Natural meats get nurtured on local menus

When Arby’s starts marketing its chicken as ‘naturally raised,’ it’s an indication that the greater public is becoming aware of what many independent restaurateurs have known for quite some time.

I’m reticent to put this in writing, since it will uncover a guilty Monday night secret, but I knew natural meat had reached a tipping point when I saw that the task for the interviewees on “The Apprentice” was writing a jingle for Arby’s new naturally raised chicken. Long a hot topic among chefs and on the tables of well-informed foodies, it’s both gratifying, and a little terrifying, to see this trend take hold in a venue like Arby’s.

Why terrifying, you ask? Well, in part, because different folks use different definitions of the word natural. Although it typically indicates that the food contains no preservatives and was minimally processed, it’s one of those fantastically nebulous words that has no official—or legal—definition. Organic on the other hand, carries the credibility of USDA specifications. In Arby’s situation, it means that the chicken contains no added water, phosphates or fillers. But, in many cases, what’s naturally raised is difficult to separate from what’s organic, since the way an animal was raised, fed and treated might be just shy of that designation. (And that’s to say nothing of other handles, like grass-fed and free-range, describing treatment or feeding practices.)

What’s gratifying about it is that the adoption of the term natural as one that Arby’s touts to its consumers, indicates, to me at least, that the greater public is becoming aware of the benefits associated with meat that’s less processed, better tasting and better for them—to say nothing of the environmental benefits it can offer.

Of course, these are things that chefs have supported and promoted in their restaurants for a long while. To Tanya Siebenaler, co-owner and executive chef of Sapor in Minneapolis, procuring naturally raised meats is about sourcing great tasting ingredients. “One big reason that we include it on our menu is the flavor and quality of the product,” she says. “Not everything on the menu is natural or organic, but we’ve found some great local farmers that we work with.” Sapor serves a range of natural meats, including pork from a local hog farmer and lamb from Australia.

One of the few drawbacks to having them on the menu is that these types of specialized meats can take a little more effort to source, and can be a little trickier in terms of consistency. “The size can vary and production can be an issue sometimes as well,” she says. “The seller that we work with can keep up the supply since he’s got a larger farm so that I can actually keep items on the menu consistently, instead of just running them for specials.”

According to Brian DeVore of the Land Stewardship Project, a private nonprofit organization that was founded to promote sustainable agriculture and communities, consistency is a barrier that both chefs and farmers are trying to address. The Land Stewardship project serves as a go-between and resource for farmers, who promote their wares, so to speak, to both chefs and consumers. The project puts together a list of farmers who direct-market their food. They’ve also hosted informal town-hall style meetings where chefs, local restaurants and farmers can come together to discuss the benefits and issues associated with bringing natural and organic meats into their restaurants. Consistency is tops on that list.

Transportation poses an issue for the farmers, especially given their distance from many urban restaurants that have the most demand for this type of product, as well as processing, since most restaurants aren’t set up to deal with a whole, or even half, animal. “One chef said that he knew that what they wanted was all the benefits of taste and quality, but that they wanted it through the old infrastructure, where a truck backs up to the back of the restaurant and provides it all at once,” says DeVore.

The Land Stewardship Project is investigating a cooperative program that might help address some of the transportation, processing and delivery issues, but there are many farmers who take those matters into their own hands quite successfully. Pat Ebnet of Wild Acres in Pequot Lakes, Minn. is one example. Ristorante Luci and Luci Ancora head chef and co-owner Steven Smith has featured Ebnet’s organic chicken on the menu for years now, as well as duck, pheasant and other items for specials, and Ebnet, or one of his merry band of purveyors, does deliver right to the back door.

In addition to featuring locally raised meats on the menu, Smith brought in Kobe beef from Oregon, and overall he’s found that sourcing those meats—from grass-fed natural to free-range organic—is far easier than it was even ten years ago. “When I first started this, we were buying lamb from a farmer, and we were buying whole lamb. It was tough to deal with and we were changing the menu a lot to use what we were getting. Today, you can find anything.”

One caveat was a long-time attempt to communicate the benefits of grass-fed beef, a leaner product that gets prepared differently, and tastes much different, than it’s traditional steak counterparts. “People definitely understand the whole idea of natural and organic meats more than they used to,” says Smith. “But around here, when it comes to beef in particular, flavor is king.”