Free range, organic and ethically-farmed produce is no longer just for the hippies or the greenies, Sue Fea discovers. Instead, it’s a rapidly growing market that the hospitality industry just can’t afford to ignore.
Ten years ago it was difficult to source a consistent supply of quality organically-produced or free-range produce and prices were often prohibitive.
But times are changing for the better with more discerning diners and much more emphasis on the social conscience of environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free food products.
Bad press about penned pigs and caged hens have all fuelled the move away from factory-farmed foods and organic producers are now reaping the rewards.
Chefs are becoming more particular about just where they source their produce from and growing numbers are resorting to growing their own vegetables, even producing their own free range pigs and eggs, if space allows.
Chef and owner of Napier’s luxury Breckenridge Lodge, Malcolm Redmond grows some of his own fruit and salad vegetables.
“I pick them and serve them straight onto the plate.”
He says a lot more chefs are growing their own “micro-greens” and salads, out the back of kitchens and wineries.
Redmond’s been “kicking around with organics” for 30 years.
“I prefer to know where my stuff comes from and use it as fresh as I can. It’s not good to have too many sprays; there must be some residues in the food.”
He has sourced some good ethical suppliers, including True Earth for vegetables and Tangaroa Seafoods.
“It’s extremely fresh fish. They have their own trawlers. They bone it out in the morning and sell it during the day.”
As for the eggs, he runs free-range chickens on the lodge property.
Redwood says it would be nice if everybody would catch on to but some people are health oriented while others are price oriented.
“The big commercial boys have a lot of power which is a bit daunting at times. Some bring out genetically modified products so they’ll respond to broad spectrum sprays then kill everything but the carrot.”
Redwood’s aim is to put “the best food on the plate” and whether they want to know or not, his customers are always told where all the ingredients in his food, and the wines, have come from.
For chefs without the luxury of a grow-your-own option, many growers at Farmers Markets are very obliging and will often plant a row of something at a chef’s request.
Woodbox Winery Restaurant head chef Carl Taylor prefers ethically produced, free range and organic if he can get it and says even in a recession he’s having no trouble passing on that 15 to 20 per cent premium to his customers.
Customers appreciate and respect his decision to serve it and it tastes better.
Taylor’s even looking at running free-range pigs on winery land near the Waikato River that’s too wet for grapes.
“We’ll feed them our food scraps and customers will be able to sit on our deck and see the pigs. If we stick that on our menu it’ll be a major selling point.”
At present he uses Zealfresh organic pork, chorizo and other cured meats from Freedom Farms and free range chicken, veal and beef from Gisborne’s Mahi Farms.
“It’s the whole reasoning, people appreciate it; the meat is less fatty because of the animal’s diet and the flavours are stronger.”
His organic lettuces are grown just down the road and Omaha Organic Berries’ new range of ice creams and sorbets are proving a hit.
“There are no artificial flavours. They do a latte(flavour) as well and the flavours are very intense - they’re going that extra mile.”
Taylor says he pays $54 for a 5-litre container of Omaha’s ice cream while a 2-litre supermarket container costs an average $8.
“There’s just no comparison for us.”
He says the whole market is changing.
“I think people are waking up and seeing things they don’t agree with.”
Taylor gets a lot of comments about the leaner, meatier flavour of the Freedom Farms pork and his locally-farmed organic beef. The free-range chicken is darker, more flavoursome and it doesn’t dry out.
In 2010, Omaha Organic Berries owners Shannon and Robert Auton teamed up with former Tip Top ice cream maker Murray Taylor. They now produce 24 ice cream and sorbet flavours, including everything from chocolate peppermint and liquorice to marshmallow and mango.
“It’s been a really interesting transition for him, moving from a manufacturer to almost an artisan producer. He can’t use conventional emulsifiers, chemicals or colouring, it’s quite a different art,’’ says (Shannon) Auton.
Organic berry producers for 11 years, they decided to diversify about four years ago during a period when New Zealand’s export berry market went flat and have recently broken into the Australian export market. Gilmour’s is also now distributing their product.
Auton says there’s been a huge move towards people wanting to know what goes into their food.
“If there’s a chemical or any chemical formula involved we’re not interested in working with it.”
“Increasing numbers of people are becoming ill and getting concerned about what manufacturers are putting into their food. A lot of people are more savvy about buying food that’s real.”
Auton says there’s probably a 10 to 12 percent premium on their product. They only broke into the restaurant market a year ago and already supply to customers from Keri Keri to as far south as Queenstown and Dunedin.
The company has been exporting product to a client in Dubai for seven years and Auton says “they’re light years ahead of us in terms of their demand for organic and real food”.
Owner of Hawke’s Bay’s True Earth, Scott Lawson has been growing organic vegetables and blueberries for 19 years. He now supplies blueberries to Australia, the United Kingdom and United States. He also supplies New Zealand’s largest producer of organic soups, Pitango.
He says it’s all about the integrity of where a food product has come from and who’s grown it.
“Whether it’s food or wine, people are more discerning and the consumer is more educated.”
There are no chemicals used in organics to beautify the product, so Lawson says it’s best to stick with what you can do well and with what grows well in your local microclimate.
“We can’t afford to do it poorly.”
There can be an average premium of around 10 to 20 per cent for organic produce but chefs say increasing numbers of customers are hunting it out and are prepared to pay that.
The premium, based on the cost of production, can vary from less than conventional produce per kilo, to a little more to 200 per cent more, depending on the product and what’s involved.
“If you’re hand-weeding onions and carrots then the cost of production goes up”.
Organic producers start by building a good healthy, bio-organically active soil, combined with the right varieties and micro-climate which produces good nutrition and better flavours.
When Auckland-based Freedom Farms entered the market five years ago, co-founder Gregor Fyfe says it was impossible to find pork products that could be traced back to a farm, so their market has grown from “zero to a significant portion”.
Concerns about animal welfare have seen large numbers of consumers responding.
“There’s now that total traceability right back to the farm and we can guarantee our customers that there have been no chemical inputs – we have very tight controls on that.”
They control the feed, restrict antibiotic use and forbid use of any growth hormones in the pigs. Fyfe says there are rigorous standards applied to all the company’s farm suppliers, right down to the travel distances from farms to the abattoir and SPCA audits.
“That all gives restaurants an assurance that nobody’s selling them porkies.”
His pigs are farmed the “freedom way” on good free draining soils near Timaru - no sow crates, no farrowing crates and no fattening pens allowed.
Freedom has also moved into some innovative new cuts – whole or pre-sized pork rumps or rump steaks and butterflied whole scotch fillets. Fyfe says celebrity chef Al Brown reckons his whole pork hocks are now one of the biggest sellers in his newest restaurant, Depot, in Auckland.
Neat Meat Company owner Simon Eriksen says his company bought its SPCA-approved Harmony free-range brand three years ago and since then the business has tripled.
“We bought Harmony because we thought globally we’re part of a market that’s worried about food security and safety – there was more awareness.”
It had been an interesting learning curve and there’s a definite “blur between organic and something that looks like organic”.
“A lot of people produce something that’s close – it’s the feel good factor – or they use packaging that’s recycled and environmentally-friendly ink. But with organic, it’s certified, you can’t cut corners.
“We have farmers who farm into our brand, but I’m not sure if everyone really understands the stringent principles. There’s a point to which people care and not beyond. There are the holistically committed people who won’t compromise their standards and then the others who just don’t know what’s in their food.”
Eriksen’s company offers organic beef and lamb, free-range pork and chicken, as well as grass-fed Wagu, Angus beef and grain-finished beef, but they don’t touch beef that’s been fed hormones.
He believes it’s important to maintain a choice.
His company also uses sustainable venison shot from a helicopter. “DOC is culling them anyway and we select only red deer, females, because they’re the dominant ones, and those in good condition with no young that are good to eat.
“But we’re only as good as what chefs can do with our product. We work hard at the story and that brings you back to what the product traces back to.”
Auckland’s Hip Group owns three cafes and a retail store and executive chef Jo Pearson has sourced like-minded farmers to grow specific crops for her. Within five years she hopes the company will be growing its own organic produce.
“We’ve been talking to egg farmers, market farmers and dairy farmers – we want to know they’re not using chemicals and we want to know what’s in it.”
She’s been meeting with Eco-Eggs to discuss switching suppliers, because they deal with the farmer direct and have more control over their product.
“It’s one less person in the mix.”
If it comes organic or SPCA approved that’s a bonus, but it’s important just to know what people are doing with the product and how they’re treating the animals before she buys.
“And that gives us a nice story to go along with it.”
Her chefs go out to meet the producers’ on their farm properties and see how the food is produced.
A recent trip to Sydney to visit Feather & Bone, a co-operative of bio-organic farmers offering free-range sheep fed organically grown grains, was inspiring.
Hip Group’s Richmond Road Cafe - Grey Lynn and Ponsonby customers - tend to be more concerned about how the food is produced than others but it’s a noticeable concern right across the economic spectrum, says Pearson.
Unfortunately it’s a market that’s restricted by cost, but she’s hopeful that will change as education grows and more farmers move towards organic and free range products.