Restaurants have commonly been associated with part of the problem instead of the solution when it comes to sustainable practices. Poor waste management, high energy usage, and procuring products from suppliers with greater attention to the bottom line than the environmental and animal-friendly landscape have all tarnished our environmentally conscious report card.
Fortunately, times are changing.
Today, more restaurants than ever are embracing sustainable practices, making our industry one of the leaders in the movement toward a greener commitment and minimizing the environmental impact. One of the areas seeing significant interest is regenerative farming.
Here, we’ll explore what restaurants are joining the movement and the benefits it brings to the industry and the Earth.
Restaurants Sourcing from Regenerative Farms
For some restaurant operators, the pandemic shutdowns and the corresponding supply chain disruptions gave them reason to pause and time to contemplate their business’s effects on the environment and the well-being of the next generations. This moment of realization came to Giovanni Santini, owner of Dal Pescatore, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Italy. He purchased the land next to the restaurant and created a regenerative farm, profoundly changing how the family business sources its food.
Founded in 1926, it’s a restaurant that some describe as the best in the world and one that has held on to its three Michelin stars since 1996. Today, their food comes from free-range chicken coops and a herd of cows that rotate, grazing regeneratively. The orchard and vegetable gardens thrive in healthy soil that results from a combination of the manure and grasses. It’s become an ecosystem where all contribute to the health of each other and the land.
Atlas Restaurant Group
Atlas Restaurant Group is a lifestyle hospitality group focused on the integrity of its products and delivering authentic cuisine from around the world in its 50 restaurants. At their five-acre farm, some of the regenerative farming practices include no tilling, crop rotation, or pesticides. This farm grows about 50,000 pounds of seasonal produce that supplies their high-end restaurants.
From west~bourne to Packaged Foods
Camilla Marcus founded the first certified zero-waste restaurant in New York City in 2018. When west~bourne shut its doors following the pandemic, it went into packaged products sourced regeneratively. According to Marcus, regenerative agriculture offers one of the biggest impacts on decarbonizing the soil and solving the energy crisis.
In an interview with Forbes, Marcus stated, “Science shows that regenerative agriculture is the only system that can pull down carbon from our atmosphere in time to fight the looming climate crisis. We believe this is where all climate efforts should be centered. That’s why we source ingredients exclusively from small growers who use regenerative methods to ultimately drive demand back into this emerging system that will be the way forward for how our food is grown.”
Chipotle and Regenerative Practices
Chipotle’s $50 million Cultivate Next venture fund invested in Greenfield Robotics, a company committed to creating more efficient and cost-effective regenerative farming practices using the latest technology. This partnership is aimed at helping Chipotle use weed-cutting bots, reducing their reliance on conventional fertilizers. It also invested in Nitricity, a company creating better-for-the-earth fertilizer products.
Conventional Farming Vs. Regenerative Farming
Conventional farming leans toward cultivating mono-crops, a practice that increases the vulnerability to disease and commonly uses petrochemical-derived fertilizers and pesticides. These practices deplete the once-rich soil nutrients and treat the land, crops, and animals as an economic resource. The byproduct is increasing volumes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Regenerative farmers’ goals are to improve the land, climate, and water for future generations. To accomplish this, they make every effort to reduce their use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. They restore the health of the soil and ecosystem through a protective relationship with the land, livestock, wildlife, waterbodies, and microbial life in the soil. They create biologically rich soil by rotating crops, reducing tillage, reforestation, cover cropping, and green manuring. Some use organic animal manure, while others use plant-based alternatives. Many incorporate beneficial insects.
The result is healthier food and soil, with some land even becoming carbon-negative. By sourcing ingredients from local regenerative farms, restaurants worldwide are contributing to environmentally positive practices and the economic viability of small-scale agriculture.
