This Tuesday post is partially brought to you from a response to a customer.  The gentleman asked if we sourced all organic wheat and butter, or if not, what our general policy is.  I’ve touched on organic before, but thought to expand our view (or restate it).  The following is a somewhat reworded/expanded version of the answer I gave the customer.

Our policy towards all our ingredients is to source the best quality that will consistently give us the flavors and textures that our customers expect and deserve.  We want our ingredients to perform correctly and consistently, and they of course have to taste good. 

We buy as local as possible when we can.  We know that supporting our regional farmers is strengthening to our regional economy, and hence, good for us too.  We do not push for organic in everything, but we do pay attention to what’s in our ingredients.  As a rough breakdown:

·     Our dairy is high quality conventional, and we source from a local distributor who works with dairies in western Washington and the peninsula.

·     We use a mix of conventional and organic flour (we’re paying attention to GMO, and so far, there is no GMO wheat in the US). 

·     Our produce is largely regional and organic (but not completely), especially at this time of year given the abundance of farms in western Washington.

In terms of sourcing for flavor and working qualities, we’ve found that organic flour is improving, but we still have the most consistent working characteristics from conventional.  Organic grains are receiving attention and research though, from both the corporate end of things (King Arthur Flour, for example) and the grass-roots side (the Organic Seed Alliance), so they will only improve.   There is also some significant impact from milling technique and technology, and as mills improve at the local scale, organic and/or locally made flour will also. 

With fruit, there’s no question that local farms are producing some outstanding crops.  Some of the best strawberries this year were organic, although since they are local and picked really close to peak ripeness, their useful life was shorter (hence, this was a good year for us to look at jam again - adapt to what’s available, especially when it tastes good). We’ve had great luck with fresh cherries, and some of the other early stone fruit has been quite nice.  Raspberry season is just about to really begin too, which is a favorite fruit season for us.  The tart berries play really well with chocolate! 

Vegetables have also been good this year, although we can’t take the same advantage of them as a savory-centered establishment could.  We have sourced some heirloom tomatoes, and have had some really nice spring and sweet onions come in for pizza.  Zucchini and other summer squashes may make their way onto our pizza again as well (Jay’s been feeling creative, and Chef’s been encouraging him). 

Regarding dairy- currently most of our dairy is conventional.  Our eggs are not from battery-cage factories though, and our milk, cream and butter are all hormone and antibiotic free. We’ve been invited to look around the dairies our distributor works with, and at some point it might be interesting to do so. 

As our business progresses and we are able to, we will continue to source as much local/regional as we can - we haven’t officially defined local for ourselves, so perhaps regional is a better word- farms from here to the eastern and northern parts of the state, as well as down into Oregon would be an indication of what I mean by regional.  We will also continue to expand our organic sourcing, or look for integrated systems that focus on natural methods for the core growing systems, and modern treatments for severe and acute problems.  Again, this is a great region for finding quality food, and we’re enjoying the exploration.

Have a great rest of your Tuesday everyone.