100-Mile Local Food-Sourcing? Think Again

(5/18/2016) Are you willing to pay more in restaurant for local food sourcing, organic food, or non-GMO ingredient? If so, this article (Farm to Fable-- At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction) will interest you and make you rethink again. It is an example of investigative journalism, which is very rare in modern days.

Many high-end restaurants claim their ingredients are from local farmers (and they normally charge a premium on that): the pork is from Farmer A, organic salad green is from Farmer B. There are several operational constraints that are too tough to pass.

First, many local farmers are small in scale and cannot afford to hire a professional account manager to handle all restaurants that 'claim' to be their clients. Most of these farmers have their produces handled by one or several distributors. They don't deal with so many restaurants directly.

Second,  if a restaurant claims the ingredients are from more than several dozen's suppliers, the complexity of inbound logistic, paperwork, and account management is way too much for a stand-alone restaurant to handle.

Third, if the restaurant claims ingredients are shipped 'directly' from suppliers, the transportation cost is also very expensive. Food ingredients have to be fresh, so let's assume there are two delivery shipments every week. So how many pounds of pork could a restaurant buy every time? 200 pounds? This volume will be shipped at high cost because the volume is too small. So who is paying the premium in logistics?

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/restaurants/