Meet the Organisations Forging New Connections Between Chefs and Farmers

What are collaborative purchasing models? 

Collaborative purchasing models are designed to facilitate connections between restaurants and food producers. This can look different depending on the organisation and the location but, overall, they aim to increase transparency and to make it easier to source quality ingredients from small-scale farmers, fishers and producers. This benefits chefs and restaurants by providing easy access to local ingredients that are often difficult to source through conventional channels, while also supporting small-scale agriculture and keeping money in local economies.  

Why do we need collaborative purchasing models? 

Provenance is one trend that seems only to grow more relevant by the year. For both ethical and nutritional reasons, people want to know where their food comes from and how it was grown, caught, farmed or produced. Storytelling remains a valuable way to showcase and sell dishes.  

However, as supply chains have grown longer and more complicated, it can be challenging to find easy ways of sourcing directly and maintaining personal connections with producers — especially for businesses located in urban environments. Over time, this has led to a disconnection, with both chefs and customers feeling removed from the origins of their food. 

“This growing disconnect between food production and consumption is driven largely by global food markets, industrialisation and the side-lining of small-scale agriculture — not just for consumers, but also for people who work with food, like chefs, butchers and bakers,” says Friederike Gaedke, Executive Director at Die Gemeinschaft, Germany. “What stands behind what we eat has become less visible, pushed to the margins by price pressure, commodification and the dominance of large businesses.” 

This lack of visibility does nobody any favours. “When we are ignorant, we are susceptible,” says Sam Best, Co-Founder at Shrub in the UK. “When our food is produced behind a curtain, farmers can be abused, underpaid and enslaved, soils exploited and our rivers strangled, with impunity. Shrub — and many other organisations like us — are the antidote to these malign systems. Transparency and fair distribution systems keep everyone accountable and decent.” 

Bridging the gap 

Across the world, dedicated organisations are springing up to solve this problem, acting as a valuable bridge between restaurants and farms. By decentralising sourcing, shortening supply chains, increasing transparency and encouraging small-scale agriculture and diversity in what’s grown, these models are also building resilience into our food systems. 

Let’s explore some of these organisations and how they operate. 

DIE GEMEINSCHAFT (GERMANY) 

Founded in 2017 by restaurants Nobelhart & Schmutzig and Horváth, Die Gemeinschaft (German for “the community”) is a non-profit network of farmers, artisanal food producers, activists, chefs and restaurateurs who are aware of their shared responsibility on the plate. 

“At Die Gemeinschaft, creating direct connections between food professionals is one of the central goals of our work,” says Friederike Gaedke, Executive Director. “For us, a better food system means one in which we celebrate real food produced in a regenerative way, pay fair prices, use resources responsibly, value craftship, collaborate in a mindful manner, share knowledge, create better working environments and support young professionals.” 

The goal is to create real change across Germany’s food sector. “Change doesn’t happen in silos,” says Friederike. “A truly sustainable and equitable food system can only emerge when all actors — farmers, food producers, chefs, educators, consumers, policymakers — recognise their role and responsibility. Agriculture is at the heart of many of the most pressing challenges we face, from climate change to biodiversity loss to social inequality, but we must all recognise that it is not just the responsibility of farmers. It is about all actors recognising and finding their roles. It’s about systems thinking.” 

Many of these organisations — Die Gemeinschaft included — play a big role in knowledge sharing. “We bridge the gap between farmers and chefs, reconnecting people along the value chain, helping them understand their position in the food system and empowering them to become active agents of change,” says Friederike. This includes organising farm visits for hospitality staff to get out of the city and into the field, as well as an educational programme for young professionals that deep-dives into all things food system transformation. 

“We give kitchen professionals the chance to witness the complexity, skills and care behind farming and artisan practices first-hand — where learning comes not from textbooks but from real people, doing real work,” she continues. “By highlighting best practices and giving farmers and producers the stage, we help preserve traditional knowledge and position their work as both valuable and future-oriented. When people understand how their daily choices connect to broader change, they are more likely to take initiative. It brings visibility to food production and builds a culture of appreciation, action and shared responsibility.” 

SHRUB (UK) 

In the UK, Shrub operates as a distributor, collecting produce from multiple small-scale, environmentally-responsible farms and delivering it to restaurants in a way that’s transparent and fair for everyone involved. “Restaurants and chefs are seeking as close to ‘farm gate sales’ as they can get, and that’s what we provide,” says Co-Founder Sam Best. “For new emerging market gardens that aren’t at large scales, there is no easy route to market outside of veg box schemes and farmers markets — nor do conventional systems typically want to work with artisanal producers. At Shrub, we look to remedy every bottle-neck that is in the way of a chef being able to have access to this high-quality produce.” 

Operating this way shortens supply chains and reduces overall transport emissions. It helps to decentralise sourcing, moving away from conventional big suppliers to build strong, localised networks of smaller, regional producers. It also allows restaurants to team up to buy in bulk, invest in shared storage and negotiate fair terms with farmers. 

“People are rediscovering what real, quality food looks and tastes like, and it’s fuelling demand for more. Farmers have rediscovered a more direct route to market where they get a fairer price, have their product collected, and are dignified in their work,” says Sam. 

GARUM (ITALY) 

Marco Morello is the Founder of Garum, the Metropolitan Union Restaurant Purchasing Group, a project in Rome that aims to open a direct channel between small producers on public land and restaurateurs in the capital. “In general, the majority of restaurants in big cities like Rome do not hold a direct dialogue with farmers and producers, although awareness about farmers, products and local supply chains is increasing,” he says. “The result is that large-scale retailers have the upper hand and can dictate prices, quantities and quality of products, and farmers can only adapt to that for the smallest of economic revenue. This also has an impact on the environment: because their priority is selling to the main channels, farmers produce more and waste more, paying no attention to the planet.” 

Garum is seeking to change that. By connecting farms with each other as well as with hospitality businesses, the Group allows them to share distribution costs, sell all of their produce and — by removing the middleman — earn better margins. “Meanwhile, restaurants see superior qualitative consistency and variety and can be inspired by the seasonality and availability of produce,” says Marco. “There's also huge added value for restaurants who are operating in a city but can still tell a story of working directly with local farms.” 

PRODUCE (PUERTO RICO) 

In Puerto Rico, PRoduce is an app-based ordering platform that buys produce from farmers — even in tiny volumes — and distributes it to restaurants and retail across the island. This means even small farmers in remote areas of the island can sell their harvest, and also makes it financially feasible for farmers to grow native varieties of fruit and vegetables. 

An example is Finca Vilella, a small agroecological farm that was struggling to scale its production of a local heirloom tomato variety, gajilete, without compromising its business sustainability. “By partnering with PRoduce, the farm entered into a forward purchasing agreement, and we could deliver consistently to several committed chefs,” says Crystal Díaz, Co-Founder of PRoduce.

Today, Finca Vilella produces between 800 and 1,000 pounds of te gajilete tomatoes per week, and they’re featured on the menus of all Cincosentidos restaurants. In situations like this, everyone wins: the farm benefits from a predictable cash flow and the confidence to expand operations responsibly, while chefs gain consistent access to high-quality, fresh, local produce. “This kind of mutual value creation isn’t possible in conventional supply chains, where farmers are often treated as interchangeable and restaurants lack visibility into growing conditions or seasonality,” she adds. 

Through collaborative planning, PRoduce enables farms to forecast demand, reduce overproduction and secure a reliable market for their harvest — a stark contrast to the unpredictability of conventional distribution systems. Supporting a diverse range of crops through their purchasing model provides small-scale farmers with economic stability and long-term viability. “By aggregating demand across multiple restaurants and consumers, and streamlining distribution through our food hub, we help small-scale, environmentally responsible farms reach more buyers without incurring unsustainable logistics costs,” says Crystal.  

For restaurants, the most significant impact is reliable access to high-quality, ethically sourced produce, with complete transparency into where, how and by whom their food is grown. “Our digital marketplace — soon to be complemented by a physical store — allows chefs to make real-time decisions based on actual availability,” says Crystal. “Chefs can plan truly seasonal menus, reduce waste and strengthen their sustainability commitments.” 

Sourcing spotlight: Supporting Puerto Rico’s farmers 

Chef Josiah Hernandez, Chef-Owner of Chef’s Garden in Puerto Rico, shares a chef’s perspective, explaining how this way of sourcing benefits both his restaurant and the local food system. “We’ve noticed a huge disconnect between restaurants and farmers,” says Josiah. “One of the big questions that we ask in our restaurant is, what is the end goal for this supply chain? Does it honour and celebrate the ingredients that grow sustainably in our local region and nurture the health of customers in flavourful ways — or does it incentivise highly processed, calorie-dense and nutrient-poor food with high accessibility and affordability? Unfortunately, the latter is what usually prevails, and this is extremely problematic for farmers.” 

He notes that customers have been led to expect a surfeit of choice, regardless of season or location. “For the last few decades, the industry has made it a standard to provide endless options. Restaurants are expected to have tuna and avocado toast on the menu, quinoa is transported thousands of kilometres year-round — and it all has to be cheap! This has led to disastrous conditions for farmers. Just because your menu has endless options, it doesn’t necessarily translate to happier customers. Decision paralysis is a real thing. 

“One big step towards a more sustainable supply chain is to create better relationships between farmers and restaurants. We have identified seven farmers within 40 kilometres of us who use agroecological practices. We have meetings every few months and visit their farms; we even do tasting menu events for them at no charge, where we use their ingredients to showcase the fruits of their labour.  

“We tell the farmers what we are interested in serving, which guides their growing cycles, and they share with us what they can grow best, which helps us design our menus. What I love about these open dialogues is that, as chefs, we gain a better understanding of the agriculture growing cycles, as well as the effort it takes to grow these foods. 

“One of our initiatives has been to encourage farmers to cultivate ancestral, almost-lost ingredients. Often, farmers won’t grow these ingredients because they’re not in high demand and they can’t produce them year-round. We have created an informal group of 15 chefs and restaurant owners who are committed to buying and serving these ancestral ingredients. This incentivises the farmers to grow more of these crops and allows us to negotiate prices that work for everyone.” 

A good example is a native tuber called lerén. “This is a special plant to us in Puerto Rico, since it is the first plant to be domesticated by our Indigenous Tainos, 7,000 years ago,” says Josiah. “Today, there are only a few farmers growing it and it has almost been lost, but this is part of our Caribbean identity and our culinary culture in Puerto Rico — we have to protect it. For the last two years, we have been working with our group of committed chefs to buy 100% of the harvest of lerén from these farmers, exhibiting it on our plates in restaurants throughout the island.” 

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Lead image courtesy of Shrub.