Farm-to-Table: When the food on your plate comes straight from the farm

Local foods can be sustainable for so many reasons: you’re supporting the local economy, getting fresh food, and having a better carbon footprint because of the shorter distances. However, do you know how much healthier it really is to shop locally?

In fact, researchers have found that under adverse conditions, the delicate vitamins in your fruits and vegetables can lose up to 100 percent of their potency. They react quite differently to various factors, according to the type of vitamin. For example, vitamin A, D and E are sensitive towards oxygen and light, whereas the heat tends to leave them “cold”.

Heat, on the other hand, damages most of the B vitamins. Particularly sensitive is vitamin C. This is because it is both water-soluble and heat labile, and sensitive to both light and air. Therefore, it is used an indicator: When vitamin C loses little, the same usually applies to all other vitamins and minerals.

Different foods degrade vitamin C differently. For example, when you store spinach at room temperature, you lose 79 percent of the vitamin C in two days and all the vitamin C in four days.

All the better, therefore, when food comes straight from the fields to your plate fresh, as the chefs of our partners agree. The ADLER Lodge RITTEN started a great project concerning this matter this year (insert link). In fact, they can even imagine adding animal husbandry to their 4,000-square-meter garden in the future.

Grow as much as possible yourself

Furthermore, the CERVO Mountain Resort in Zermatt would like to expand its range of home-grown food. Herbs have been cultivated there for many years, but starting from this year, you will have the opportunity for the first time to freshly pick your herbs to use in your tea. Last year, fruit bushes were added to the offer—as a test to see what plants really grow at these altitudes and in the alpine climate.

The long-term plan of the hotel is to put mostly home-grown food items at the breakfast tables: All the fruit used for jams and dried fruit will come from their cultivation—as well as nuts and honey. This summer, the first six bee colonies will move into the hotel.

The CERVO sources its meat from a regional Natura-Beef farmer and always buys whole animals here according to the nose-to-tail principle. Thus, they know—and therefore also you—precisely what happens to the cattle and have a complete influence on how the animal is carved, kept and aged during the slaughter process.

Berghotel Rehlegg in the Allgäu region does things similarly. “We believe that in the case of ‘cheap’ food, in the end everyone is paying for it. Humans and animals as well as the environment,” is the attitude at the Bavarian hotel.

Whatever the kitchen team processes is almost entirely sourced locally, and often directly from the neighboring farm. Meat served at the Rehlegg is from a neighboring farmer who cooperates with the Berghotel. The fish is sourced from the mountain lakes of the Berchtesgadener Land, and the game comes from the Berchtesgaden National Park. The Black Alpine Pig, threatened with extinction, is raised by the partner farmer.

It does not get more regional than this

Even though the Biohotel Sturm is not a farm, a part of the garden is considered agricultural land. Hotel owner Matthias Schulze Dieckhoff counts himself among the farmers of the area as well. The herbs and snack garden proudly measures, 3500 square meters and is cultivated completely organically. The advantage of this is that you can use the garden multifunctional. Not only does it offer you a large recreational area in the midst of greenery (snacks included 😊​)—various foodstuffs can also be used directly from the garden in the kitchen.

Naturally, this involves more manpower. It requires a full-time gardener and a more significant amount of time and staff in the kitchen to process the fresh food. The host family Schulze-Dieckhoff however does not regard this as a disadvantage. This way you get first-class quality food. And perhaps you even will find the one or other flower on your plate, which you have discovered before in the garden during the walk.

Although the Naturhotel Aufatmen in Leutasch only has a small garden of its own, they do work in close cooperation with several farms in the area. For instance, they source most of their organic vegetables at a farm just ten minutes away from the Austrian hotel. “They harvest twice a week, so we always get the produce delivered right after the harvest,” says owner Wolfgang Pfeiffer.

And one of the biggest advantages here? When extra herbs or flowers need to be used, chef Justine can always drop by the farm and fresh harvests will be made. Should the farm’s stock not be sufficient, there’s a slightly larger farm about 40 kilometers away that supplements the harvest.

Herb gardens are feasible almost everywhere

Moving further east in Austria, guests will find the Naturhotel Outside. There is also an own herb garden here, which provides a good base for the kitchen. Bread and jams are also homemade in Matrei in East Tyrol. The meat is supplied from the Mühlstätter butcher’s shop in Matrei. Milk, vegetables and fruits are from the region and are of organic quality.

Outside of Europe, of course, those principles work as well—in Thailand, for example. Keemala on Phuket is especially committed to the Toward Zero Food Waste program. Foods are sourced locally, with Keemala’s “Enchanted Garden” providing herbs, vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms that supply about 50% of its own seasonal kitchen needs. Local fishermen deliver sustainably caught seafood straight from Phuket’s coast. In addition, free-range duck eggs: and from the animals that live on the property, which you can watch every day.

The Thai Villa Wonderland Garden was recently expanded. It now features even more native vegetables known for their immune-boosting properties, such as malidjo leaves and green chireta.

Waste food is composted on site and returned to the soil as organic fertilizer—a perfect cycle!