Sustainability at Burgerville starts with community. We all have a stake in the future, and all of us collectively can do a lot more good than any one of us. That’s why we’ve created this space to share our sustainable journey, invite your ideas and participation, and learn out loud together as we go.
Please join in the conversation.
It’s hard not to walk around in continual amazement at how much is being done on the sustainability front here at Burgerville. Many of the exciting projects I am seeing and hearing about are works-in-progress, so stay tuned, but here is one example I can share now:
Last week I sat in on a meeting with the processor of our blackberries. The local processor we work with is now owned by a larger company, and this meeting was about establishing our relationship with the parent company.
Here’s how part of the conversation went:
Burgerville: In order to get the best blackberry flavor, our farmers will pick several harvests of Marionberries for us, at the peak of ripeness. This means we can’t predict exactly when those harvests will be, because berries are ripe when they’re ripe. Our request to you is that treat the farmer as your “customer,” and give them your absolute best customer service. Be responsive to their schedule, and to any needs they have.
Processor: Treat the farmer as the customer? That’s 180 degrees from the normal industry behavior, where usually the farmer is the one who gets the short end of every stick.
Burgerville: Yes, at the…
CommentsBurgerville buys all our beef from Country Natural Beef. Each of the 120+ family-owned member ranches is independently certified by Food Alliance to meet stringent standards for environmental stewardship, animal welfare, and working conditions. Read about the certification criteria herehttp://foodalliance.org/certification .
The ranchers gather twice a year to discuss business. This month, while in Portland for such a meeting, ranchers visited with Burgerville guests and staff in each of our 39 restaurants, deepening relationships and sharing the story of their beef and their ranches. The ranchers also hosted a special event in downtown Portland, open to the public, called a “Country Food Fair.”
At the Fair, after doing some square dancing, I bought myself a burger and shake from the Burgerville Nomad (all revenue from the evening was donated to theOregon Food Bank and went looking for a place to sit. I saw a friend sitting on a hay bale, so I went to say hello. As it turned out, my friend was talking to Country Natural Beef co-founder Doc Hatfield.
When I joined the conversation, they were discussing Doc’s efforts to restore sage grouse habitat on his ranch. My friend Joe Walicki – who was the very first full-time paid “environmentalist” in Oregon, when he was…
CommentsTwice a year, the ranching families of the Country Natural Beef cooperative all come together, sit in one big circle, and do business by consensus. (It’s the purest example of democracy-in-action I’ve ever experienced!) This past January, at their winter meeting, I sat down for breakfast and conversation with co-op co-founder, Doc Hatfield. Doc reflected on the past, present and future of Country Natural Beef, and shared the importance of “the circle” in his own words. It was a conversation I’ll never forget.
This week, Country Natural Beef is hosting a special meeting here in Portland that will feature a public Country Food Fair in Director Park. Doc Hatfield will be in attendance, sharing stories and making direct connections with urban eaters. In honor of the Hatfields and all the ranching families of Country Natural Beef coming to “the big city,” here’s the transcript of my January 6th breakfast with Doc Hatfield:
Alison: Doc, what is your favorite time of year on your ranch?
Doc: It would be October because it wraps up the year and the weather is usually really nice, with crisp, clear, bright, sunny days and big calves and the aspens turning. The feel and sound of an aspen grove in the fall, you just can’t… there’s nothing like it.
Alison: What…
Comments
Changing the way business is done, berry by berry 
Director Park Chat with Doc Hatfield 