Made with Love, from Seed to Table

One of Raintree’s foundational commitments is to serve lovingly cooked meals, from lovingly grown ingredients. This entails building relationships with local farmers, bakers, and other vendors. Our oldest partner in this work is Eat Here St. Louis, a food broker that connects local produce to St. Louis chefs. Farming is hard work, and the additional skills needed- marketing, delivery, customer service, and so much more, can put a lot of strain on a small farmer. Likewise, the work of ordering, receiving, and coordinating with multiple farmers is daunting work for a busy chef. Eat Here St. Louis serves as a bridge, purchasing directly from small farms and offering one consolidated list of products for chefs to order from. This arrangement provides a predictable, stable market for farmers and a convenient reliable source of local food for commercial kitchens. Raintree receives its Eat Here order every Friday afternoon, lining up next week’s menu with fresh produce, grains, cheese, and meat, all within 175 miles of St. Louis. They are not our only local food source, but they are our oldest relationship. A few great farms that we connect with frequently through Eat Here St. Louis are Buttonwood Farms, PrairiErth Farms, Windcrest Dairy, Funks Grove, McKaskle Family Farm, and Janie’s Mill.

-Chef Katie