In anticipation of the Georgia Urban Ag. and Outdoor Expo this weekend, we talked with Michael Schenck, founder and COO of The Turnip Truck about the importance of creating access to good, fresh food in urban areas. Schenck shared with us the mission of The Turnip Truck, as well as how events like the expo empower them to continue innovating ways to get food from farmers to consumers.
The Turnip Truck works with more than 50 small, local farms to get their fruits, vegetables, dairy and other products to Atlanta area restaurants, schools and institutions. By tackling the challenges of storage and distribution to deliver products, they bring local, sustainable food to businesses with ease, advancing the cause of slow food and local food in Atlanta. In their first five years of business, they put 1.9 million dollars in the pockets of their local farmers.
You have a background in the kitchen. How does that experience influence your business?
We really pay attention to what chefs are looking for and have an eye for quality and consistency in what we buy from our farms and deliver to our customers. We are also structured in a way that emulates traditional food service distribution, so the ordering and delivery system is what they are used to and makes it as easy as possible to incorporate local items into their menu.
Appreciating local food and developing confidence in the kitchen seem to go hand in hand. How do you explain this connection?
I think a strong emphasis on local food really pushes home seasonal cooking and utilizing the season's strong points in your menus. When young chefs first experience a truly local, fresh off the vine heirloom tomato, it is like a light bulb going off. You start to understand what many of the masters strive to teach, which is that you can do whatever you want to to your ingredients, but if you start off with the freshest, best possible products you're going to be head and shoulders ahead right off the bat. Simply put, you don't have to do much to this food since it comes out of the ground ripe, ready to eat, and tasting incredible. I think learning that can be a huge confidence builder, providing you know where you can get these awesome products!
What are your goals in looking ahead to the Urban Ag Expo? What message do you most hope to spread to attendees who might stop by the Turnip Truck booth?
We are very excited to let the food-interested public know that all of the incredible ingredients that their favorite Atlanta chefs have had access to for years are now within reach for them on our new website, www.turniptruckga.com! From local vegetables and fruits, to dairy, cheeses, grains and grits, to honey and sauces, they can place orders on our website for pickup at our shop or delivery to their door. We are also very excited to partner with the GA Farmers Market Association for their new Norcross market and we hope to help them increase exposure and buzz around the starting date with our display of fresh produce, eggs and other products for sale at the expo.
Local food is so often tied to an image of a small time farmer. What has been the most exciting thing about being a larger player in the local food system?
The most rewarding thing about what we do is being able to work with these incredible farmers and food producers, and to help them take their dream of producing good, wholesome food from a small seedling to a thriving organism. We aim to help them grow their operations to meet demand and create efficiencies to make their lives easier and to increase the reach of their food. We are very excited to see some great interest from a more broad sector of the public, it's not just the "foodies" or high end chefs that are calling these days. Consumers in general are very interested in eating healthy, GMO and pesticide free food produced in a sustainable manner, more interested in where it comes from, and in supporting local food systems than ever.
What are you most looking forward to at the Georgia Urban Ag. & Outdoor Expo?
We are excited to participate in the Urban Ag Expo. I strongly believe that small scale food production and the sale of it in the community is a transformative system that can change our communities and economy for the better in a way that almost no other daily transaction in people's lives can. If you think about it there really aren't many areas in life these days where we actually know who produced the goods we consume or where it actually came from, and I think the opportunity to experience that with something as important as the food we fuel our bodies with every day is incredibly powerful.
Photo via Flickr/Tim Sackton