Hyatt Hotel jumps on local food train

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Farmers, ranchers and local food activists from across the country will meet in San Antonio next month in an effort to boost the fortunes of small American farms.

The Farm and Food Leadership Conference will look at ways to protect independent agriculture and local food supplies.

But the movement is already getting support here in Austin, from an unlikely source: a giant corporate hotel chain.

Amelia Sweethardt is the owner of Pure Luck Farm and Dairy in Dripping Springs, a certified organic outfit that turns out blue-ribbon goat cheeses. She stands now, though, in the shade at Boggy Creek Farm, another organic food grower in East Austin.

In her arms is her one year-old son, June. Standing at her side is a local luminary of sorts, Javier Ortiz, executive chef at Austin’s Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Ortiz is what’s known as a “corporate” chef. He works for a giant international company that traditionally looks to equally large industrial farms and food processing companies to stock its kitchens. These days, however, Ortiz and other chefs in the Hyatt chain are looking closer to home for the food they offer up to their customers.

“We believe in going back to the roots,” Ortiz said, “(It's) what the ‘chefs’ is all about, going to the farm, picking what they need for the day and make something out of it, and make a meal and give that to the customer. Today's customer, they know their foods and they're demanding the food flavor and they challenge us to be more productive on that change.”

With Ortiz at the Boggy Creek Farm is his Chef de Cuisine, Kevin Dee, who makes the rounds of local farmers’ markets every week, filling basket after basket with a variety of vegetables and fruits.

“I grab everything that looks good and then we get back to the restaurant and try to figure out something,” Dee said. “So there's plenty of times we have weird combos just because of that.”

The marriage between the farm and the hotel was brokered by the “Go Texan” program at the Texas Department of Agriculture, which tries to create such connections all around the state.

On average, however, the hotel prepares 1,000 meals per day. If it used local produce exclusively, individuals and smaller eateries that depend on places like Pure Luck and Boggy Creek, would be shut out. So, Ortiz and his crew focus their organic offerings.

“They'll have a tasting menu, a chalk board special or something like that,” said Boggy Creek Farm owner Carol Ann Sayle, “and that way, if the customers want local food, there it is.”

At the Hyatt’s Southwestern Bistro (SWB) restaurant, for example, the chef’s cater a “community table,’ at which customers with reservations sit together and enjoy, not only a plethora of organic dishes, but explanations of how the food was collected and prepared.

For producers like Sweethardt and Sayle, the corporate interest is a shot in the arm. Unlike the huge processing plants, which use preservatives and refrigeration to prolong shelf life, the locals sell what’s in season.

“What works,” said Sweethardt, “is really great chefs doing seasonal menus and being willing to make that connection of what you will have and won't have and be able to enjoy the products that are available seasonally.”

“The main thing is we like to see the food get out to all types of eaters, eaters in hotels, eaters around the kitchen table,” added Sayle. “We want good, fresh food to get out to people.”

On September 14 and 15, small farm operators, food activists, non-profit groups and a number of other stakeholders will convene in San Antonio for the Farm and Food Leadership Conference. The focus of the meeting at the Pearl Full Good Studio, is an exploration of ways to save small, independent farms in an age of corporate farming. The Hyatt Chefs are way ahead of that curve.