Putting farming in the taste front line

Food safety and quality are the new standards for restaurants. By Keith Stewart.

Gen Ogata, manager at the hottest Japanese address in town, Sake Bar 601 in Morningside, Auckland summed it up perfectly when he said, “What we always try for is customer trust. In the home, kids believe in their mum without doubt, and that should happen the same in the restaurant.” Ogata is stating what so many customers now want, whether it is in a restaurant or in the grocery store – food security. People are demanding to know more about where their food comes from, and are prepared to pay for this service.

In the great European restaurants on which today’s international culinary community established its credentials, this is old news – source is everything. Chefs’ contact with suppliers, on farms, orchards, fishing boats or in the markets, was the foundation on which reputations were built. The remarkable Père Bise, probably the greatest restaurateur in France in his day, was so particular about his supplies that he once famously tasted butter daily until he was assured that the new dairy supplying his restaurant, L’Auberge du Père Bise, could be trusted to maintain his high standards.

But this is not the New Zealand tradition. In a country that considers its food to be world famous, most farms are so far from market that there is little understanding of the finer points of food flavour and texture. Where a French Charolais farmer will state proudly that his beef is to be found at the best local restaurants, most Kiwi farmers have no idea where their animals end up.

It is not surprising, then, that chefs become frustrated trying to access the best produce, and farmers are perpetually price takers with little understanding of the gourmet market that could improve their margins. In the past, with frozen sheep shipped by the tonne across the world to Smithfields, where it became cheap meat for British housewives, it was not surprising that the local meat industry was not too keen on the idea of a link between farmers and their ultimate customers. Apart from the sheer scale of the meat business, customers were encouraged to buy on price and forget about whether the little lambs ate grass or fresh thyme. “Never mind the flavour, look at the price”, was the tag-line for New Zealand produce throughout the 20th Century.

But the world has changed; painfully for some. In Britain the fallout from Mad Cow Disease, with its numerous deaths and fears of many more, has raised consumer concerns about the security of unknown food supplies. Problems with contamination of food by synthetic pesticides and other sprays has compounded this problem, giving rise to an increased enthusiasm for organic food throughout the Western world, and increasingly so in Asia.

But the greatest impetus for tracking down reliable food sources has not been security so much as quality. Quite simply the existing factory method of food production does not deliver the quality that restaurants, and more particularly their customers, demand. It is no longer enough for the informed diner to know whether the meat on their plate is chicken or duck, but whether it is free range or corn fed, Pekin or Rouen, and the name of the farmer who grew it.

Some restaurants even go so far as to identify the name of the fishing boat that caught the fish they are currently serving, as well as whether their scallops were dredged (bad) or dived on (good).

All of this is an important development in restaurant standards in this country, a significant shift upwards for a community that has worked hard to improve its skill levels. Skills in the kitchen in particular are light years ahead of what they were 20 years ago, but that improvement has not been matched by a similar increase in the quality or availability of premium resources.

One of the most glaring examples of poor provisioning of this country’s best raw materials has been the failure of the Bluff oyster fishery to provide its catch in a state suitable for high quality service. Pre-shucked oysters in cans is hardly conducive to a premium fish, and is only possible because the Bluff fishery has a monopoly on this rare resource. However, with suppliers of alternatives such as Clevedon Oysters delivering higher quality, on the half shell, and direct into restaurants, the days of Bluff’s reputation dictating high prices may be limited.

While Bluff oysters are one stand-out example of inadequate respect for raw materials, the performance of the New Zealand sheep meat industry’s total disregard for the quality of its product or the integrity of its customers, whether restaurateurs or diners, is appalling. Chefs in this country have been offered a “take it or leave it” option for quality sheep meat until fairly recently, but that is starting to change and the quality of lamb dishes in our top establishments is beginning to show the improvement.

Not that the initiative has come from the mainstream meat industry, which is still mired in its industrial, commodity-driven market thinking that considers premium product to be frozen chops in five kilo bags. Tony Astle of Antoines in Auckland, who has championed New Zealand lamb against all odds for 30-plus years, is now excited about his sheep-meat supplier for the first time.

“These people are amazing,” he told grill. “They come to me to discuss what particular cuts I want, and they deliver, chilled, ready to cook, direct from the farm. I have never been so excited by the lamb I am getting.”

“These people” is Leelands Gourmet Lamb, the brainchild of Southland farmers, Bill and Sue French.

“We decided to go straight from farm to fork because we were fed up with the way our prime lamb was being handled by the processors,” Bill French says. “We decided that our meat was high enough quality to be respected by top chefs and their gourmet customers, so we took a punt and I went into the city to check out restaurants with reputations.”

The success of that initiative is obvious in Tony Astle’s admiration. As a chef Astle has never suffered fools at all, and has been known to throw poor quality raw materials at pushy sales reps. Bill French thinks he is a perfect gentleman and an obvious professional.

“I can tell within a minute which ones are real chefs and which are just cooks,” he says after a year’s experience cold calling at kitchen doors. With real chefs he finds an immediate rapport, as they are very interested in dealing directly with the farmer who is in control of the killing process and are concerned with high butchery standards.

This all starts (at least in the Frenchs’ case), on the farm, where special care is taken to develop finishing pastures to deliver the flavour and texture of perfect grass-fed lamb. Although not organic, French is also sensitive to minimising unnatural inputs on his farm, using no synthetic fertiliser and reducing drenching regimes to a minimum.

“I am a grower, not a meat trader,” he declares. And he is not alone, as others are starting to see the advantages, both in terms of satisfaction and profitability, in dealing with the top end of New Zealand’s largest retail industry – hospitality.

From farmer to supplier, Simon Ericsson of Neat Meat tells us his company has seriously got back to the farm, taking an interest in a wild pork farming venture near Taupo, specifically for the demanding restaurant trade in premium game. This is the latest in Neat Meat’s now well-established meat-supply initiative that is closely associated with farmer-driven Angus Pure beef and free-range pork, again with the intention of making the best of New Zealand’s amazing grass-fed meat supply.

Ericsson says the fundamental issue for quality meat supply is control.

“You must know where the animals are, how they are farmed and where and how they are killed. The brands are just names. You can’t guarantee anything in quality terms without knowing the complete background. In the past we just bought meat from a system that had no way of telling us what to expect.”

Ultimately it is the consumer who makes the decision, and Ericsson considers the recent publicity over pig farming to be a positive development for the future of better quality meat.

“There is a lot of fuss about pork right now, but in the end the consumer must decide whether they want cheap pork, quality pork, or humanely farmed pigs. If they want these last two, then their pork will cost more, because it is expensive to take care of the animals and make sure they have the best feed. In the end farmers will only grow what they can sell,” he says.

We believe there is a healthy market for high quality, and we are finding this already in restaurants and top-end retail. Customers do want the best, and they do care about the animals they are eating. The pork-farming story has brought public attention to the whole meat quality issue, and that can only be a good thing,” he concludes.

Meat is the top of the quality food pyramid, invariably the main course in both high price and high profile – but the humble egg may be the most eloquent of all. In a battle to reform the food supply chain to leading restaurants, concern for animal welfare has already changed the nature of public food supply, returning elements of good animal husbandry to the poultry business.

This has had significant consequences for egg quality, judging by the results of grill’s latest food taste (see page 30). In the end, food quality is about taste, not market spin or the ‘efficiency’ of processing and distribution. And for eggs, as well as 6-star meat cuts, the key is in the farming.

Graeme Carrie is the owner of the six hens who revolutionised egg production in New Zealand. As an exporter used to travelling, he was appalled by the quality of eggs in the United States, so he took some of his home-grown eggs from his small suburban flock north to show the customers of his wet-suit manufacturing company what good eggs tasted like. Shortly after this experience Carrie formed a partnership with a poultry farmer in South Auckland and together they launched the Free Range Egg Company.

That was in 1989, and while they decided on free range out of concern for their chooks’ welfare, it was apparent that free-range eggs tasted best, as Carrie explains.

“Grass is the source of the taste and richness of our eggs. Our farming method is to maintain a rotation system so that the hens always have the ability to select the best pasture in which to forage. It’s the same as any farming, you must rotate their pasture to maintain high quality food.”

Frenz now has 20 farmer suppliers of its eggs, and Carrie says it is selecting these individuals and demanding good rotation practices that maintains their high quality standards.

“Good food comes from good farmers,” Carrie insists.

Frenz has also become organic through consumer demand, but this is not really a factor in the ultimate quality of its eggs. “We have two determinants, free range, which makes sure the best quality materials go into the eggs, and organic, which keeps the bad things out,” Carrie says.

Taste is the ultimate test, and Frenz came through this with flying colours. It is a test insistently applied by Sake Bar 601’s patron-chef Hiroshi Miyata. “Before anything I must try things myself, even if I get sick,” he says. “I am looking for certain beef, for original resources but it doesn’t matter what the seller says, I must try, try, try. The beginning of my day is always to spend an hour getting to the restaurant, buying fish, vegetables, everything. Always trying, always buying everything myself."