Since that first dinner back in 2010, our goal has been to organically connect restaurants and chefs with local, family farmers. Each participating restaurant is partnered with a local farm, using that farm’s ingredients for their featured dish at the festival. We provide each chef with an ingredient stipend to cover costs, which directly supports their partner farm.
At our core, our mission is to bring our local community together in efforts to create a strong, local food ecosystem. We aim to create connections before, during and after the festival that in turn will strengthen our local food economy. The festival has provided both chefs and farmers a platform to form cohesive partnerships with each other that can be leveraged well beyond the festival. And it works: many of our participating chefs come back to their partner farms to source locally grown ingredients for their restaurant menus.
We hope the relationships fostered each year will continue strengthen our local food economy now and in the future. In addition to fostering these connections, each CFF event benefits a variety of non-profit organizations to empower our local communities.
