Growing Rhode Island’s Food Economy

By Andrew Webb

“Career and technical schools taking part in cooking contests is a great way to collaborate” says Peter Fangiullo, whose Davies Career and Technical Center students won runner-up in a recent cook-off. “Students get bragging rights, a creative challenge and a taste of real-world experience.”

Few could argue that Rhode Island’s economy needs help. Since eating will never move out of state, and with the trend for local, sustainable food production going strong, it just makes sense that the people who in one way or another provide the food we eat work together for mutual benefit and for building up a strong and stable industry.

Everything is in place. RI culinary schools supply top-shelf chefs. RI restaurants hire the chefs who can then buy from RI farmers. Add retail stores buying local foods. Consumer demand for locally sourced food is satisfied. As the consumer market builds, the industry can grow in equal measure. Dollars stay in RI.

Collaboration holds promise to bolster the industry
In one recent example, the Rhode Island Dairy Farms Cooperative initiated a collaboration with its Artisan Cheese Cook-Off, a competition for Rhode Island high school culinary students. The competition brought together students from four RI career and technical high schools to craft dishes made with the cooperative’s Rhody Fresh brand cheese and dairy products.

The students in teacher Raymond Depot’s class at Warwick Area Career and Technical Center won the top prize for their gravy-and-cheese-smothered poutine dish, made with RI-grown potatoes as well as Rhody Fresh Butterkase cheese.

Depot says that educators can do their part to expose culinary students to tastes “outside of their neighborhoods. Once you do, they get excited.” Bringing students closer to the source of their food, is another way he helps students “go with the craft.” A field trip to a Cranston teacher’s micro farm, for example, is a way to “fully appreciate the real animal that goes into the dishes they will make rather than taking for granted a piece of meat wrapped in plastic.”

Student contestants from the CHARIHO Career and Technical Center created mushroom puff pastry. Chef instructor Linda Musch said “They used local mushrooms as well as the RhodyFresh cheese. Students were enthusiastically competitive and proud of their product at the cook-off. We’re also entering a similar cook-off based on locally harvested mussels in May.”

Cooking contests are just one category of innovative thinking that can raise awareness of local food and bring potential partners together to build relationships.

“Buying local” and “sustainable food” define a national trend
Millennials in particular, are playing a big role in moving toward simple, more natural (and pronounceable) ingredients. Their concerns also extend to food sustainability and environmental soundness.

According to the National Restaurant Association, “Environmental sustainability remains among the hottest menu trends.” It also notes, “As the local sourcing trend continues at full speed in 2015, so does the hyper-local sub-trend. Beyond restaurant gardens, hyper-local is extending more fully into house-made, farm-branded and artisan items.”

An example of the home-grown movement is the Matunuck Oyster Bar, which provides a successful model for farm-to-table eating. The highly popular restaurant in South Kingstown farms its own oysters and vegetables – and vacationers with New York, Connecticut and New Jersey license plates line up on the road along with locals waiting to get a table. Others, like Exeter’s Celestial Café feature menus with locally sourced fish, meat and vegetables – and a monthly dinner that is 100-percent Rhode Island foods. Clearly there is broad demand that RI producers can capitalize on.

RI Advantages
RI has a mix of potential partners in close proximity. Johnson & Wales of course, and regional career and technical high schools attract culinary students who are increasingly inspired by famous chefs and food shows on the Food Network and other TV channels. RI’s diverse restaurant/dining/hospitality industry hires many of those graduating chefs who, tuned into trends, can specify locally grown foods and enhance their establishment’s appeal in the process.

On the growing side, RI has more strength in its farming industry than it might seem. After greenhouse/nursery/turf operations, the larger segments include dairy products, aquaculture, corn, apples, vegetables, eggs and honey. About 1, 220 farms dot the state, producing on about 67,800 acres and with an average size of roughly 56 acres. According to the federal government’s Farmland Information Center, the market value of agricultural products sold in 2012 was over $59 million.

In addition to the eight farms of the Rhode Island Dairy Farms Cooperative and farm/restaurant operations like the Matunuck Oyster Bar, Carolyn’s Sakonnet Vineyard, orchards like Barden Family Orchard and retail farms like Shartner Farms have multiple markets, whether retailing on site, at farmers’ markets or selling wholesale to restaurants and food stores.

David Dadekian’s Eat Drink RI is a regional media outlet for area culinary happenings. Dadekian points to Rhode Island’s rich culinary landscape and the opportunity to develop tourism based on food. “Places like Portland, Maine have promoted themselves as a food destination, and Rhode Island could do this too with some marketing at the state level.”

Collaboration Potential
Whether growing, educating or serving, industry partners can work together to create a larger, more vibrant RI economic sector. There are some good examples.

Farm Fresh Rhode Island, a not-for-profit founded in 2004, promotes a stronger RI food system, and its Farm to School program is a good example of collaboration. In fact, RI public schools spent $175,000 on food from RI farmers in 2011 and 2012 in the form of produce and milk. Groups like this put partners together.

Retailers like Stop & Shop and Dave’s Market, and college dining services like those at Brown offer Rhody Fresh milk. Brown’s commitment is part of its Community Harvest program, which partners with small farms that employ sustainable practices.

Numerous farmers’ markets around the state enable farmers to sell direct to the public, and are usually enabled by local governments providing space for farmers to set up.

While not exclusive to food, Buy Local RI is an example of a web-based local buying initiative – and a collaborative effort “between businesses, non-profit organizations, local government and the Rhode Island Foundation.” The organization’s directory-style website lists a wide range of local businesses.

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