If you’ve ever dined at a restaurant and seen the “Fresh on the Menu” claim on the menu, you might just assume that this is just another farm-to-table restaurant. You’d be partly correct.
“Fresh on the Menu” is a program implemented by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA) after the success of their Certified South Carolina Grown Program that encouraged consumers to buy ingredients from the state.
Eva Moore, communications director for the SCDA, said Charleston County has 82 restaurants in the program.
“We wanted to have some way for restaurants to participate and show their commitment to local sourcing,” Moore said. “It’s voluntary, it’s free and the restaurants commit to sourcing at least 25% of their ingredients in season from local sources.”
In exchange, the SCDA lists the restaurants on its website, advertises about the program, and offers preferential treatment to Fresh on the Menu chefs in programs at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) and selections for Chef Ambassadors, mostly because they are more aware of those chefs, Moore said.
Diners should be aware, though, that the logo on a menu represents an intent, not a promise, despite the program requirements.
“It’s basically the honor system. We don’t go out and audit restaurants on their usage, just because things vary a lot by season,” Moore said. “Sometimes you can get an abundance of South Carolina tomatoes and peaches and sometimes you cannot. If we have a real concern, we’d have a conversation with the restaurant, but we’re not sending out inspectors.”
Local purveyors
Bob Cook is the executive chef at Edmund’s Oast, one of the restaurants in the program.
“We always buy our tomatoes from Kurios Farms, so every tomato comes from Moncks Corner,” Cook said. “We’ve been working with the company for 15 or 16 years, and we’ve seen it pass down generations. We go through tons of Tarvin shrimp. For our mushrooms, we mainly use Super Mushroom Bros. For micro things, we use King Tide Farms for things like onions. And our bread is from Normandy Farm and Tiller Baking.”
He said Edmund’s Oast also uses the Urb Farm on Johns Island for herbs such as Thai Basil and for flowers.
Marc Collins, executive chef of Circa 1886 and a former state chef ambassador, was one of the first adopters of the Fresh on the Menu program.
“I was one of the original restaurants,” Collins said. “Obviously, as chefs, we’re trying to find the best produce we possibly can. It just makes sense. Luckily, in South Carolina, we have two growing seasons and a plethora of products.”
The program doesn’t dictate Collins’ menu.
“I don’t know that I really try to let the products dictate the menu so much as the creativity,” he said. “It’s more, ‘What can we produce, and where can we find those products.’”
Collins admits to not being 100% compliant at all times, but says he does strive to be.
“We’re on their program and we do our best to find local things. Some days, it’s easier than others. It’s a weird world right now,” he said.
An impact from Covid
A lot of the “weirdness” came from Covid, which is still having an impact. Moore admitted that she knows it can be challenging to buy local, but said, “I really appreciate the chefs who are taking the time to do that. I think supporting local farmers and the people in South Carolina putting food on our plates sometimes requires more resources or a little extra effort, but I know the farmers appreciate when they do it.”
Cook said his appreciation for farmers was one impetus for joining the program.
“It’s hard enough to be a farmer, so we all need as much exposure as we possibly can,” Cook said.
Covid has meant a different approach for Edmund’s Oast.
“We haven’t been very active with the program since Covid. We still get a lot of local products, but we basically reconstructed our restaurant,” Cook said. “Before Covid, we were more of a small plates gastropub. Now we’re more of a neighborhood place with a lower price point. We want people to be able to eat here a couple of nights a week. And buying local just makes menu prices more expensive.”
Collins agreed.
“During Covid, transportation was difficult, so getting local was more accessible. But now, you can’t get everything you want locally — certain things, they just don’t carry. My biggest problem is that sometimes we need more products than they are producing. We got to the point that our local beef producer said we were going through product faster than he could produce it,” Collins said.
He added, “It has to make sense from a business standpoint, too. As much as supporting the farming infrastructure is important to you, some things are just really expensive and you have to pass it on to the customer. We’re a high-end restaurant, but we still have to think, ‘are we too expensive in this heightened cost of living climate?’”
Part of the experience
Do customers even care about whether the restaurant has local ingredients?
Andy McLeod, executive chef at Fleet Landing, makes the story of the ingredients part of the experience.
“We have twice-daily lineups and we always talk about our food feature and oftentimes there is some educational piece about a product we are using,” McLeod said. “We’re giving our servers tools to tell the story at the table. Fresh on the Menu is something we’ve made everyone aware of. When people are curious, we definitely want servers to have all the information and, as a guest, it’s kind of nice to be part of that story.”
Cook takes a different approach.
“Fresh on the Menu is kind of our own private thing,” he said. “I’ve tried to minimize educating diners as much as I can. It’s just one of those things that I just don’t care to do. I just want to put out a great product and not have to explain where every single thing comes from. When you have to tell everyone about every piece of lettuce, it becomes overwhelming. I’m not going to pretend everything on our menu is local. It’s okay to not have everything be local.”
Collins also said he doesn’t try to educate his diner.
“I think the diner is more educated than ever, so trying to educate them might come across as, ‘I know that, and you don’t have to tell me that.’”
Still, even with the sometimes spotty compliance with the Fresh on the Menu dictates, all the chefs believed local was important.
“It’s something that’s important to me personally as a chef, but long before I got here, the former chef and the owners believed this was an expression of our values and our standards,” McLeod said. “I feel to be where we are in the world cooking food, Charleston is so rich in history and resources from seafood to local vegetables, there is a beauty in that. There’s a sense of pride in being part of that community and being connected to it. Especially in restaurants as large and busy as ours, our impact can be pretty big.”
Still, there is not necessarily agreement about what defines local.
“I buy seafood from Crosby’s,” Collins said. “They’re a local business, but they get some seafood from North Carolina. I buy produce from Limehouse and they get some produce from California. I’m taking care of a local business that I have a long relationship with. Is that local or is it not local?”
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