Interview: Chefs Collaborative’s Melissa Kogut

Melissa Kogut is the new executive director of Chefs Collaborative, a Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping chefs make sustainable food-sourcing decisions. She talked with Senior Associate Editor Kate Leahy about why sustainable sourcing matters and how her organization plans to make it easier.

By Kate Leahy, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 10/5/2007

Melissa Kogut is the new executive director of Chefs Collaborative, a Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping chefs make sustainable food-sourcing decisions. She talked with Senior Associate Editor Kate Leahy about why sustainable sourcing matters and how her organization plans to make it easier.

As the Chefs Collaborative’s new executive director , how do you see the organization evolving?

Chefs and restaurants are responsible for purchasing a lot of food. If chefs alone were to change their purchasing habits, we could have a really significant impact. But chefs have an impact even beyond their own food purchasing decisions because their menus influence customers.

So one growing piece and vision for chefs collaborative is our Seafood Solutions program [which started last year]. Our plan is to get the program into at least five culinary schools’ curriculum this year. We’re about to go to print with our newly updated chef’s guide to sustainable seafood practices. Our special niche is speaking to chefs. There are a lot of environmental groups out there that are doing all the research and providing lists on what [seafood is sustainable] Our expertise is translating that into language that means something to chefs in their day-to-day decision making. What’s affordable? What are their customers asking for?

When it comes to sourcing sustainable ingredients, what are the biggest challenges facing chefs today?

A huge challenge we hear is distribution and time. Making the time to go out to the farm, to meet the producer, or to have a reliable delivery are some of the challenges.

What we’re doing in Boston this January when the growing season is over is bringing chefs and farmers together so that they can meet one another, build relationships and even talk about the kinds of stuff they’re looking for. It makes it easy for them . It’s more accessible.

The other thing that we’re really excited about is a new online sourcing tool on our new Web site. It’s going to take some time to populate it with data from all over the country, but [the idea is] chefs can go online, put in their Zip code, punch in what they’re looking for, whether it’s meats or fish or produce, and local options will come up, indicate whether they’re distribution-ready, and whether they sell wholesale to restaurants.

We’re going to focus first on New England and go from there, inviting members to fill in information. We have chef members all over the country who have developed relationships and we want to know who they’re working with. That’s going to be a growing, online sourcing tool. Our chefs and restaurant also are listed, so that it’s a source of information for producers and farmers too. Hopefully it will help to form networks more easily.

Are networks the most valuable asset when encouraging sustainable food sourcing?

I think so. Chefs really need to have relationships with the producers for the best results. The other trend we’re seeing is the formation of farming groups. [Some distributors] work with small producers and form a collaborative so that the farmers can focus on growing and the distributors can focus on the distribution. We think this is a great development.

Who are members of Chefs Collaborative? Is it primarily chefs running independent restaurants?

Our members are all over the country. We have about 1,000 dues-paying chef members. We want that to grow. We are not a white-tablecloth restaurant organization. For this to work and to be effective, we want to have chefs from the whole range of operations out there.

Our main focus has been restaurants. But we think hospitals, schools, and institutions are equally important. We don’t have an active plan at the moment for reaching those larger entities, but that may be a trend in the future for us. We’re certainly seeing a growing interest there.