When farmers connect with chefs
Enthusiasm for locally grown food is landing producers on some of Canada’s priciest menus.
On the hoof, Canadian lamb sells for about $1 per pound. On the plates of some of the country’s finest restaurants, a single
serving could set a diner back more than $30.
While the distance from commodity product to branded menu item seems long, it’s a journey more producers are successfully
making. Since 2003, lamb producer Lynette Kreddig of Mayerthorpe, Alta., has supplied top dining destinations, from La Ronde in Edmonton’s Chateau Lacombe to the renowned Banff Springs Hotel. At La Ronde, her Franklyn Farm lamb is featured on the locally inspired menu of executive chef Jasmin Kobajica.
Winning and then keeping this prestigious client has required Kreddig to adapt her operation to suit the culinary tastes,
consumer demands and merciless economics of the restaurant business.
“The biggest thing is the commitment to supply the product when it’s needed,” says Kreddig, “and to ensure that what you
supply is always the highest quality.”
The right breed. After researching and raising various sheep breeds over the years, Kreddig settled on the Katahdin breed. Chef Kobajica praises Katahdin’s mild flavour. From a producer’s perspective, Kreddig believes this medium-sized, multiplebirthing, lean-meat breed suits her perfectly.
The right production. While most producers lamb once per year, in the winter, restaurants demand a consistent supply, as close to year-round as they can get. Kreddig has set up her breeding program to produce three lamb crops per year – roughly January, April and June – and her feeding program to produce marketready lambs throughout most of the year.
As Kreddig puts it: “You need to make sure they’re not all running to the goalposts at the same time.”
The right price. To ensure their business is profitable, restaurants are looking for cost-certainty. “Chefs can’t have the price going up and down all the time,” notes Kreddig. “There needs to be a pre-determined price so they can set their menu every six months and stay with it. I get paid per lamb and my price stays the same all year round.”
The right distribution. Kreddig raises lamb, and Chef Kobajica cooks lamb, but neither handles the steps in-between. Edmonton-based Full Course Strategies serves as the essential middleman, connecting producer with chef and managing the processing and distribution, too. The company serves as a vital translator of restaurant concerns to producers, and helps chefs source the best that area farms have to offer.
It’s one thing to want a better price for your product. It’s quite another to have your family farm’s name printed on a restaurant menu. The transition from anonymous producer to star menu attraction was another change Kreddig had to wrap her mind
around. Five years in, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It changes things when people know where their food comes from,” she says. “I have to make sure that everything that goes
to market is the best it can be. I see it as a huge responsibility.”
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