Crains New York - May 27, 2013 - (Page 26)

SOURCE Bringing home the lettuce LUNCH: ALEXANDER SAINT-AMAND Continued from Page 25 High standards If Foragers can’t procure fish or certain fruits locally, the partners make sure their suppliers meet Foragers’ good-for-the-environment and anti-cruelty standards. Ms. Castellani, for example, discovered that her staff at the Chelsea location had been buying net-caught tuna to use in a prepared salad. She immediately yanked it from the store. “I’m not always here for every delivery,” she explained, “but we certainly don’t sell unsustainable fish here.” The offending tuna cost about 30% less than the line-caught, smaller American variety that Foragers sells in its sister location in Brooklyn. But pricing is beside the point at Foragers. With some commodities, like dried goods, Foragers’ pricing is competitive with Fairway Market, said Ms. Castellani. “On meat and fish, I don’t want to compete,” she added. The stores’ shelves are stocked with brands most New Yorkers have never heard of, like bread maker Berkshire Mountain Bakery and dessert-focused S’more Bakery. While Ms. Castellani eschews buzzwords like “locavore,” “farmto-table” and “slow food,” Foragers is the textbook definition of those overused terms. “We are really just about being anti-commodity, anti-processed food, and sometimes that costs more,” she said, adding that some customers complained about the tuna salad after the price went up to $12 a pound. It’s a complaint Foragers is neither afraid of nor one that seems to richard beaven Columbia County. The couple founded the business eight years ago in Dumbo, along with a partner, Clifford Shikler, who was the general manager at a small eatery business that Ms. Castellani, 42, owned previously. Foragers may have been a little ahead of its time in 2005, but now it is part of a much larger movement propelled not only by chefs and retailers, but also by consumers who want to buy food from local sources and businesses that offer sustainable products. AGRI-BUSINESS: Foragers co-owner Anna Castellani and her husband, Richard Lamb, who tends to the couple’s upstate farm. be hurting it. Foragers generated $10 million in revenue last year, when the partners invested about $1 million to open the Foragers in Chelsea. The grocer is helping to fulfill a large-scale need in this region, connecting upstate farms to the city. In the process, it’s blazing a trail that its owners hope others will follow. Mr. Lamb, who tends to the couple’s farm full-time, employs a Foragers has been a godsend for some small businesses driver who transports beef, lamb, pork, eggs, produce and baked goods into the city twice a week. The driver logs at least 1,000 miles a week picking up goods from about 20 businesses upstate, including the couple’s own farm. The van not only supplies Foragers’ two markets and 35-seat restaurant in Chelsea, it also drops GREEN OPERATION FORAGERS ISN’T THE ONLY DISTRIBUTOR bringing locally grown food to the city. GrowNYC, which runs the city’s 53 greenmarkets, last year launched Greenmarket Co., a wholesale distribution initiative that supplies restaurants, grocers and several charitable organizations. The program has far surpassed the organization’s financial goals and now needs a larger facility than its Long Island City, Queens, warehouse, where it shares space with City Harvest’s distribution center. “There was a point when we had to scale back our operation, because we couldn’t keep up with the demand,” said Marcel Van Ooyen, executive director of GrowNYC. Greenmarket Co. pulled in $15,000 in sales a week during the height of the growing season—or twice as much as it had projected. Foragers just started to use Greenmarket Co. for some of its own produce needs. —LISA FICKENSCHER 26 | Crain’s New York Business | May 27, 2013 off meat at some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the city on behalf of a handful of sustainable purveyors. The Spotted Pig, Gramercy Tavern, Daniel and the Meat Hook in Brooklyn rely on Mr. Lamb’s refrigerated MercedesBenz Sprinter van for some of their local meats. The restaurant accounts cover the van’s expenses, including its loan payments, maintenance and the driver’s salary, said Mr. Lamb. “There are very few people running to the city, coming from the country,” said Ms. Castellani. “It’s not easy to get your product here if you’re a farmer, so we fill a need.” For Mr. Lamb, working with nearby farmers makes his job more interesting. “Cultivating these relationships is so satisfying, to pay the people directly who supply your food and know that they are helping you and you are helping them build their business,” said Mr. Lamb, 45. Foragers has been a godsend for small businesses like Bonfiglio & Bread in Hudson, N.Y., a bakery that makes hearty European-style loaves. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Mr. Lamb’s driver picks up dozens of loaves from the bakery, delivering them to Foragers— Bonfiglio’s only client in the city. “If the opportunity presented itself, we’d love to supply other retailers in the city,” said Gabrielle Gulielmetti, co-owner of the bakery. Doing it the hard way Similarly, Foragers picks up washed and packaged baby lettuces from Obercreek Farm in Hughesville, N.Y. Obercreek coowner Tim Wildfong met the couple a few years ago at a farming conference. Starting in June, when the growing season hits its stride, Obercreek will supply Foragers— its only city-based client—with about 120 packaged lettuces a week. “It’s incredibly difficult to do what Foragers is doing to curate these products from local farms,” said Mr. Wildfong. “It would be so easy for them to make a phone call to one of the big produce suppliers and have their order arrive on their doorstep the next day. Our product is affected by local weather conditions.” But the couple is committed to their business model and would like to open more stores in Manhattan. Married for 17 years, they left successful careers in the movie industry to get into the food business. They met on the set of a Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt movie, where Mr. Lamb was the scenic artist and Ms. Castellani was a camera assistant. “When we opened the business,” she said, “I wanted a store that I would shop in,something that looks like someone thought for me.” Ⅲ by Aaron Elstein Where the experts go for expert advice A lexander Saint-Amand business? is chief executive of People perceive the greatest risk is Gerson Lehrman that some expert will disclose someGroup Inc., a New thing he or she shouldn’t. We have York-based firm whose developed extensive compliance and 900 employees specialize in helping audit procedures. In fact, compliance Wall Street pros make better invest- is a business opportunity for us. ment decisions by connecting them with researchers willing to share their The compliance may be immaculate, but insights. GLG is believed to be the the flesh is weak, right? The difficulty you largest player in the expert-network have is someone will make a mistake and industry, which is estimated to gen- divulge more than he should or mean to. erate $300 million in annual revenue. How does compliance help with that? But sometimes experts share pri- Any time someone engages a convate information that clients aren’t sultant, there’s a risk something bad supposed to use to make investment could happen. The question is, does decisions. For example, after a Uni- GLG enhance or decrease that risk? versity of Michigan neurology pro- I firmly believe we decrease it. If you fessor came to regard a hedge-fund want to do something bad, I would manager whom he met via GLG as a argue this is the worst place to do it. friend and pupil, the professor allegedly passed along confidential in- Has your business been hurt by insidertrading cases? formation about the reThe business continues to sults of a clinical trial for a grow over the past few drug to treat Alzheimer’s years. Our business outdisease. The professor, side of Wall Street is growwho was paid about ing faster than the one in$1,000 an hour for his LE BATEAU IVRE side it. consultations, has agreed 230 E. 51st St. (212) 583-0579 to testify against the fund www.lebateauivre Do you worry that you’re being manager, who last year was nyc.com watched by prosecutors? charged with insider tradWe assume the business is ing after betting against AMBIENCE: Classic Parisian under appropriate and regthe stocks of the compabistro à vins ular scrutiny. nies developing the drug. WHAT THEY ATE: Mr. Saint-Amand’s firm Ⅲ Tomato and So if I’m in drug development hasn’t been charged. WHERE THEY DINED How did you get involved in your corner of Wall Street? mozzarella salad, grilled salmon and vegetables Ⅲ Asparagus soup, blood pudding Ⅲ One glass of Burgundy TOTAL: $95.66, including tip at Pfizer, for example, and I’m getting paid to talk to your clients, does Pfizer know? The company started in 1998 as a publisher specializing in technical books. But no one wanted to read them; they just wanted to talk to the people who wrote them. The market at the time was looking for alternatives to traditional Wall Street research, which was seen as conflicted,and we picked up a few private investment firms as clients. Now we have 1,200 clients and work with investment firms, major strategic consultancies, life-science companies and law firms. And we help companies find board members. In general, yes, but not always specifically. The example you’re giving describes the minority of our cases. Most of our consultants are academics or maybe the CEO themselves. We send letters by the thousands to companies like Pfizer and let them know about GLG and ask their permission for outside consulting. What do you charge for your matchmaking service? Sounds stressful. How do you cope? It starts at $30,000 for a small client and into the millions for a large one. I’d say the median rate is in the hundreds of thousands. What is the greatest risk facing your So companies must grant permission before their people can talk? They have the opportunity to block their people from participating. You start with the joy of learning and the joy of teaching. Everyone needs to learn more and become better connected. If you believe you can affect that, it’s really exciting. Only if you start there can you accept the fact that there is risk. Ⅲ INSIDE TIP: Don’t ask Mr. Saint-Amand if he wants an espresso. Too much caffeine makes him break out in hives. http://www.lebateauivrenyc.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - May 27, 2013

In the Boroughs
In the Markets
Small Business
The Insider
Business People
Opinion
Alair Townsend
Greg David
Steve Hindy
Report: Largest Companies
The List
Classifieds
For the Record
Real Estate Deals
New York, New York
Source Lunch
Out and About
Snaps

Crains New York - May 27, 2013