Good Things Grow
Ninth Line just outside of Cookstown, Ont., heaves and sighs with the terrain all the way to David Cohl-meyer’s farm. On a damp morning in early October, a few employees inside the Cookstown Greens workhouse plunge their hands into deep sinks, scrubbing golden beets, while others bundle purple carrots. A dry-erase board lists items ordered by Scot Woods, chef and co-owner of Toronto’s Lucien. He’s only one of Cohlmeyer’s 30-plus clients, including many other Toronto-area establishments such as Cowbell and Canoe, and the King Edward and Four Seasons hotels.
Twenty years ago when he turned over the topsoil, planted organic and heirloom seeds and launched a crusade to foster direct relationships between farmers and chefs, Cohlmeyer’s business was almost revolutionary, says renowned Toronto chef and restaurateur Jamie Kennedy, who has supported Cookstown since its inception.
“I tried to get farmers working more with chefs for years,” says Cohlmeyer. “They’d all be interested, but they never seemed to follow through.” But three years ago in the U.S., however, Cohlmeyer says that started to shift. Then in January of this year, the Canadian craze for local food really took off, as chefs (and consumers) began to appreciate the importance of a sustainable food system. Today, chefs actively seek out farmers, asking them to grow organic and heirloom products. They’re emphasizing food origins on their menus, demanding better flavour and they’re willing to pay, whether it’s $50 for a flat of Cookstown’s heirloom tomatoes, $12 for two pounds of its baby fennel bulbs or $22 for 50 grams of peacock kale.
Cohlmeyer’s products may sell themselves, but Kennedy says he nailed a crucial business element. “The thing he got right off the bat was consistency and reliability,” he says, important factors because chefs can’t build menus around ingredients available one day but not the next.
“That’s the big problem with a lot of organic or very small growers,” Cohlmeyer says. “They don’t understand the necessity of reliability for restaurants and hotels. They need [the order] on the day and hour promised. I was a chef so I understand that.”
Since 1993, Cookstown’s annual sales have grown from around $350,000 to close to $1 million. Does this mean Cookstown is just coming into its own? “Could be,” Cohlmeyer muses. “Maybe I’m just too far ahead of the curve.” In this eco-conscious era there are worse things to be known as than a forerunner of Canada’s sustainable farming community.
Cohlmeyer wasn’t born into agricultural life, though his previous professional incarnations all played a part in getting him where he is today. Trained as an industrial engineer and having worked as a systems analyst and business consultant, he learned how to write a sound business plan. As the chef and owner of a 40-seat restaurant in Toronto called Beggars Banquet, he gained intimate insight into what would become his target market. But it was while covering food and agriculture for The Globe and Mail that he was inspired to start Cookstown Greens.
In 1987 Cohlmeyer travelled to San Francisco to do a story on three women chefs who had recently published cookbooks. Alice Waters, renowned champion of local and sustainable food and founder of Chez Panisse in Berkley, was one of them. “Alice said, ‘you should go and meet some of our growers.’” Then she set up the interviews and encouraged him to attend an upcoming eco-farm conference in Monterrey, Calif. Cohlmeyer decided to go — a simple detour that changed the course of his future.
Cohlmeyer credits Waters as planting the Cookstown seed, but names Sinclair Philip, co-owner of Sooke Harbour House restaurant and lodging on Vancouver Island, B.C., as its fertilizer. Philip wasn’t a farmer but he pioneered the idea of serving local and organic food in his restaurant. When Cohlmeyer told Philip his vision of starting an organic farm to fill a void in the supply chain, Philip encouraged him to do it. Over the next few months they talked for hours on the phone. “Sinclair was very helpful in the beginning...he gave me ideas, sources for seeds, growing techniques.” Not a grower himself, he couldn’t answer everything, but, “He knew who would know what I needed to know.”
When Cookstown Greens started out in 1988, it sat on four acres. Slowly, it expanded to 48. Pointing to a distant line of trees, where leaves blaze against a horizon of black earth, Cohlmeyer indicates where the property now ends. Just a few months ago he bought 48 more acres, but the extra space will be used to facilitate eco-friendlier farming, and not just for increasing production. He can put fields through a four-year rotation instead of two (each will be allowed to grow clover for two years, and will then be planted with a cover crop such as hairy vetch and rye for one year before being used to grow vegetables again). This process is vital for healthy soil and for keeping weeds down. “Weeds are our biggest cost.”
Walking between rows of sugar loaf, endive and chard, Cohlmeyer talks about the early days, when he was more hands on. “I used to think working in a kitchen was the most difficult job in the world, and my wife thought so too,” he says, chuckling. In the past, around 100 people a year applied to Cookstown, but over the last 10 years the numbers dropped. “Factories started moving in, and Walmart. They pay $12 an hour and I just can’t pay that much.” Three years ago he began hiring migrant workers from Mexico, who stay for six months at a time and are “wonderful,” and a year and a half ago he hired a retired local to do deliveries. Now he gets up a little later, “with the sun,” and focuses on “new products, financial plans, buying land, zoning — making it all work.”
Cohlmeyer says he’s getting better at his work, but there’s a new challenge looming — climate change. Fifteen years ago while in Philadelphia a farmer said to him, “You guys are so lucky you can grow lettuce all year round.” Since then he’s been watching that “no-grow zone” move north to southern Ontario, where some growers can’t plant lettuce anymore because it’s too hot. “I don’t know that it’s really hit us yet, but I see [global warming] coming and I think we better learn how to deal with it. People put [a variety of lettuce] on the menu and they don’t want to be told it’s too hot in July.” Cohlmeyer now has four greenhouses, which he uses to grow delicate greens and seedlings in the winter, but eventually he might need them for protection in summers, too.
There’s another big ongoing issue for farmers — Canadian food prices. “We’re in an impossible situation with food being dumped from California,” he says. People would rather buy cheap, tasteless food imported from the U.S., than pay more to support farmers producing locally. Ultimately, quality suffers. “The farmers don’t have the wherewithal to experiment, so they stick with what they know,” he says. “The price we pay is a lack of selection.” Cohlmeyer pauses, digs bare hands into the soil and pulls out a few black potatoes. They’re a variety used in French Michelin-starred restaurants, he explains. A little further on he points out patches of punterella, cardoon, and purple brussel sprouts.
Heading back to the Cookstown workhouse for a tour of the root cellar, Cohlmeyer mentions a few growers he shares trade tips with, including Anthony John of Soiled Reputation in Sebringville, Ont., whom he helped get started. “It gives me somebody to talk to. It can get quite lonesome out here,” he says softly. He continues to network with chefs too, and is pleased with the direction things are moving. “I have way more support than I ever dreamed of.” Still, there’s a long way to go. Media and government have a role, but chefs have to meet farmers more than half way, he says. That means supporting all the small growers just starting up, too. “Buy [local farmers’ produce], even if you don’t need it, buy it anyway.” His message isn’t just to chefs. “The support really needs to come from the restaurateurs. They have to see it as an opportunity.”