The storytellers: Oregon chefs using food to raise the profile of Oregon agriculture

(Editor’s Note: This article was written by ODA Director of Communications Bruce Pokarney for the Oregon Restaurant Association’s magazine, Main Ingredient, and appeared in the June/July 2003 edition.)

The image of someone in a chef’s hat standing out in a field of Oregon berries is as odd as someone in a John Deere hat in the kitchen of an upscale Portland restaurant. Symbolically, though, it is not far fetched. Many Oregon restaurants and the chefs who define them are finding their next great meal right in their own backyard — or certainly in their own home state. These special people are marketing the fact that their menu is stocked with locally grown, farm-fresh product and believe their patronage to Oregon agriculture will bring in customers and benefit a remarkable industry that often goes overlooked by the dining public. It is a story that Cory Schreiber is compelled to tell.

“People want to know where their food comes from, who it comes from,” says the fifth generation Oregonian, who has been operating Wildwood Restaurant and Bar for nearly ten years now. “When I returned to the Portland restaurant scene, I wanted to focus on food products I could find close to home and use it as a marketing tool.”

Perhaps no restaurateur has done it better. Schreiber won the James Beard Award in 1998 for Best Chef Pacific Northwest. His vision has been backed up by a commitment to the local producer. During the growing season, Schreiber can often be seen walking up and down the aisles of vendors at the Portland Farmers’ Market, talking to them, buying fresh produce from them. He thrives on having contact and a dialogue with the local producers. Sometimes that takes him to the farm for a first-hand look at the quality of what is being grown. Other times the farm comes to him. Twice a week during the growing season, a few of Wildwood’s suppliers will come to town with a “raw abundance," as Schreiber likes to call it, of fresh food that often ends up on the plate within hours. One small operation in the shadow of Mt. Hood, Outback Farm of Parkdale, grows nothing but asparagus. Wildwood makes the one hour trek worthwhile by purchasing enough of the green stalks to last at least a couple of days. Other specialty farms and producers provide the appetizing tastes that distinguish the flavorful menu of the restaurant: Pork sausage from Laughing Stock Farms of Eugene, eggs from Golden Gait Farms of Hillsboro, local berries, wild mushrooms, and salmon. It’s all from the garden of Oregon agriculture. Wildwood’s annual purchase of locally-grown food is well into the six figure range.

As an 11-year old harvesting oysters from Yaquina Bay for the family restaurant, Dan and Louis Oyster Bar in Portland, Cory Schreiber always knew about the connection between where the food came from and where it ended up.

“It’s critical that we don’t stray too far from our source of food and the natural resource base of Oregon,” he says.

Schreiber has developed a passion for sourcing local food.

“Simply because it is renewable, restorative, and reassuring that we can be sufficient in local food production and sustainable within our environment; I love putting a face on food and knowing where it comes from.”

There are also the more tangible reasons for linking up with the local farmer.

“The less any food product travels, the better that product will taste and the more it will be recognized for quality,” says Schreiber. “This has everything to do with flavor, texture, and color.”

Schreiber’s plan, a blueprint that seems to be shared by others in the Oregon restaurant industry, is to strengthen the farm-chef connection. He believes in using chefs to help tell the story of Oregon agriculture.

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Bridging the urban-rural divide

Katy Coba grew up on a wheat ranch near Pendleton. Now, as director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Coba wants more Oregonians to understand the connection that she and Cory Schreiber know intrinsically. A majority of Oregonians are now at least two or three generations removed from the farm. That migration from an agrarian lifestyle has dulled the knowledge and appreciation of a multi-billion dollar agriculture industry in Oregon.

“I would like to see us bring urban and rural Oregon together, and one opportunity to do so is around food and the food experience,” says Coba. “As restaurants highlight Oregon-grown products, those who live in urban Oregon can reconnect with where their food comes from.”

Certainly, the meteoric growth in farmers markets in Oregon is testament to a sort of renaissance with locally grown produce and other foods. However, Coba believes restaurants — from white tablecloth dining to fast food outlets — can do the same job.

“When people talk about branding Oregon, I see the notion of attaching “Oregon” to products featured in restaurants as an easy thing to do and a great marketing tool,” she says. “I also see it as something that can be connected with a larger Brand Oregon effort that the state is interested in undertaking.”

Whether that brand focuses on such positive images as clean, green, sustainable, or on even more food-oriented concepts such as taste and texture, it can forge a strong link to high quality and locally grown products.

“My sense is a lot of restaurants are serving Oregon food products but don’t take the time to market them as such,” says Coba. “I think their customers would like to know and would consider such food items as a positive in their dining experience.”

That may not move the current generation back to the farm, but it might bring it closer to supporting one of Oregon’s leading industries.

“Agriculture is a major contributor to the economic well being of Oregon,” says Coba. “The value of agricultural production is $3.6 billion. Add another $2 billion in food processing and all the related services, and you have nearly 10 percent of the economy related to agriculture. About one in 12 Oregon jobs is tied to the industry, with about 60,000 of these jobs located on farms. So the future of agriculture is important to the future of Oregon.”

Just as important to Coba is the fact that agriculture remains a way of life in Oregon.

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Bringing the public to the table

Recognizing the value of the connection between locally grown food and hometown restaurants, the Keeping Agriculture Viable Committee (KAV) planned and implemented the “Celebrate Great Oregon Foods Week” last October. KAV’s three-year strategic plan for a positive public image for Oregon agriculture included having restaurants and their chefs help tell the story. Created from the Oregon Agriculture. Everywhere. Every Day.™ campaign, the special week was designed to help Oregonians better understand where their food comes from and subsequently have a greater awareness and understanding of the importance and benefits of Oregon agriculture. With the involvement of the Agri-Business Council of Oregon (ABC), the Oregon Restaurant Association, and the Oregon Garden, the call went out to restaurants statewide to not only offer Oregon foods, but promote the heck out of them.

More than 100 restaurants participated in the inaugural event.

“We are proud of the relationships we have built with local farmers and producers,” says David Yudkin, owner of Hot Lips Pizza of Portland. “We believe that food quality is determined by the way food is grown, distributed, and prepared. That’s why we serve fresh, locally grown ingredients all year long. Celebrating great Oregon foods by purchasing and serving local products is gratifying.”

The participating restaurants also taught servers to talk to customers about the Oregon products on the menu as well as distributed information about local products that were being used and which growers provided those products.

Individual restaurants tied into the week-long theme. For some of them — like Burgerville — the promotion of locally grown would have taken place regardless of the special week. Fresh Oregon blackberry milk shakes, Tillamook cheese on the burgers, and Walla Walla onion rings have made their way onto the chain’s marquees. Still, Burgerville was a willing participant to the overall campaign, offering special tag lines promoting the week in its own radio ads.

“Those restaurants participating in Celebrate Great Oregon Foods Week exposed some 100,000 patrons to positive messages about agriculture,” says ABC Executive Director Mary Stewart. “Media outreach during that week drove consumers to participating restaurants and to websites for more information. Restaurants provide a bridge between those who grow food and those who consume it. We have just scratched the surface of potential relationship-building experiences and outcomes through working with Oregon restaurants.”

Stewart sees the connection as a win-win-win situation.

“The producer benefits because the restaurant marketplace provides a source of revenue. Some producers have restaurants as their main market, while others use sales to restaurants as a secondary source of revenue. The restaurant benefits because chefs can use the local products with a greater assurance of food security, and the products are fresh. As the relationship grows between producer and chef, the producer will learn the standards desired by the chef, and can customize the growing and packing accordingly. Groundswell from consumers who prefer local foods will increase revenues for the restaurant. The consumer benefits from local availability because their meals are such excellent quality — the freshness, health, and handling of ingredients determines much of the outcome of the menu item. Consumers anticipate, seek, and enjoy Oregon foods as they come into season.”

Again, it’s all about telling agriculture’s story in Oregon through the dining experience.

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A tasty story

Wildwood is not the only Oregon restaurant making a living by marketing locally grown food. But Cory Schreiber could probably write a manual on how to do it successfully.

“Making use of locally-grown products can greatly define a restaurant’s image by connecting the restaurant to all things the customer base comes in contact with,” he says. “Anywhere from buying foods from local farms that customers see at the market themselves, to sponsoring local little league teams, to displaying work of local artists on the walls. All of this demonstrates that the restaurant is connected to it’s local community. In turn, the people who dine there also connect.”

As a subset of a larger effort to brand the state of Oregon, restaurants can play a vital role in telling agriculture’s story.

“Restaurants are a small part of that picture, but have the biggest access to offering explanation on a broad media level about what Oregon agriculture has to offer,” says Schreiber. “First, we need to make sure we are doing what we say we are, then we need to be consistent about using local product and showcasing how it increases our quality standards. Then if this is all true, we can address the next issue of why the story needs to be told with viable models to refer to.”

Bridging urban and rural Oregon relies on identifying and aligning common interests. What could be more commonly shared than the dining experience? Restaurants offering and marketing local food can nurture the connection and create an awareness that both urban and rural need to fuel each other. Both will benefit from the connection.

Oregonians are hungry for it, Oregon agriculture can offer it. Oregon restaurants can set the table with it.

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