In the past decade we’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars with small, responsible producers and have been able to have big impact on those farms and communities,” says Theresa Chester, Bon Appétit’s vice president of purchasing.

The need to build and strengthen resilient local food systems is more urgent than ever. Institutional buyers have an important role to play in anchoring local farmers and food producers with consistent, high-volume purchases. This white paper points to clear steps institutions and organizations can take to ensure a successful and supportive local sourcing program.

Read the full white paper here.