As the local food movement burgeons in Dane County, synergy has taken hold in a really good way. Creative and entrepreneurial advances seem to elicit even more enterprise. A new, locally sourced frozen dinner debuting Friday at Metcalfe's supermarket is Exhibit A in this connectivity. Let's count the connections.
Master pasta maker Peter Robertson, who's been selling his fresh RP's Pasta for 14 years and operating the Fork & Spoon Cafe for two years, is going into the frozen-meal business.
He's collaborating with Mark Olson of Renaissance Farm in Spring Green, the pesto-maker and herb-infused olive oil mainstay of the Saturday Hence the catch-phrase for marketing the frozen meals: "locally sourced ingredients, locally crafted meals." Renaissance Farm's include lemon basil pesto ravioli with roasted garlic cream sauce, stuffed sweet bell peppers, butternut squash ravioli with cream sauce, and stuffed Wisconsin acorn squash with feta. Madison chef Joel Girard prepared the recipes. RP Pasta's offerings feature macaroni and cheese, four-cheese tortellini with basil and tomato sauce with carrots, and four-cheese ravioli with roasted garlic Alfredo with carrots.
The frozen dinners are now being rolled out in the freezer cases at Williamson Street Grocery and various supermarkets. The official unveiling is Friday, November 7 at a Metcalfe's open house.
"Every part of this project feeds itself back into the region," notes Olson.
Metcalfe's has gone heavily into local and organic food as a way to distinguish itself in the highly competitive grocery business, according to president Tim Metcalfe. Almost 200 different local products, from cheese to bread to beef to wine to produce to beer now line its modernistic aisles.
Easing the logistics of handling so many small vendors (big box supermarkets, in contrast, rely on a centralized warehouse and only the biggest suppliers), Metcalfe has tapped into the , the regional-development group that has identified "artisanal, organic and local foods" as a key sector for future growth in the area economy, is helping Green Leaf founder Heather Hilleren launch the online market, just as it's helping midwife RP Pasta's and Renaissance Farm's entry into the frozen food market.
Greg Lawless, of the UW Extension, is staffing Thrive's push for local farming. I heard him, for example, brief the Wikipedia has a listing.)
But for all its history, Metcalfe's is rooted in the present and poised for the future. Tim Metcalfe see sustainability and local food as his store's calling card. "It all comes down to how you want to compete in the marketplace," he says. "This is what we think our customers expect from us."
