When professional concessionaires or caterers work on an event; they let their years of experience work for them. They feel confident that once they can determine the numbers to serve, they can plan their menus, and simply fill out the order sheet for SYSCO or some other delivery system. Then they begin to chop and cook!
When Farm Aid set about the goal of sourcing family farm food for concert-goers, artists and crew, we tended to disrupt an efficient, effective system of food procurement.
Thankfully we have helpful and flexible partners in this enterprise. Our way requires more people and a lot of creative thinking!
Sonya Dagovitz Kugler is the Farm Aid forager. She’s sourcing all of the food, and then directing that food to the concessions and catering people. Right now she is busy calling and emailing organic food companies, local farms, the farmers markets, people who do little food stands, restaurants and small food processors. The concessionaire has helped bring in the right kind of companies, too, and even found a company that has compostable cups and plates. We hope we can compost all the leftover food and plates, and build up the soil somewhere with our leftovers!
Working with what’s in season, and being somewhat dependent upon donations will make for a delicious, unusual menu! But don’t worry, we’ll have corn dogs and french fries, and pizza too. And we promise there will be a good story and a good farmer behind all the food we plan to serve.
