Linn County farmers and chefs connect at Cobble Hill

Restauranteurs and farmers grow network at Linn County Food Systems event

Parker Jones

July 16, 2024

The exterior of Cobble Hill restaurant as seen on May 30, 2024, in Cedar Rapids. farm-to-table dining — The exterior of Cobble Hill restaurant as seen on May 30, 2024, in Cedar Rapids. CREDIT PARKER JONES

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Around 40 chefs and farmers from the Linn County area gathered together at Cobble Hill in Cedar Rapids July 15 to discuss locally-grown and raised food. Cobble Hill is one of several restaurants in the Corridor to rely largely on locally-sourced ingredients. Head chef and owner Andy Schumacher spoke at Monday’s event, which was hosted by the Linn County Food Systems Council. Mr. Schumacher began by emphasizing Cobble Hill’s reliance on local produce, which he said makes up around 90% of the restaurant’s menus at the height of the season: usually mid-summer. He said that above all else, local ingredients are incomparable to store-bought or mass-produced food. “First and foremost, for me, quality is paramount,” Mr. Schumacher said at the event. “You know, the style of restaurant that we're doing, we're trying to do a little bit more of a high-end thing. Having that quality is very important. And having that inherent quality in the ingredient makes our job way easier, and way more enjoyable.”

Seasonality

He went on to discuss the periodic nature of buying local, and how it can sometimes hold a deeper meaning than simply acquiring food for the restaurant. “I also personally really like the cyclical feeling of working with an ingredient, and having it be kind of fleeting, and maybe not seeing it again for another year,” Mr. Schumacher said. “And when it comes around again, getting this emotional feeling of maybe something that was happening in your life in this moment from the year before, previous years before that; it kind of comes back to you and re-inspires you.” Though Mr. Schumacher is a big proponent of buying local as much as possible, it isn’t always possible in a region like the Midwest where the off-season is months long for most produce. This is part of the challenge, he said. “Supplies can kind of ebb and flow,” Mr. Schumacher said. “And balancing those things with the amount of guests that are going to come into your establishment and order this dish versus how much of it you need to order versus how much of its available; getting enough that doesn't go bad and not running out; there's a lot of maneuvering that's involved with that.” For newer restauranteurs interested in buying local, Mr. Schumacher suggested creating a reliable “playbook” of recipes that can be made with ingredients from the area, or going to social media to search for dishes to make with what’s currently on the market. Although fresh-grown crops like herbs, vegetables, or fruit are not available year-round, other products like meat and preservable food can be saved and sold even during winter. Farmer Ana Pesek of Over the Moon Farm & Flowers discussed the process of raising, processing, and selling pork and poultry. Over the Moon mainly sells pasture-raised chicken, turkey, Pekin duck — which she worked specifically with Mr. Schumacher to sell to Cobble Hill — and Berkshire pork. Ms. Pesek estimated that Over the Moon sells about 30-40,000 pounds of meat every year. After receiving an ARPA-funded grant through Linn County Food Systems, Over the Moon was able to purchase a walk-in freezer for its goods last year. Ms. Pesek noted that while this enabled them to sell meat all year round as a frozen good, there are additional complications with selling directly to consumers, selling wholesale, and working with chefs to ensure the right cuts of meat and processing methods are what they need at any given time.

“I would say direct-to-consumer meat is essentially like its own economy … Tyson sells chicken, but that's kind of where our similarities end,” Ms. Pesek said. “In terms of input costs and supply chain, it just does not look the same.” Ms. Pesek emphasized the vast cash input that pasture-raised meat requires, including protecting the animals from predators, feeding, transport, vet costs, to any other factor that might come up. This results in the price of locally raised meat being much higher than what mass producers offer, but worth the expense, Ms. Pesek said. “I feel like some of the real groups that were key wholesale partners of all kinds are schools, restaurants, etc.,” Ms. Pesek said. “It really does help with cash flow to have some more wholesale purchases coming in, especially since our costs are so substantial.” Although the bulk of Over the Moon’s revenue does come from selling directly to individuals and families, Ms. Pesek said the farm is trying to build more relationships with wholesale buyers and restaurants like Cobble Hill.

Building a grower-to-restaurant network

Donna Warhover of Morning Glory Farm also offered her expertise in distributing produce, and repeatedly working with the same local chefs to build strong relationships. Morning Glory got its start as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, and also by attending several farmers' markets every week which helped Ms. Warhover put her name out there. Morning Glory mainly sells vegetables like fennel, chard, eggplant, cabbage, bell peppers, and a variety of others. In addition to farmers markets and CSA, Ms. Warhover said she now works with about eight restaurants to sell fresh produce but had to build her relationships with those chefs over time. “I was really — especially in those beginning years — really intimidated by working with chefs and restaurants,” Ms. Warhover said. “Thinking that because I didn't have a relationship with them already, that ‘My product is going to be judged instantly,’ and there were all sorts of things I had in my mind.”

Through a similar event with the Johnson County Food Systems Council in Iowa City, Ms. Warhover said she made her first connections with local chefs — and other farmers — over nine years ago. Some of the friendships she made there have lasted until this day. “And I encourage you to really try and seek those people out today or in other ways because the support that you get from talking things through someone else who's doing the same thing that you're doing is so valuable,” Ms. Warhover said. “So I think just getting confidence in your product, in yourself, and then really build those relationships with the chefs.” Ms. Warhover communicates with her repeat customers every week and said that’s a critical part of maintaining relationships with restaurants. She also recommended asking chefs exactly what they would like to buy from her, so she can work on tailoring her produce to their needs as much as is feasible. “Being able to have those kinds of open relationships is saying, ‘This is what I have, is this something that you can use?’ Starting out, I would meet with the chefs and say ‘What do you want me to grow?’” Ms. Warhover said. “And I have some chefs that say ‘You grow this and I'll buy it all now.’ That doesn't mean they're going to buy hundreds of pounds of something that you grow, they only need a lesser amount so you have to make sure that it's very specific ... And so you know I say ‘Okay, this is what I'm growing. This is when it will be ready if that's something you're interested in,’ and get that commitment.” After each speaker shared their insight, the audience was able to ask questions about the specifics of soliciting restaurant owners or vice versa, and the programs offered by Linn County Food Systems. Attendees on both sides of the market got to know one another after the Q&A, expanding and strengthening the local farmer-chef network. Echoing Ms. Warhover’s statements, Mr. Schumacher emphasized the value of building and maintaining those strong relationships. “A lot of these producers, I've built relationships with and I've known now for years, pushing a decade, we know each other and you know, I call them friends and sit down with them and talk about plants, or what they're growing,” Mr. Schumacher said. “And I think just being able to make that work and make human connections with people, I think is one of the more special aspects of it that isn't necessarily integrated into the products, but more of just the community aspect.”

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