Wed 27 Jan 2010
Pollan, Polyface & Perfect Flavor
Posted by lynsie under Business, Local Food, Sustainability, Uncategorized
[6] Comments
Imagine my surprise this afternoon, when folding some laundry, I decided to also turn on Oprah and see if anything caught my attention. With her topic being “FOOD 101″ and her guests including Michael Pollan, author of 4 best-selling real food books, the most famous being “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and Steve Ells, Founder and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, pioneer of healthy, real fast food, I knew I would be not only riveted to the screen, but could anticipate a certain rise in my blood pressure. As my husband would say: talk of real, sustainable, responsible food really lights my fire and gets me very revved up.
Perfect Flavor is interwoven into the stories of these two men and the documentary “FOOD, INC.” in a way that would be enviable to most sustainable food companies. Not only have I brushed shoulders with Pollan, who can be thanked for launching our current local & sustainable food movement into its current stratospheric position, but I have worked closely for the last year with the family and farm that is responsible for catapulting both “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “FOOD, INC.” into the public’s view: Polyface Farm and The Salatin Family
When we began the process of starting up Perfect Flavor, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” was the first book on local, real food that Colin and I read. We were stunned and so very pleased to discover that Polyface Farm and the Salatin family were located just miles away from our home and where we would eventually settle our production kitchens. Sheri Salatin, the daughter-in-law of Joel, married to Joel’s son, Daniel, was the first person I would contact in order to begin the process of sourcing all of our ingredients locally. It was Summer of 2006, and Sheri’s and my relationship has grown stronger and stronger ever since. I have much admiration and respect for what she and the rest of the Salatin family are choosing to do with their lives, that is: raise beef, pork, chickens, rabbit, eggs, and more, honorably and honestly.
How do we at Perfect Flavor fit in? Well, we started by buying eggs from Polyface for our ice cream in early 2008 at the launch of our company. We then teamed up with Polyface to begin selling our ice cream through their amazingly popular Buying Clubs, which are full of intelligent, well-educated and themselves honorable Buying Club Members, who once a month subscribe to this Club which allows them to order everything that Polyface produces. This is especially important because it gives folks in many cities in Virginia no excuse to buy grain-fed beef or antibiotic-filled chicken from a no-name source at the grocery store EVEN if they can’t make the trip down to Swoope, VA (pronounced Swope) located near Staunton, for a grocery store run. Through the Buying Club, everything Polyface has to offer gets delivered to a drop point located in central locations to where many of these members live, often in neighborhoods. These folks, when offered the chance to also purchase our handmade ice cream made with Polyface eggs and local milk, jumped at the chance, and we had a steady business from last March 2009 to December 2009 selling to Polyface’s customers everywhere from Williamsburg to Harrisonburg to Northern Virginia and beyond. It must be mentioned that Polyface only sells locally, meaning that the farthest north they will take their Buying Club is Southern Maryland. The farthest South currently is Central VA. For more info and to become a member, visit here! I was so thrilled to be a part of Polyface’s far reaching touch that I volunteered to ride on the delivery truck for one month with Polyface’s amazing delivery guy (for lack of a much more fitting term), Richard Morris, who has an inspiring story of his own pertaining to the lessons he learned in dealing with real, whole foods. Learn more about him here! My experience working with Polyface and Richard taught me absolutely invaluable lessons about the educated consumers out there who demand good food for themselves and their families. And this was what Oprah’s show was really about: the necessity for all of us to take the health of ourselves and our families back under our own control when it comes to the choices we make about the foods we eat.
As far as Chipotle goes, and our connection with it, it may be small, but I am proud of our ties to this wonder of a business. Firstly, when we started making cheese at Perfect Flavor, we were ending up with a fair amount of whey, which most industrial cheesemakers just dump down the drain. Not us! I went straight to Polyface and asked if we could donate our whey to them each time I came to drop off an ice cream order. They were happy to take our whey and feed it to their pigs. And from what I hear, the pigs loved it! Now, how does this connect with Chipotle? Well, did you know that the Charlottesville Chipotle location was the first to not only use outdoor, humanely raised pork, but that it was the first to use LOCAL pork. That’s right, and where do you suppose they get it from? Polyface, of course. So, every time I eat at our local Chipotle, I order nothing but the Carnitas pork option on the menu. With confidence, not only do I know that my meat is local, but that I am also eating a little bit of my whey from my own sustainable business as well!
I am happy to admit that I am both a member of the Charlottesville Buying Club and also currently have a half a pig in my freezer that most likely was fed our very own whey!
Now, I must note that due to my pregnancy, we are no longer supplying Polyface with ice cream or whey, and boy are our customers upset, the pigs in particular=) My hope is to do right by my family first, however, as the Salatin’s have chosen to do. In a long conversation with the always inspiring Teresa Salatin, Joel’s wife, we discussed how family should come first. Until I can reopen Perfect Flavor in terms of ice cream and cheese production, I will continue to gather my research and resources and share the good news about local and healthy food here on my blog.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank both Polyface and Michael Pollan for the chance to work along side their cause, even in the most humble of capacities. My experience has been priceless.