Dear Owners:
Dear local food and beverage professionals,
Because your work can be a shining example to the rest of us, I'd like to tell more people about it — what you do, who does it and why it’s important, beyond your great food and drink and service.
Alot of customers care about that. Stonington Fresh is all about our regional food cycles and communities. Our supplier region includes our close neighbors in Southern Rhode Island, land farms to our north and west, sea farms on our coast and the Atlantic Ocean as far as Stonington-based boats will travel, and area breweries, vineyards and distillers. Our growing restaurant/retail and bar network is more local, centered on Stonington and including Westerly, Groton and N. Stonington.
How do restaurants and retailers support regional food cycles?
Lots of ways.
Buying produce, catch and harvest from regional farms and fishers.
Trying out underutilized species.
Diverting food waste to composting facilities.
Participating in the CORR oyster recycling program
Using eco-friendly cleaning supplies
Lowering energy/water usage
Hosting events to benefit local food equity programs and food cycle education.
Hosting events supporting Stonington Human Services and related initiatives.
Participating in Stonington Fresh promotional events.
And anything else you consider proactive! Do your customers care? The article 12 Sustainability Practices in Restaurants That Diners Love from restaurantGrowth.com has a good take on that question.
About Stonington Fresh
The website is an offshoot of my work with Stonington's SustainableCT program and our Economic Development Commission. It is privately managed and funded and does not charge for promoting our farmers, fishers, retailers, restaurateurs, vintners, brewers, distillers or other food professionals. It is growing slowly and once there is a sufficient number of operations on board ("members") and the readership reaches 3,000 subscribers (currently 2,120) a tiered sponsorship model will be offered to institutional community supporters.
How it works
StoningtonFresh.com presently offers its members an Events calendar, a Stories/News section, a Food Leaders page and individual profiles of land and sea farms and boats. Calendar items usually come directly from members' online posts, are branded accordingly and include the members' links to their online ticket or reservation platforms. Story items are either permitted and branded reprints from third party media, submitted by members or friends, or reported/written in-house. Food Leaders acknowledges those operations who make major commitments to our regional food cycles. See the event and story submission guidelines for more info.
Where it's going
If you're not yet on Stonington Fresh and think you should be, becoming a member is easy! Just email me:
Thanks for doing all you do,
Thomas