From Farm to Table

Austin’s Farm to Table: How does it work?

By Juan Milan and Emanuela Schneider

In a city that prides itself in being more eco-friendly than the rest of the Texas, Austin residents are showing that sustainable food practices can be attainable. With a large popularity of farmers markets throughout the city and initiatives like Farm to Table that bring locally sourced ingredients to restaurants, Austinites are doing their part to keep their city green.

One restaurant known for its brunch, Hillside Farmacy, prides itself on being a farm-to-table restaurant and having all locally sourced ingredients.

“We spend 40 thousand a month in food, the more I can push that into a local farm and out of a factory corporate entity farm, the better,” David Barrow, the chef at Hillside Farmacy said.

Barrow said he also prefers the food that local farms produce. He said the food in those farms have been “touched from seed to harvest.”

Referring to bigger suppliers, he rhetorically asked, “If you are getting giant carrots that have never been touched by human hands before, why should they be touched by human hands now?”

Community is a big component of farm to table, along with making bonds with local farmers. Farm to table initiatives also promise to be more certifiable.

This is a sentiment farmers like Bill McCranie from Chickamaw Farms echoes. His farm is approved by Demeter International, an organic certifier.

“I’m probably underselling my beef right now, I sell high end nutritional food, it’s all grass fed, we go by the book, we dont cheat, we don't cut corners,” McCranie said.

Like many other farmers, McCranie primarily serves a local audience through a farmers market, the Texas Farmers’ Market at Mueller. Hosted bi-weekly, the Farmers’ Market at Mueller attracts many startup farmers and vendors that sell a plethora of original ideas.

One of these startups is Snack Jack, owned by siblings Diana and Julian Dussan. Snack Jack looks to spread interest into vegan alternative jerkies through the use of jackfruit. The Dussan’s also sell at the Texas Farmers’ Market.

“We’re the world’s first jackfruit jerky company. Right now we’re only in farmers markets, we’re only six months old. We’re a brother sister duo that do the whole thing, she has a baby so for the most part it’s just me,” said Julian Dussan.

Johnson's Backyard Garden tries a different approach. They spread out around Austin with 14 markets a week. With this widespread approach, they also show residents their other concept: selling T-shirts in exchange for a harvest box, a box with their freshest veggies, every other week.

“It really helps us buy supplies that we need to bring the veggies to harvest and in exchange they get a farm share so every other week they get a box of that weeks harvest,” CSA and Marketing Manager Ada Broussard said. “That way, they’re kind of supporting us at the time that we need it the most at the beginning of the season and they get to enjoy the harvest with us.”

Farm to table may sound like a simple term, but Austin made it its own. Farmers, restaurants and vendors are helping each other out, sometimes in innovative ways, to create sustainable food practices.

Austin is well known for many things, one of them being the amount of diverse food choices given to the community. Not only do these restaurants live up to the communities “foodie” expectations, but they also stay true to their city. These five restaurants are some of the places that receive their products from local Austin farmers instead of receiving it from out of state producers. So Austin isn’t just known for being weird, but also loyal.

By Alexandra Garza