The Impact of Terroir in the Genesee Valley

For the past fourteen years, the Terroir Symposium has brought together the top hospitality and tourism industry professionals from around the world to connect, learn, and collaborate. This year’s symposium featured talks on trends in the current food landscape, regenerative farming, community collaborations, and more. While the Culinary Tourism Alliance usually hosts Terroir in Toronto, this year due to the coronavirus pandemic the symposium went entirely virtual. With funding from the municipalities of Geneseo, Mount Morris, and Perry, and a grant from the USDA, Letchworth Gateway Villages (LGV) was able to provide tickets to the symposium for twenty people involved in the local food scene, from chefs to farmers to economic development agencies.

“Terroir is, very literally, a sense of place: the characteristics inherent to a place that give its agricultural products a unique flavor, such as climate, soil, and ways of farming.”

Jacquie Billings of the Hole in the Wall Restaurant & Lounge and Ration Wine Bar, Gabrielle Vogel of the Hole in the Wall, Jill Gould of Butter Meat Co., Jeremy Clark of Hopp’d and Brew’d Sauce Co., and Nicole Manapol of Letchworth Gateway Villages at the 2019 Terroir Symposium.

The inspiration for this symposium comes from the French concept of terroir, the environmental, geographically-specific factors that give a crop its distinct taste, an idea that winemakers originally developed to describe wine from different areas. Terroir is, very literally, a sense of place: the characteristics inherent to a place that give its agricultural products a unique flavor, such as climate, soil, and ways of farming. Because each location has its own terroir, some savvy business owners have started promoting terroir tourism, appealing to food and beverage lovers who want a tourism experience they can’t get anywhere else. As the Culinary Tourism Alliance determined in their white paper for LGV (“The Role of Food Tourism in the Development of Rural Destinations”), tourists in this day and age are looking for authenticity when they travel, and terroir is as authentic as it gets. Importantly, too, terroir tourism is a sustainable and lasting source of income for rural areas: “From an economic development standpoint focusing on our assets that can't be found anywhere else... means that we are future-proofing our economy. Terroir cannot be outsourced to another community or country,” says Nicole Manapol, director of LGV.

“Tourists in this day and age are looking for authenticity when they travel, and terroir is as authentic as it gets.”

Display of fresh tomatoes and maple syrup products at the Perry Farmers’ Market.

The coronavirus pandemic has only strengthened the urgency to focus on the local. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Canada, spoke at the Terroir Symposium about how his office has given 65-70 interviews a week due to people’s anxiety about what food supply chains will look like post-COVID. Dr. Charlebois was clear: the distribution and economics of food will change and food producers should create their own rules in order to succeed. For example, the lab expects online food sales to triple this year. While meat plants around the country have become coronavirus hot spots, the Genesee Valley has seen a surge of interest in eating locally. Two Facebook groups, Livingston County Menus and Find Your Farmer Western NY, emerged at the beginning of the pandemic and now have a combined 14,000 members. “The pandemic, I think, has brought us closer as a community and has highlighted the importance of our local agriculture and food industry and why it is so important for us to invest in local businesses and supply chains,” Manapol explains. “Instead of braving crowded supermarkets or purchasing meat from large-scale processing plants that put workers' lives at risk, consumers in the Genesee Valley were lucky to be able to turn to small businesses and local producers to secure food during the pandemic. This gave us all a new appreciation for our agriculturally rich region and the ability to know our farmers and the origins of our food.”

“The distribution and economics of food will change and food producers should create their own rules in order to succeed.”

Salad of local lettuce, pears, candied squash, and pumpkin seeds made by Chef Sean Wolf for Letchworth Gateway Villages’ Food Tourism Forum in October of 2019.

Over and over, the Terroir Symposium showed how building a local and sustainable food movement, while expensive upfront, is possible in rural communities and worthwhile, both economically and socially, in the long run. Chefs can play an important role in advocating for these values and bringing about change. The Chefs’ Manifesto, for example, brought together 100+ chefs from around the world to create a framework for addressing the food issues that matter the most to them, from investment in livelihoods to protection of biodiversity. Sean Wolf, former head chef at Farmer’s Creekside Tavern & Inn in LeRoy and the Big Tree Inn in Geneseo, said the Terroir discussion of the Chefs’ Manifesto “really made me feel excited to get back to work on waste initiatives and ways we can work towards these sustainability goals on a nano-level in our community.” Likewise, Melanie Alvarez of the Borikén Restaurant in Mount Morris, came away from Terroir feeling more inspired to “support local businesses as much as possible and create healthy partnerships” while interpreting Puerto Rican cuisine for her upstate New York clientbase. When chefs buy from local farmers, not only are they helping to support the farmers financially, but they are also telling the story of their heritage and region, strengthening the ties within their community and making their area more attractive to tourists as a place where they can have authentic food-based experiences. This approach, Manapol argues, “can bring real wealth, equity and overall wellbeing to communities like ours.”

“Building a local and sustainable food movement, while expensive upfront, is possible in rural communities and worthwhile, both economically and socially, in the long run.”

“You can’t build community alone.” Aman Dosanj of the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia reiterated this point multiple times in her talk “Collaboration in Culinary Tourism,” but this statement indisputably describes the message of the Terroir Symposium as a whole. Every business, every farm, every municipality is important to conserve and showcase the terroir of the Genesee Valley. “I wasn’t expecting the Terroir Symposium & Terroir Talks to weave together food, interpretation, preservation, and sustainability as they did,” says Sandy Schneible, president of littleHive and member of the LGV advisory committee. “Beyond the inspiration and information offered by the presenters, I found the multi-faceted nature of the symposium to be a compelling expression of why cross-sector collaboration matters and why there’s never been a more important time to invest in local businesses and supply chains.” 

Women in Food: Melanie Alvarez Santiago of the Borikén Restaurant

For the month of March, Letchworth Gateway Villages is featuring profiles of women working in all aspects of the food industry in the Genesee Valley. While women make up almost half of the national workforce, only 22% of head chefs in the country were women in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The job of chef had the second highest gender pay gap of any profession in the country, with a gap of 24.6%. The restaurant industry is notoriously demanding, typically lacking predictable schedules, benefits, human resource departments, and maternity leave. The Genesee Valley is lucky to have a number of fantastic restaurants run by women throughout the region. Today LGV is featuring Melanie Alvarez Santiago, chef-owner of the Borikén Restaurant in Mount Morris.

Melanie Alvarez Santiago cooking at the Borikén Restaurant in Mount Morris.

Melanie Alvarez Santiago knew she wanted to work with food from a young age: she loved the creativity it inspired and the effect it had on people. Living in Puerto Rico, she graduated from high school a year early and enrolled in Escuela Hotelera of San Juan, where she got a culinary diploma. She worked in three restaurants and at a wholesale company before deciding to start her own business. Alvarez Santiago and her husband started running a food truck, Almuerzos by Nanay, in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and were so successful that they recouped all their costs in their first year of business. When the Puerto Rican economy took a downturn, Alvarez Santiago and her family packed up and moved to Livingston County.

Mofongo at the Borikén Restaurant; one of Alvarez Santiago’s favorite dishes.

While working as a production manager at the Walmart in Geneseo, Alvarez Santiago learned about the Livingston County Dream-O-Vate Competition, which aimed to increase the county’s downtown retail occupancy. Livingston County has great American and European restaurants, but Alvarez Santiago recognized that a Caribbean-style Hispanic restaurant would add to the existing diversity of the region, appeal to many people in the community, and help the area become more attractive to visitors. After winning Dream-O-Vate, she created the Borikén Restaurant as a place for people to come together with their family and friends and bond over food. Borikén opened its doors in November and has quickly become a local favorite. Alvarez Santiago suggests guests try chinchorro de PR, a variety of small plates meant to be shared with friends; carne de res guisada, beef stewed with tomato sauce, carrots, and sofrito; and mofongo, mashed plantain stuffed with chicken, pork, skirt steak, shrimp, or sautéed veggies.

The unity of the business community in the region is Alvarez Santiago’s favorite part of having a restaurant in the Genesee Valley, sharing that “all the advice and good wishes that were given to me when I opened my doors filled me with support and good energies...The reality is that we all help each other, we all impact the experience of those who decide to visit us and that way we all benefit.” For Women’s History Month, she hopes that other women looking to open their own businesses know that they can achieve anything, stressing that “women have the ability to adapt to difficult situations.” In the restaurant field “where hard work never stops,” Alvarez Santiago acknowledges that women face different challenges than men do and thinks there should be more conscientious provisions for sick leave to make the industry accessible to all and to help retain talent. Borikén, a woman- and immigrant-owned business, allows guests to explore the diversity of the Genesee Valley alongside delicious food and a welcoming atmosphere. Visit the Borikén Restaurant at 40 Main St, Mt. Morris, Wednesdays through Sundays.

Leaders in Sustainable Agriculture

Local, free range, plant-based: walk into any grocery store, and it’s clear that sustainability is having a moment. More and more consumers are demanding transparency around the origins of their food, wanting to know how their food was made and under what conditions. While there are clear environmental components of sustainable agriculture -- increasing biodiversity, minimizing pollution, preserving nutrients in soil, to name a few -- many experts also include economic and social health in their definitions of sustainability. An action that bankrupts the farmer is not sustainable; an action that fails to meet a community’s needs is not sustainable. In the Genesee Valley, where dairy farms are struggling due to low milk prices, trade disputes, and climate change, the farming community has been at the forefront of developing sustainable solutions that not only aim to secure the futures of their farms but also the sustainability of their communities. 

Noblehurst Farms

Noblehurst Farms.

Noblehurst Farms in Linwood has long been a leader in sustainability in the region, building their first anaerobic digester in 2001 and even being featured on the EPA website for their work. This first digester turned manure from dairy cows into biogas and eventually electricity, reducing the farm’s energy costs and diminishing the smell of manure. In 2013, Noblehurst built a second, bigger digester so that they could also turn food waste into biogas. This digester produces more electricity for the farm and diverts 500 tons of organic waste from landfills per month. It also provides an additional revenue source for the farm, with organizations from Wegmans to RIT upcycling their non-donatable food scraps via the digester, making the digester economically viable.

This second digester created so much electricity that Noblehurst decided to expand their operation and create Craig’s Creamery, a joint venture between eight upstate New York dairy farms that produces a variety of cheeses under the company’s label. Craig’s Creamery is run entirely on renewable energy from the digester. According to Chris Noble of Noblehurst Farms, choosing to spearhead Craig’s Creamery just made sense: “With a rise in consumer interest in locally grown foods and sustainability we thought the time was right to begin telling our story by using our milk to create our own dairy-based products and brand… [We are] an area with a rich heritage of producing high quality foods, but for many years we just simply sold our food as a commodity to be put into other brands and products.” Noblehurst’s collaborative approach is helping to ensure the community as a whole is sustainable from both an economic and environmental perspective.

Mulligan Farm

Forrest Watson at Mulligan Farm.

One of the farms in the Craig’s Creamery partnership, Mulligan Farm in Avon, has committed to sustainability by ensuring that their land remains farmland for generations to come. 640 acres and nine buildings on the land are now historical landmarks, while 1,200 acres are protected under a conservation easement. Forrest Watson, whose family owns Mulligan Farm, has committed to no-till farming. Soil tilling is one of the largest contributors of soil erosion and degradation, and the earth is currently losing about 23 billion tons of fertile soil per year. No-till farming was standard before the Agricultural Revolution in Europe but fell out of fashion as plows became more common. By not tilling the soil, Watson can reduce soil erosion, increase organic soil matter through the use of cover crops, and prevent his machines from sinking into the soil so much during planting, harvesting, and fertilizing. The untilled land is less dense and compacted than tilled land would be, so soil can infiltrate rainwater much more quickly, promoting efficient irrigation and decreasing pollution runoff into nearby waterways. Through his no-till practice, Watson is leaving his family farm in better shape for future generations.

Butter Meat Co.

Jill Gould in the Butter Meat Co. store on Perry’s Main Street.

On Perry’s Main Street, Jill Gould has opened Butter Meat Co., a shop selling beef from retired organic dairy cows from Har-Go Farms, which has been in her husband Stephen’s family for generations. A graduate of Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a former produce sourcer for WalMart and supply chain manager for Blue Apron, Gould learned that meat from organic dairy cows was being sold in conventional markets, mixed in with feedlot beef. Knowing the work that went in to raising Har-Go’s organic cows, cows free of hormones and pesticides, Gould disliked seeing their meat sold for low prices to conglomerates operating hundreds of miles away. By processing the cows in a certified organic facility and selling the beef to local consumers, Butter Meat Co. provides an additional revenue stream for dairy farmers in the Genesee Valley and offers a high-quality organic product to customers. While a beef cow, usually slaughtered at around two years old, provides about 600 pounds of meat, a dairy cow, processed between the ages of five and seven, can produce 80,000 pounds of food, including milk, butter, and cream in addition to meat. Gould hopes to expand the business and include cows from other western New York dairy farms in the future.

The Future Generation of Sustainable Farmers in the Genesee Valley

Megan Burley at her family’s farm, Burley Berries & Blooms.

In 2019, the Perry school system created a position for an agriculture instructor, the first such position in the school for 28 years, and hired Megan Burley, the owner of Burley Berries & Blooms, for the position. Burley teaches seventh and eighth graders topics ranging from vertical integration to how to process chickens. The Perry school recently won a grant from the New York State Farm-to-School Program, a project attempting “to strengthen local agriculture, improve student health, and promote regional food systems awareness.” If the school cafeteria sources 30% of their food purchases from New York farms, the state reimbursement increases to $.30 a meal, up from the usual $.06 a meal. According to Burley, “The NYS Farm-to-School project, I think, is a great way to encourage sustainable farming.  Schools provide a constant market for farmers’ product, thus making them economically viable. Economic viability creates a healthy farm community. The classroom component gives us the ability to talk about the ecology found on farms and what we can do to minimize waste.” Even Burley’s students who do not end up farmers, then, will still understand where their food comes from as consumers and have awareness of sustainable farming techniques.

Farmers in the Genesee Valley, whether by inventing new technology or resurrecting old techniques, are leading the charge in sustainable practices and are paving the way for the next generation of farmers to continue the effort.