Thank you. Team Lucky Peach, Team Noma. We're just thrilled and honored to be here. This
is just an amazing, amazing experience. Hello, everyone. We're going to start off the presentation
with a very short video to show you a little bit more in detail of perhaps why we were
invited here today, you know what I'm saying.
It's not any news any longer that farmers and chefs have collaborations. We know that.
We know it's not a new concept. A dozen years ago, before we even started out, David Kinch
and I, there were just a couple notable exclusive relationships of farms and restaurants in
the world. This year, you can see them all over the map. It's a global phenomenon. It's
not news any longer. More and more chefs and restaurants are sourcing from farms. Even
Wikipedia's gotten into the game and has a farm-to-table definition. Thank you. Even though
we never really called ourselves a farm-to-table restaurant, it was always a purely qualitative
decision in moving forward. In fact, visitors that we have to the restaurant, both industry
people and elsewhere, one of the most frequently asked questions we have is, how do you make
this work? How can it work with such a small restaurant in such a large operation that's
labor-intensive as a farm? How do we collaborate? We're not here just to talk about us. We
also want to talk about how it's possible for more restaurants to have an exclusive
relationship with just one farm. I know a lot of you guys already sourced from farms.
That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a one-on-one direct relationship
that is exclusive. I don't sell my product to anybody else. A hundred percent of it goes
to Manresa. It may seem like a romantic notion, like Daniel said, but it does have its trials
and tribulations, and we're here to talk about those as well as the good times, too.
We're going to talk a little bit about the financial, how we make it work so everybody
is happy. First, let's start at the beginning and talk
a little bit about how we did it, how we started, and how we've evolved.
As lucky as we are in Northern California with our great products, we have access to
many different things. We started looking to create a degree of separation from other
people. The first thing I thought was, perhaps quite naively in my spare time, I would grow
my own vegetables for the restaurant. I thought that was funny, too.
I was very fortunate to make a connection with Chef Alain Passard, who has a series of gardens
and orchards for one particular restaurant in France. He was very generous with his information
and also inviting me to visit the gardens about 10 years ago.
I thought I would start growing my own vegetables. I realized this was going to probably be a
problem, so I started asking farmers friends of mine if they could evaluate land for me,
the viability of it, and perhaps if they could help me find someone to do this for me.
Cynthia, at that time, was our tomato supplier for the restaurant. She was a fabulous hobbyist,
award-winning tomato grower in which we really loved the products. She was one of the people
that I went to ask advice about.
I did already own a farm. This is my original farm. About 30, 35 minutes away from Man Ray
said I already owned this property and was very happy to take David up on his initial
phone call. I remember that phone call when he asked if I knew of any land he could grow
vegetables on. I said, I think you don't want to grow vegetables yourself. I think you want
to have a professional do it. We started talking.
We started talking. We agreed that we both wanted to try biodynamic practices, both for
the restaurants and for the farm, and we both agreed upon that.
We achieved our Demeter certification a few years ago. It's tough for me to follow one
of my personal heroes, the Nana Shiva. She's all about the anti-GMO, and so is the Demeter
organization and biodynamics. We do not have any GMO crops at all that we supply to Man
Ray. We started out and we still have a handshake deal. I'm going to have to pin you down on
that though, chef.
We both made significant early commitments as my farmhouse before I took out the lawn.
She also dug up her swimming pool as a level of commitment.
Yeah, there's no more swimming. They're too busy growing crops for you, Mr. Demanding.
And for a small restaurant, to show our level of commitment, we bought a lot of the outbuildings.
We had hoop houses and greenhouses built at the farm to show how much we were committed
to the relationship.
And to show David's further commitment, he even sent his dad over. That's his dad to
help put up our greenhouses.
Cheap labor, cheap labor.
We agreed to start small, just eight or nine crops to begin with.
And that quickly, over time, that quickly ramped up to over 300 different cultivars
year-round that's grown just specifically for the restaurant.
Yeah, at the height of the season.
So the farm has also moved to a new location.
The slide isn't showing, the picture isn't showing, but we have a new location that we
bought three and a half years ago.
I bought with a couple of friends of mine.
And it's about 12 miles, 12 minutes away from the restaurant.
But it hasn't been all fun and games.
This is what David looks like when we don't give him his crops.
Wow.
We've suffered through a lot of diseases.
We've had phytophthora infestants affect our tomato crop one year.
Every year, because of our relationship with Cynthia, we do a tomato celebration, a tomato
weekend.
Many of us all tomatoes for two or three days, and we actually had to cancel one year because
of the mites we had.
Yeah, because of this particular disease.
We've had deer raid our garden, even though we've put up deer fence.
Those bastards somehow get in and can eat our crop.
And David's very forgiving about that.
We've had mice in the garden when morning I came out to see this, just little zippers
on the sides of the pea pods.
And it didn't occur to me until I saw the teeth marks, what was going on.
They're very good at just opening it up.
They don't even take it off the vine.
They just open it up and extract the peas.
And it's probably something you know a little bit more about here, but we've had unexpected
frosts in northern California also that have done damage.
You guys can't, in Copenhagen, you can't relate to the fact that sometimes we are surprised
by this.
We've suffered through horrible pests.
This is cucumber beetles, completely decimating squash blossom.
And this is really what separates organic biodynamic farmers from conventional farmers.
It's the handling of the pests.
Gophers have, we've had horrible problems with gophers too when we first moved in.
Lots of gopher holes, just trap, trap, trap, trying to get these guys like Caddyshack.
And at the very beginning, we went through periods where we grew way too much of stuff
that we couldn't deal with.
Everybody who's grown squash knows what I'm talking about.
We had a lot of lettuces.
And also on the flip side, a product that we wanted to use on a regular basis, we would
gap, we'd go through periods where the beds wouldn't be ready.
It's tough to make sure he has beets every harvest 52 weeks out of the year.
But we try.
Despite our difficulties, despite these minor difficulties, the relationship still works
for us.
And we're happy to have it.
But we want to talk to you about how an exclusive farm restaurant collaboration can work for
you and can benefit you as well.
It is exclusive.
It's the fact that we can just concentrate on what's growing with Cynthia working in tandem
with her.
And she can concentrate on her passion, which is growing things, not having to worry to
sell or to unload the product.
So let's talk about how it can benefit a restaurant.
I can specify exactly what I want grown for the restaurant and the quantities and amounts.
And what you don't want grown.
Yeah, exactly what I don't want to grow, waste valuable space.
When David first, and I first partnered, I had a beautiful herb garden and some fabulous
varieties of sage.
And he said, pull them all out, don't like sage, never will like sage.
So I had to take it out.
Hate it.
Hate it.
I can specify harvest sizes and the shapes of leaves and maturity levels of almost everything.
Even numerous stages for one plant just to contribute to one particular dish.
Yeah, so he can say, I want my radishes exactly one inch in diameter.
I want to stock on it four inches long.
I don't want anything else on there.
Tuscano kale, I want it exactly this length.
And he can, and we do that for him.
And of course, the best thing to exclusivity, I can have access to all stages of plants during
its various growth, roots, shoots, mature and immature leaves, seeds, stems and flowers.
And that's hard.
Sometimes just not available commercially.
Right.
It's hard to get at a farmer's market every part of that plant that he wants.
Part of my job is sourcing rare cultivars.
So in the winter months, even though we're still growing for him, I have a little bit
of a respite and I can start looking up encyclopedias and plant things, plant esoteric plant varieties
to acquire the seeds and to grow them for David and further help differentiate his restaurant.
You can get the freshest stuff around.
It's about 10 minutes from the restaurant.
What a difference 12 hours can make with really, really fragile food stuffs.
Yeah.
Even at a farmer's market, those products have been picked either the day before or the day
before that, never that morning.
So we pick them, we handle them very gently and we take them to the restaurant in the
most loving way possible.
What's even really cool too is that the entire restaurant staff, both front of the house
and back of the house, they're interested.
They can participate.
A lot of stages and next turns are required to spend time at the farm also, which is a
great carryover.
I walk around the farm with David on occasion and I don't even say anything because I could
just see the wheels turning his head as he walks from crop to crop, getting ideas of
what he's going to do with that veg later.
Wheels turning, wheels turning.
And of course, exclusivity with one farm can help with publicity.
I know it's helped my farm greatly and I hope in some small way it's helped Manresa too.
And we have a lot of guests at the restaurant who want to see the farm too to complete their
experience, which is really great.
So we understand that this arrangement, this relationship is not for every restaurant,
but we did want to talk about how to craft it if it's something that you think would
be beneficial to you.
So there are basically three types of this relationship, the love apple model, which
is partnering with an already existing farm exclusively and then two, when a restaurant
already owns land or has access to land and they just have to hire a farmer to put in
a garden for them.
And then lastly, a restaurant doesn't own any land, they don't know a farmer or they
don't have a gardener in mind and they have to find both of those things.
The first one, of course, is the relationship that Cynthia and I have in which I found an
already established farm who is willing to work with me.
And so one of the benefits of that is that there's no land investment and you can trust
that you've got an experienced farmer because they've already been farming.
The downside is it's a lot harder to find than you think.
A lot of farmers are set in their ways, they're not willing to commit to a risky business
of supplying just one customer and certainly not restaurants.
We all know restaurants open and restaurants close.
Right, and the farm may already have sufficient buyers for their products.
They may not want to put all their eggs in one basket and go with you exclusively, so
you may not be able to entice them.
And again, the farm may not want to take the risk with partnering just with one source
diversity reduces risk.
So it might be difficult to talk them into it.
And the farmer can quit also, you know, if the farmer might be tough, they might not
find it viable and they might have every viable reason to walk away from the project.
There was a time about three years in our relationship when I said, that's it, I'm done.
I'm not doing this anymore, it's too hard, I cannot do it.
And then David talked me out of the tree and here we are five years later still going strong.
It is probably the fastest and easiest way to establish the relationship, though, is
finding an already existing farm.
After we started the commitment, we had products in a matter of weeks.
Right, the first harvest I think was three weeks in and he called me up on the phone
and said it was great and I said, Yahoo, let's go for it.
So how do you find such a farm?
You may already know of a farmer to ask or you could get a referral from a trusted friend
if that farm is not, or you can get a referral from that farm if that particular farm isn't
interested.
Yeah, you're already known sources, other farmers you might know, sources at the farmers
markets or various farms.
Yeah, go down the farmers market and start asking.
You can also check out this website, it's international, it's fabulous, it's called
localharvest.org.
There's over 30,000 farms on localharvest.org with all their contact information on there.
And what should you expect to pay?
This is the single largest question that we are asked, is how do you make it work?
And it does depend on the location, how expensive your real estate is around you.
We are in Santa Cruz, California and that's one of the most expensive pieces of real estate
in the United States and it also depends on the size of the farm.
Bigger of course is going to be more expensive and the number of crops too.
If our animals are involved that substantially increases costs, even though it adds diversity.
Yeah, animals are huge expense.
And the best tip is really not to worry about weight fee, paying for bunches of carats.
Our arrangement is that we pay a monthly fee at the beginning of the month, we pay a not
insubstantial amount of money to have access to everything that grows at the farm in the
first dibs.
This allows us, it frees us up in the kitchen to cook and to work with the products that
come in, spend our time planning and Cynthia can spend time doing what she does best which
is growing things.
And realize that the farmer has to, you have to charge for that exclusivity because they
are losing an opportunity to sell their excess to somebody else.
And we're also have to charge an extra fee for the specialty harvesting, we're always
getting maybe a last minute phone call, hey, we don't quite have enough borage flowers,
can you pick some and deliver them to the restaurant.
So that extra handling and harvesting has got to cost you something, David.
Number two, the second form is you have land already but you need to find a farmer.
Great example is the French Laundry, very famous restaurant in Northern California.
Also for years had abandoned land that they wanted to develop across the way and just
recently they planted a really impressive kitchen garden.
Yep, they had the land and they hired a farmer and put in a farm.
You may already have land and you don't even know it like this beautiful rooftop garden
in Brooklyn.
Restaurant investor might have nearby suitable lands that they'd be willing to let you use
for the project.
And you don't even have to have a large piece of land, it could just be a little plot at
the end of the street corner that they'll get you started.
And probably the single most important thing is accessibility.
If you have a farm that's two and a half hours away from the restaurant, it almost defeats
the purpose of having the relationship.
Or the land might be too clay, it might be too near the coast to really get a full feel
for what you want to grow.
One of the other good things about this relationship, this second form is that you can hand pick
your farmer to match your aesthetic, match what you are trying to do in your restaurant.
And this course takes a lot of longer too because you're starting up, you have start-up
costs.
So you're not going to get crops within three weeks with this one, you have to be a little
bit more patient.
So how do you find a farmer for your existing land, here's Dan Barber and his farmer.
You can go on to this fabulous website, there's lots of websites like this, as a matter of
fact it's a biodynamic farming and garden website worldwide as well, put an advertisement
on there for a farmer.
I think we all understand the importance of social media and getting any kind of message
out there that you want, it's a great way to find help.
That's how you all are getting your sous chefs these days and wait staff, right?
Or you can find your farmer at Love Apple, we're opening a farmer university where we're
training just a small handful of students to farm exclusively for fine dining restaurants
and it is a different way of farming.
It really is quite different than tractors and all that stuff.
We have, there's several graduates from Love Apple Farms that are running farms and gardens
for various high profile restaurants in the Bay area now.
Yeah, we just wish they would wait until they graduate, they come in and they pinch my students
before they're finished.
In this scenario though, the farmer is usually an employee and the restaurant pays for the
land and all the equipment in that second form.
Yeah, and you have to expect to pay them as an employee, it's just like a kitchen job,
it's not a 40 hour work week, they're really, really committed in farming life.
Yeah, if your farmer wants to work 40 hours a week, fire her, it's not a 40 hour week
job.
Startup costs can be substantial from the very beginning, do not underestimate how much
money it takes to get things going.
Including that farmer salary.
And then after that it goes down a little bit, but there's always a lot to pay for.
And you'll need additional hands because one farmer is never enough, I think it takes us
about 30 man hours per harvest for Manresa.
And the last form is number three in which you have no land and you have no farmer, what
can you do?
And you've got to find them both, so find the farmer first.
Because a farmer's expertise is going to be able to find the land for you, she knows
what she's looking at and knows it better than you do.
Do you let that farmer live on the land though, because there's no substitute for exacting
attention to detail 24-7?
Certainly during startup.
Especially during startup.
And of course this last collaboration is going to be the most expensive because you have
to find the land and you have to find the farmer.
You're simply, you're paying for it all.
You're paying for all the housing, the startup costs, salaries, outbuildings, just everything
we do.
We're talking them out of it, David.
We're supposed to be talking them into it.
So be careful on both of these, all of these forms of collaboration though.
There's a risk of the farm failing, there's a risk of the restaurant failing.
You're not going to go out of business anytime soon, are you, David?
And there's a risk of the crop failure like the tomatoes.
And of course finding qualified personnel, it's the same thing as hiring a non-qualified
sous chef or chef cuisine to run your kitchen.
You want to find someone who really buys into your vision and what you want to carry out.
Yeah, I think this is the second biggest tip we were going to impart to people is do not
hire your girlfriends, nephew just because he thinks he might be able to throw a seed
in the ground, water it and get crops for you.
This is an important point.
They've got to be qualified.
And how do you find that qualified farmer in addition to all the other things that we've
said?
Again, get a referral from a trusted farmer or you can even hire a consultant to find
your farmer, find your land, get it going and then walk away.
That's a possibility too.
And those possible consultants or head farmers that already have a relationship with a restaurant,
again, this type of farming is very different from normal farming.
So you really want to get that expertise.
This relationship, I mean, it might very well work for you.
I know it does for us.
It's been the single largest challenge that we've had at the restaurant the past six years,
but unequivocally, I think it's the most satisfying also.
It's the closed circle, the waste, the composting that comes back, the seed saving operations,
the collaboration and planting crops.
I think the coolest thing that we do is not that we just grow a bunch of stuff when we
try to use it, but we custom grow the amounts just to show as much respect and lack of wastefulness
as we possibly can.
Yeah.
That's been really great.
Very satisfying relationship.
So does this sort of exclusive farmer restaurant collaboration take guts?
I think so.
I think so too.
But no guts.
No glory.
Cheers.
Thank you.
